Rooted in Afro-centric principles, the course explores the foundations of Black Pedagogies and examines the ingenious ways enslaved Africans and their progeny tapped into their sacred cosmologies, wisdom and memories, and devised emancipatory strategies of learning and passing on information during the period of enslavement and its aftermath. Through the enactment of violent slave codes and anti-literacy legislation, enslaved Africans were prohibited to read and/or write in the language of the enslaver-colonizer. Moreover, they were not allowed to freely access or openly express an education that reflected their dynamic history or heritage, which was later enforced by discriminatory Jim Crow and colonial laws. In this way, the course dismantles the intended-ills and history of Western Eurocentric curricula, religious instruction, and media. It unearths and underscores Black pedagogical tools, intellectualism, institutions, and creative expressions as redemptive, remedial, and inclusive pathways for diversifying and humanizing the education curriculum. We will peruse the wide breadth of languages and cultural modes of knowledge production and transmission that emerged during the harrowing passages of the trans-Atlantic trade of captured Africans and their subsequent enslavement and oppression in the Americas. Central themes and areas of study include: the praxis of love, sacred science, oral and literary traditions, memory, storytelling, nature and communal engagement, community, quilt-making, food-ways, dress, art and artifacts, religion, ritual, trauma, resilience, black talk/black text, interjections, body language/gesticulations, theatre, music, dance, genealogy, ancestral reverence, graveyards, schools, and other sites of knowledge creation, expression, and preservation. The course will be aided by a wealth of lively and interactive lectures, discussions, documentaries, literature, works of art, oral tradition and first-hand testimonies.

This course focuses on African American Women's history in the United States with certain aspects of black women's activism and leadership covered within the African Diaspora. The course is intended explore the ways in which these women engaged in local, national, and international freedom struggles while simultaneously defining their identities as wives, mothers, leaders, citizens, and workers. The course will pay special attention to the diversity of black women’s experiences and to the dominant images of black women in America from Mumbet (the first enslaved black woman to sue for her freedom and win) to contemporary issues of race, sex, and class in the Age of Obama. We will explore such questions as: What is black Women’s History? How does black women’s history add to our understanding of American history? Where should black women’s history go from here?

This course will study art made by African Americans from early colonial America to the present. We will also examine images of African Americans by artists of diverse cultural backgrounds. Throughout the course we will analyze construction(s) of subjectivity of African-American identity (black, Negro, colored) as it relates to visual worlds. Although the course is outlined chronologically, the readings and class discussions will revolve around specific themes each week. The course is interdisciplinary, incorporating a variety of social and historical issues, media, and disciplines, including music, film, and literary sources.

This course will examine the history of black cinema through the lens of American slavery. The institution of slavery has had a profound impact on the United States and Atlantic World. Yet, it has not always been the easiest topic for public discussion. Outside of the classroom much of what we know, or think about American slavery derives often from popular media—particularly through film and television. Classics like Gone with the Wind, the television miniseries Roots, and even lesser known films such as Langston Hughes’ (screenwriter) Way Down South have done much to shape our perspective regarding how we remember and understand the slave system, the enslaved, its participants and politics. This course poses the following question: Can Hollywood do the work of historians?

In 2015 a global movement began at the University of Cape Town to decolonize education, research, and tackle institutional racism in academia. This course gives students an introductory engagement of decolonial research practices. Decolonizing research and knowledge means to center the concerns and perspectives of non-Western individuals on theory and research. Thus, this course will be a process of “unlearning” social and scientific standards that we have taken as universal, resisting coloniality in academic production of knowledge, and moving research into action. This course will broadly discuss research methods and praxis in social sciences and in public health/medicine.

This course serves as the introductory offering in Africana Studies. It explores, in an interdisciplinary fashion, salient aspects of the Black experience, both ancient and modern, and at the local, national and international levels. This course provides an overview of many related themes, including slavery, Africanisms, gender, colonialism, civil rights, and pan-African exchange.

The Black woman writer's efforts to shape images of herself as Black, as women, and as an artist. The problem of literary authority for the Black woman writer, criteria for a Black woman's literary tradition, and the relation of Black feminism or "womanism" to the articulation of a distinctively Black and female literary aesthetic.

This course offers an introduction to contemporary African politics. The primary goal is to introduce students to the diversity of challenges and development issues facing African countries since independence. Questions motivating the course include: (1) Why state institutions weaker in African than in other developing regions? (2) What explains Africa's slow economic growth? (3) What can be done to improve political accountability on the continent? (4) Why have some African countries been plagued by high levels of political violence while others have not? 

In answering these questions, we will examine Africa’s historical experiences, its economic heritage, and the international context in which it is embedded.  At the same time, we will explore how Africans have responded to unique circumstances to shape their own political and economic situations.  

As we address the core themes of the course, we will draw on a wide range of academic disciplines, including political science, history, economics and anthropology. We will study particular events in particular African countries, but we will also examine broad patterns across countries and use social science concepts and methods to try to explain them. 

As an introduction to the arts and architecture of Africa, this course explores the meaning and the contexts of production within a variety of religious and political systems found throughout the continent, from Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Mali, to name a few. We will consider important topics such as the ancient art outside the Nile Valley sphere, symbols of the power of royalty, and the aesthetic and spiritual differences in masquerade traditions. We will pay special attention to traditional visual representations in relation to contemporary African artists and art institutions.

With readings, documentary films, discussions, and lectures, this course will examine the complex spiritual beliefs and expressions of peoples of African descent in Brazil, Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, and North America. The course surveys African diasporic religions such as Candomble, Santeria, Voodoo, Shango, and African American religions. Attention will be paid to how diasporic Africans practice religion for self-definition, community building, and sociocultural critique, and for reshaping the religious and cultural landscapes of the Americas.

This course offers an introduction to contemporary African politics. The primary goal is to introduce students to the diversity of challenges and development issues facing African countries since independence. Questions motivating the course include: (1) Why state institutions weaker in African than in other developing regions? (2) What explains Africa's slow economic growth? (3) What can be done to improve political accountability on the continent? (4) Why have some African countries been plagued by high levels of political violence while others have not? 

In answering these questions, we will examine Africa’s historical experiences, its economic heritage, and the international context in which it is embedded.  At the same time, we will explore how Africans have responded to unique circumstances to shape their own political and economic situations.  

As we address the core themes of the course, we will draw on a wide range of academic disciplines, including political science, history, economics and anthropology. We will study particular events in particular African countries, but we will also examine broad patterns across countries and use social science concepts and methods to try to explain them. 

This course is conducted in English and will introduce students to the cultures of the Portuguese-speaking world through selected films, music and readings. In this interdisciplinary course, we will explore how filmmakers, musicians and writers respond to social and political changes in Angola, Brazil, Cabo Verde, Mozambique and Portugal. Topics covered include colonialism; postcolonialism; wars of independence in Africa; Brazil’s military dictatorship; Portugal´s New State dictatorship; evolving national identities; and representations of trauma and memory. Readings are in English and films have subtitles.