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.

Prerequisite: limited or no previous knowledge of Swahili.

Develops skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing, and awareness of the cultural diversity of the Swahili-speaking areas of East Africa. Readings drawn from a range of literary and journalistic materials. Prerequisite: SWAH 1020

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.

This course will focus on recent African arrivals to the United States, exploring the history of Africans who voluntarily entered the country. We will examine the lives of Africans who came to the US in the late 19th, 20th, and 21st century as students, visitors, missionaries, & temporary residents, as well as the reasons for African migration, settlement patterns and adjustment issues, and immigrant relationships with Americans, black and white.

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.

In this course, we will trace the history of reggae music and explore its influence on the development of Jamaican literature. With readings on Jamaican history, we will consider why so many reggae songs speak about Jah and quote from the Bible. Then, we will explore how Marcus Garvey's teachings led to the rise of Rastafarianism, which in turn seeded ideas of black pride and black humanity into what would become reggae music.

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.