Africana Studies (AFST)

An exploration of significant questions and integrative concepts in Africana Studies, their grounding in the process of scientific discovery and application, and their broader relevance to society. Designed for first-year students. Although topics vary, the courses also seek to improve students’ communication skills beyond the written word.

An exploration of a specific topic in Africana Studies. A grade of C- or better fulfills the COLL 150 requirement. Although topics vary, the courses emphasize academic writing skills, reading and analysis of texts, and discussion.

An introduction to the diverse field of critical inquiry called Africana Studies through explorations of the links and disjunctures in the experiences, histories, and cultural, political, and intellectual practices of Africans and African descendants throughout Africa’s diasporas. Students may take only one of AFST 205, AFST 100 or 150 when using Intro to Africana Studies toward the major or minor in Africana Studies.

The course examines the nature of inequalities in the health professions and the communities they serve in order to explore routes to freedom and equality for those who have been voiceless and often under-represented in the medical professions. It also seeks to augment the creativity and the reflective capacity of students who may be exploring such careers and to improve their abilities to become reflective and resilient practitioners by engaging stories from the experiences of Asian/American and African/American peoples. It is for inquiring minds seeking solutions to health problems that plague our diverse and varied communities. We will further explore pathways for literary scholars, storytellers, activists, helpers and healers to address these issues through science, technology, engineering, mathematics and the arts in the spirit of “authentic excellence.”

The primary goal of this course is to explore scholarly research and cultural materials dealing with Caribbean identity. We will survey,examine, and discuss issues that bear on Caribbean identities including topics in contemporary language use and policy, literature, music, and other forms of popular media (television, radio, newspapers, etc.) to illustrate how various islands in the Caribbean identify and distinguish themselves from others. The course will focus on theory-based and research oriented information as well as critical essays and popular media that will provide you with knowledge to havean intelligent and informed discussion about issues dealing with Caribbean identities.

This course explores the history, structure, and sociocultural aspects of language development in the Caribbean. This course explores the history, structure, and sociocultural aspects of language development in the Caribbean.

This course will examine a range of texts from Africa’s dramatic literature. Texts originally written in English or translated from other languages will be studied. Selected plays will be carefully audited to demonstrate how they reflect the condition of African people at various historical periods. As Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o observes in his book Decolonizing the Mind, it is the life of a people rather than a theatre building that constitutes the principal driving force of drama. In what ways have the subject matter and dramatic devices of the selected plays sought to illuminate African life or dramatize local experiences that are of cosmic significance? This will be an ongoing question of interest as we attempt to comprehend how the plays also situate African drama in the broader postcolonial context. Theoretical and critical writings will be read alongside dramatic texts.

This course offers an introduction to the methods and methodologies that scholars in Africana Studies use to create knowledge about the African diaspora. Instead of focusing on “what we know,” this class asks students to think seriously about the issue of “how we know.” We cover the qualitative techniques and theoretical perspectives that many academics use in order to conduct research in Africana Studies. Africana Studies is an interdisciplinary discipline, thus, in order to accurately represent the techniques of the field we must cover interdisciplinary research methods and methodologies. The course does not provide a traditional chronological survey of a topic or focus primarily on one geographic area. Instead, the selected readings either describe or model a specific method or methodology. By the end of the semester, each student will create an original research prospectus. 

This course surveys the history of Pan-Africanism, a global political movement that considers Africans and diasporic blacks to have a common history, present and future, often proclaiming an objective of African political, socio-economic and cultural self-determination and asserting a fierce pride in African history and culture.

Reviews the dispersions of peoples from the African continent since ancient times. Major themes include the Atlantic Slave Trade, the post-emancipation fight for full citizenship in the Americas, and interactions between diasporic blacks and Africans.

Approved courses focusing on relevant topics in Africana Studies, including those offered by allied Departments and Programs. The list of eligible, mostly cross-listed, courses is available at the University Registrar’s website each semester prior to preregistration.

An arts-oriented workshop that will vary depending on the specialization of the professor(s) currently teaching the course. With faculty supervision, students will create and present individual Africana- related projects.

Africa was richer than Asia until the 1970s, but faltered subsequently. We seek credible explanations using economic theory and the available evidence. We will address a number of issues comparatively including the role of geography, demography, historical legacies, the global environment, and domestic economic governance to understand the diversity of economic performance within Africa itself.

This goal of this course is to introduce students to the concept of the Caribbean Diaspora (the Caribbean as it exists beyond its geographic limits) and its rich linguistic and literary traditions. We will examine scholarly material that deals with themes of displacement while finding home. We will first survey Caribbean history and its place within a Diasporic framework to gain a deeper understanding of the Caribbean experience and global migration patterns as people find a home away from home in reconstituted Caribbean communities elsewhere. Along the way, we will look at linguistic styles and structure in the Caribbean and abroad. In addition, we will explore literary and linguistic expression of 20th century Caribbeans living abroad such as Edwidge Danticat (Haiti), Julia Alverez (Dominican Republic), Paule Marshall (Barbados), and Nalo Hopkinson (Jamaica).

A multidisciplinary study of religious complexity, change and interaction in selected African and African Diaspora societies. Religions studied will include indigenous African traditions, African Islams, and African Christianities.

This course is a multidisciplinary study of women’s organizations and collective agency in a range of African, African-American and African Diasporic settings.  It seeks to understand women’s collective actions, often described as "wars," "riots," and "strikes," in the context of their own histories and societies.

A study the multiple arts of Africa: two and three dimensional visual art, music, verbal arts, performance, and multiple media. Issues explored include the artist and community, creativity and tradition, art and religion, art and politics, and museums and display.

This course offers an introduction to the history of Hip-Hop culture and to Hip-Hop Studies as an academic field.

This seminar is an introduction to areas, issues, and disciplinary approaches in the study of Africa and African peoples. Its objectives are to stimulate interest in the continent, create awareness of its diversity and complexity, to acquaint students with a range of African histories, economies, institutions, aesthetics and systems of thought, and to teach students to work interdisciplinarily.

This course thematically explores the multifaceted discipline of African American Studies. It considers the historical and political origins and objectives of what was originally Black Studies within the context of 1960s Black Liberation struggles and earlier efforts by Africans and their descendants to transform the United States’s educational landscape. Alongside those early academic and sociopolitical concerns, the course also investigates theoretical and critical approaches to African American Studies and the discipline’s​ objectives in relation to present discourses on diversity and the “post-racial.”

Exploration of how Black writers have imagined a cultural relationship to nature through poetry, fiction, non-fiction, visual and performance arts. Within these various artistic contexts, students will study the intersections of nature and culture in a variety of landscapes—wilderness or the “wild,” pastoral/antipastoral, urban and suburban—while also considering some of the themes and debates in the field of ecocriticism. “Black” is used here as a term more globally inclusive of people of African descent across the diaspora.

The idea of race emerged as a biological concept during the European Enlightenment. The earlier cultural and religious distinctions drawn among human groups were increasingly substituted or elaborated by ‘race’. Western notions of science came to legitimate a natural hierarchy within the context of colonial, slave holding and later industrial capitalist societies whose elites benefited from the idea that the inhumanity of their privilege was natural. An ideology of white supremacy emerged simultaneously from science and society, relative to which racial identities were constructed and historically transformed. Racial ideas have infused many American institutions and their pervasiveness accounts for their paradigmatic power. The history of biological anthropology is packed with reflections of broadly believed racial ideas. These ideas’ transformations can be seen in evolving theories meant to explain the relationship between human behavior and biology. This course examines those ideas in biological anthropology and related fields. Students discover aspects of race and racism in past and present society that often go unrecognized. Thus informed, students become more able to choose an anti-racist stance. They equally develop an appreciation of ways in which culture can systematically influence scientific thought, raising a more general critique of the scientific way of knowing than is limited to the example of race. Problems and prospects for theories of the interactions between human biology and behavior are considered.

Topics will be announced each semester during preregistration.

This class explores the rise and fall of apartheid, the system of rigid racial segregation and domination that existed in South Africa from 1948 to 1994. It examines the successful anti-apartheid movement but also considers apartheids legacy in contemporary South Africa.

This course provides a detailed examination of segregation and apartheid in twentieth century South Africa and charts the development and ultimate success of the anti-apartheid movement that led to the ‘miracle’ of a democratic South Africa. (Cross-listed with HIST 317.)

A directed readings/research course conducted on an individual or small group basis on various topics in Africana studies that are not normally or adequately covered in established courses.

Each year, Africana House will offer themes to be pursued throughout the year. Throughout the year, students will actively work and participate in programs that encourage the selected theme. Programming is student developed and student led with Africana Studies faculty support. Students will have a $1000 budget to use toward programming and activities. Each semester, students will work towards a final project or event that can be shared with the W&M community. All residents of the A-house are required to register for the 1-credit pass/fail course. Residents are required to participate in 2 out of 3 monthly activities and will contribute to the semester long project.

Students admitted to Senior Honors in Africana Studies will be responsible for (a) formulating a program of study in consultation with an AFST advisor, (b) satisfactory completion by April 15th of an original scholarly essay on a topic approved by the Advisory Committee, and (c) a comprehensive oral examination. Application for Honors, which includes a faculty signature and a prospectus, should be made to the Charles Center in early September of the senior year. An acceptable research proposal includes: (1) a clear statement of the research problem; (2) a brief, critical review of the scholarly literature on the topic; and (3) a description and defense of the methodology to be employed. For College provisions governing Honors, see the section of the Catalog titled Honors and Special Programs.

Students admitted to Senior Honors in Africana Studies will be responsible for (a) formulating a program of study in consultation with an AFST advisor, (b) satisfactory completion by April 15th of an original scholarly essay on a topic approved by the Advisory Committee, and (c) a comprehensive oral examination. Application for Honors, which includes a faculty signature and a prospectus, should be made to the Charles Center in early September of the senior year. An acceptable research proposal includes: (1) a clear statement of the research problem; (2) a brief, critical review of the scholarly literature on the topic; and (3) a description and defense of the methodology to be employed. For College provisions governing Honors, see the section of the Catalog titled Honors and Special Programs.

Qualified AFST majors may receive credit for a pre-approved program that provides an opportunity to apply and expand knowledge under expert supervision in an off-campus position. Internships require a significant written report, and must be overseen by a faculty member, or an external supervisor approved by the Program Director.

This is the required culminating course for majors of Africana Studies where students apply their cumulative knowledge into the production of a scholarly research paper or creative project. AFST 495-496: Honors Thesis also fulfills this requirement. Pre-req is AFST 205, 399 and another methods course.