Approved List of African Diaspora Courses

AFRAM 101 Introduction to African American Studies (5) I&S
History, culture, religion, institutions, politics, economics, arts, and psychology of peoples of African descent as developed from experience in both the old and new worlds. Multidisciplinary analysis of social life from a Black perspective as illustrated in selected historical and contemporary writings.

AFRAM 150 - Introduction to African-American History (5) I&S
Introductory survey of topics and problems in Afro-American history with some attention to Africa as well as to America . Basic introductory course for sequence of lecture courses and seminars in Afro-American history. Offered: jointly with HSTAA 150.

AFRAM 340 Harlem Renaissance: A Literary Study (5) VLPA
Highlights Harlem Renaissance -- 1912 through mid-1930s -- as establishing a role for twentieth-century African-American writer, encompassing literature, politics, and decolonization of the image of Africa, and solidifying integrationist and nationalist schools of thought. Examines images, themes, and characterizations in creating a literary aesthetic simultaneously American and African-American.

ANTH 423 - Traffic Across Cultural Boundaries (5) I&S
Focuses on the movement of cultural patterns and processes across boundaries, examining the "contact zones" in colonial encounters, moving to borrowing and blendings along ethnic and national borders. Examines border crossing of immigration and diasporas. Ethnographic examples from the Americas and Africa . Prerequisite: one 200-level ANTH course. 

ART H 230  The African-American Tradition: A Transatlantic View of Art and Culture (5) I&S/VLPA  Assesses the diversity of art by individuals of African descent in Brazil , the Caribbean, and the United States . Examines questions of form meaning, and symbolic and ritual behavior. Considers formal and conceptual relationships between art forms and their African sources; assesses their role in the construction of new African-American identities. 

ENGL 358  Literature of Black Americans (5) VLPA
Selected writings, novels, short stories, plays, poems by Afro-American writers. Study of the historical and cultural context within which they evolved. Differences between Afro-American writers and writers of the European-American tradition. Emphasis varies. Offered: jointly with AFRAM 358. 

HIST 260 Slavery in History: A Comparative Study (5) I&S
Slavery as a universal historical phenomenon lending itself to a comparative analysis is studied in terms of its philosophical justifications, economic importance, and local practices. The following historical periods are surveyed: the ancient Near East, Greece , Rome , Islam, Africa, Latin America, and North America.

HSTAA 150  Introduction to African-American History (5) I&S
Introductory survey of topics and problems in Afro-American history with some attention to Africa as well as to America . Provides some general knowledge and serves as a basic introductory course for a sequence of lecture courses and seminars in Afro-American history. Offered: jointly with AFRAM 150.

HSTAA 313 African Americans in the American West (5) I&S
Explores pre-1848 Spanish-speaking black settlers, slavery, post-civil war migration, buffalo soldiers. 19th and 20th century black urban settlers, World War II migration, the civil rights movement in the West, the interaction of African Americans with other people of color. Particular focus on Seattle and the Pacific Northwest .

HSTAA 321 Becoming Black Americans (5) I&S  
History of Africans in America from slave trade through the Civil War, with emphasis on how gender informed African-American experience. Topics include slave trade, middle passage, life in plantation south, culture, family structure and resistance, and the experience of free blacks, North and South.

HSTAA 322 African-American History, 1865 To The Present (5) I&S
African-American experience from Reconstruction to the present, emphasizing the variety of African-American political expression. Gender and class differences closely examined, as well as such constructs as "community," "race," and "blackness."

MUSIC 319  Afro-American Music (5) I&S/VLPA
Centers on Black music in the United States , but also clarifies the relationship of this music to the musics of other Afro-American cultures as well as to their African roots. 

MUSIC 331 History of Jazz (5) VLPA
Extensive overview of important musicians, composers, arrangers, and stylistic periods of jazz history from emergence of the first jazz bands at the turn of the 20th century through post-modern bebop era of the 1990s.

SIS 438 Forced Migrations (5) I&S
Provides an interdisciplinary understanding of the causes, characteristics, and consequences of forced migration experiences across the global system. Explores how international policy makers, humanitarian workers, and scholars have constructed forced migration as a problem for analysis and action, including some of the ethical dilemmas involved. Recommended: SIS 325 or SIS 344.

SOC WF 495 : Empowerment Practice with Refugees and Immigrants
Practice course that examines the processes that characterize the transitions of displaced women, children, youth, and families within their country of origin and in resettlement in the United States , and strengths-based and empowerment approaches to social work interventions. Case examples draw from East African immigrant and refugee experiences; with opportunities for course projects linked with local East African service providers.

SOC/AES 462 SOC 462 Comparative Race and Ethnic Relations (5) I&S
Race and ethnicity as factors of social differentiation in a number of Western and non-Western societies in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Offered: jointly with AES 462.