African-American and African Studies

This introductory course surveys the histories of people of African descent in Africa, the Americas, and the Caribbean from approximately the Middle Ages to the 1880s. Emphases include the Atlantic slave trade and its complex relationship to Africa; the economic systems, cultures, and communities of Africans and African-Americans in the New World, in slavery and in freedom; the rise of anti-slavery movements; and the socio-economic systems that replaced slavery in the late 19th century.

This course is a survey of literary texts in English by contemporary African writers. Students will read a variety of texts including novels, short stories, poetry, film and songs and critically analyze the cultural and aesthetics of the literary landscape. Particular attention will be on how authors engage themes such as identity, patriarchy, gender, class, and politics in post-colonial structures.

Students will be introduced to the evidence and debates surrounding the claims that racialized and poor communities disproportionately shoulder society's environmental burdens. Through a variety of analytical and contextual lenses, we examine fundamental environmental problems faced by individuals and communities of color and the policies and initiatives designed to address them.

Lower-level topics course: reading, class discussion, and written assignments on a special topic in African-American and African Studies Topics change from term to term, and vary with the instructor.

This course introduces African American literature through the cultural, historical, and imaginative landscapes of the Black South. We will read canonical texts alongside film and media to trace stories of resistance, survival, and creativity across generations. Each class begins with music (blues, spirituals, hip hop) foregrounding sonic traditions that shape Black Southern expression. Together, we will encounter profound visions of freedom.

The course introduces students to the history of the US over the 20th century through a focus on popular music. We will emphasize the social and cultural contexts for popular music, including Jim Crow segregation in the South, the Cold War, urbanization, the popular music industry, radio, television and other mass communications media, labor and class relations, the modern civil rights movement, the 1960s youth counterculture and its legacy, feminism and gay liberation movements.

Which performances of Blackness do we find acceptable, and which do we scorn? How have Black Americans worked to assert their value in a media climate that seemingly relies on dichotomies of exceptionalism and deficiency? We will examine how African American culture, history, and experiences--"Blackness"--are presented in popular media. We will focus on representations of Blackness as offered up by Black people and how, intra-racially, concepts of racial uplift and good Black citizenship.

The horror genre provides daring, unflinching lessons. It is a syllabus of our social, political, and racial world. Black horror, in particular, has established itself as a primer on the quest for social justice. What can such a boundary-pushing genre teach us about paths to solidarity and democracy? What can we learn about disrupting racism, misogyny, and anti-Blackness?

This course examines the plantation as both a historical site and persistent structure of power. We will study the plantation¿s afterlives in literature, history, and media, asking how writers and creatives grappled with its meanings across time. Here, at UVA, where enslaved labor built and sustained the institution, the study of the plantation is not abstract--it is local and lived.

This course is dedicated to examining government responses to environmental injustice. Our readings and discussions will use an interdisciplinary social-science perspective to track the trajectory of environmental justice activism and official responses to it in the five states (DE, MD, PA, VA, WVA) the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has designated as comprising the important but understudied mid-Atlantic region.

Reading, class discussion, and written assignments on a special topic in African-American and African Studies. Topics change from term to term, and vary with the instructor.

This course explores themes and issues in the lives of women in Africa. These include women in early African history, culture, and the role of gender in Africa, encounter with Islam and the West, womens search for autonomy, etc. Emphasis is placed, as much as is possible, on the perspectives of women, how they view their history and their ongoing struggle for self-determination.

This course examines the history of housing and real estate and explores its role in shaping the meaning and lived experience of race in modern America. We will learn how and why real estate ownership, investment, and development came to play a critical role in the formation and endurance of racial segregation, modern capitalism, and the built environment.

Students in the Distinguished Majors Program should enroll in this course for their first semester of thesis research.

Reading, class discussion, and research on a special topic in African-American and African Studies culminating in the composition of a research paper. Topics change from term to term, and vary with the instructor. Primarily for fourth-year students but open to others.

Allows students to work on an individual research project. Students must propose a topic to an appropriate faculty member, submit a written proposal for approval, prepare an extensive annotated bibliography on relevant readings comparable to the reading list of a regular upper-level course, and complete a research paper of at least 20 pages.

This is a supervised research course without formal classroom instruction.