printer friendly pageAFRICAAM 191B: African American Art (ARTHIST 191, CSRE 191)
This course explores major art and political movements, such as the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Arts Movement, and #BlackLivesMatter, that have informed and were inspired by African American artists. Students will read pivotal texts written by Black artists, historians, philosophers and activists; consider how artists have contended with issues of identity, race, gender, and sexuality; and learn about galleries, collections, and organizations founded to support the field. Attendance on the first day of class is a requirement for enrollment.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
Instructors:
Salseda, R. (PI)
AFRICAAM 194: Topics in Writing & Rhetoric: Contemporary Black Rhetorics: Black Twitter and Black Digital Cultures (PWR 194AJ)
Does not fulfill NSC requirement. This course will examine Black engagements with digital culture as sites for community building, social action and individual and collective identity formation. By studying phenomena like #BlackTwitter, memes, Vine, selfie culture, blogging, "social watching," and more, we will explore how Black technology use addresses questions like identity performance and expression, hyper visibility and invisibility of Black lives, Black feminisms, misogynoir and Black women/femme leadership in social movements, the roles and influence of Black Queer cultures online, and social activism and movements in online spaces. nnFrom #YouOKSis, #BlackLivesMatter and #AfroLatinidad to the Clapback, roasts and "reads," we will work from the serious to the silly, from individuals to collectives, from activism to everyday life, and from distinct Black cultures to diasporic connections and exchange. Participants in the course will create a social media autobiography, a "read/ing" of a Black cultural practice or phenomenon online, host an online discussion, and prepare a pitch for a longer research project they might pursue as a thesis or an ongoing study. Bring your GIFs, memes, and emoji, and a willingness to be in community both online and off for this new course! Prerequisite: first level of the writing requirement or equivalent transfer credit. For topics, see
https://undergrad.stanford.edu/programs/pwr/courses/advanced-pwr-courses.
Last offered: Autumn 2017
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
AFRICAAM 218: Musics and Appropriation Throughout the World (CSRE 118D, MUSIC 118)
This course critically examines musical practices and appropriation through the amplification of intersectionality. We consider musics globally through recourse to ethnomusicological literature and critical race theories. Our approach begins from an understanding that the social and political contexts where musics are created, disseminated, and consumed inform disparate interpretations and meanings of music, as well as its sounds. Our goal is to shape our ears to hear the effects of slavery, colonialism, capitalism, nationalism, class, gender difference, militarism, and activism. We interrogate the process of appropriating musics throughout the world by making the power structures that shape privileges and exclusions audible.
Last offered: Autumn 2018
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
AFRICAAM 236B: Casablanca - Algiers - Tunis : Cities on the Edge (COMPLIT 236A, CSRE 140S, FRENCH 236, FRENCH 336, HISTORY 245C, URBANST 140F)
Casablanca, Algiers and Tunis embody three territories, real and imaginary, which never cease to challenge the preconceptions of travelers setting sight on their shores. In this class, we will explore the myriad ways in which these cities of North Africa, on the edge of Europe and of Africa, have been narrated in literature, cinema, and popular culture. Home to Muslims, Christians, and Jews, they are an ebullient laboratory of social, political, religious, and cultural issues, global and local, between the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries. We will look at mass images of these cities, from films to maps, novels to photographs, sketching a new vision of these magnets as places where power, social rituals, legacies of the Ottoman and French colonial pasts, and the influence of the global economy collude and collide. Special focus on class, gender, and race.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
Instructors:
Ulloa, M. (PI)
AFRICAAM 258: Black Feminist Theater and Theory (CSRE 258, FEMGEN 258X, TAPS 258)
From the rave reviews garnered by Angelina Weld Grimke's lynching play, Rachel to recent work by Lynn Nottage on Rwanda, black women playwrights have addressed key issues in modern culture and politics. We will analyze and perform work written by black women in the U.S., Britain and the Caribbean in the 20th and 21st centuries. Topics include: sexuality, surrealism, colonialism, freedom, violence, colorism, love, history, community and more. Playwrights include: Angelina Grimke, Lorriane Hansberry, Winsome Pinnock, Adrienne Kennedy, Suzan- Lori Parks, Ntzoke Shange, Pearl Cleage, Sarah Jones, Anna DeVeare Smith, Alice Childress, Lydia Diamond and Zora Neale Hurston.)
Last offered: Winter 2018
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
AFRICAAM 264: Crossing the Atlantic: Race and Identity in the African Diaspora (COMPLIT 264, CSRE 265, FRENCH 264)
This course interrogates the relationship between literature, culture, race and identity in the African diaspora. We will analyze racial discourses through literature, and various forms of cultural expression while examining the role of class and gender in these configurations. As we follow the historical and geographical trajectories of people of African descent in different parts of the world, students will explore literary and political movements with the objective of examining how race has been constructed and is performed in different regions of the diaspora. Our readings will take us from Martinique, Guadeloupe, Guyana, France, and Senegal to Cuba, Brazil, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Topics discussed will include: Race, identity, gender, class, memory, oral tradition, Afro-Caribbean religions, Negrismo, Négritude, Antillanité, Créolité, colonialism, modernity and national belonging. Readings will include the works of: Jean Price-Mars, Léopold Senghor, Aimé Césaire, Léon Damas, Frantz Fanon, Nicolás Guillén, Nancy Morejon, Maryse Condé, Patrick Chamoiseau, Edouard Glissant, among others. Taught in English.
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
AFRICAST 58: Egypt in the Age of Heresy (AFRICAAM 58A, ARCHLGY 58, CLASSICS 58)
Perhaps the most controversial era in ancient Egyptian history, the Amarna period (c.1350-1334 BCE) was marked by great sociocultural transformation, notably the introduction of a new 'religion' (often considered the world's first form of monotheism), the construction of a new royal city, and radical departures in artistic and architectural styles. This course will introduce archaeological and textual sources of ancient Egypt, investigating topics such as theological promotion, projections of power, social structure, urban design, interregional diplomacy, and historical legacy during the inception, height, and aftermath of this highly enigmatic period. Students with or without prior background are equally encouraged.
Last offered: Autumn 2018
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
AFRICAST 132: Literature and Society in Africa and the Caribbean (AFRICAAM 133, COMPLIT 133A, COMPLIT 233A, CSRE 133E, FRENCH 133, JEWISHST 143)
This course provides students with an introductory survey of literature and cinema from Francophone Africa and the Caribbean in the 20th and 21st centuries. Students will be encouraged to consider the geographical, historical, and political connections between the Maghreb, the Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa by reading course materials, completing writing assignments, participating in class activities, listening to contextualizing lectures, and conducting student-led presentations. This course will help students improve their ability to speak and write in French by introducing students to new academic registers, vocabulary, and syntax. While analyzing novels and films, students will be exposed to a diverse number of intersectional topics such as national and cultural identity, race and class, gender and sexuality, orality and textuality, transnationalism and migration, colonialism and decolonization, history and memory, and the politics of language. Readings include the works of writers and filmmakers such as Aimé Césaire, Albert Memmi, Assia Djebar, Dani Laferrière, Djibril Tamsir Niane, Fatou Diome, Leïla Sebbar, Léopold Senghor, Mariama Bâ, Maryse Condé, and Ousmane Sembène. Taught in French. Students are encouraged to complete
FRENLANG 124 or to successfully test above this level through the Language Center.
Terms: Aut, Sum
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
AFRICAST 146M: New Keywords in African Sound (AFRICAAM 146D, CSRE 146D, MUSIC 146M, MUSIC 246M)
This course identifies and considers new keywords for the study of contemporary African music and sound. Each week we will foster discussion around a keyword and a constellation of case studies. The sonic practices we will encounter range from South African house music to Ghanaian honk horns; from Congolese rumba bands to Tunisian trance singers; from listening to the radio in a Tanzanian homestead to making hip hop music videos on the Kenyan coast. By exploring the unexpected interconnections between contemporary African musical communities, we will discuss new keywords arising in current scholarship, including technologies like the amplifier and the hard drive, spaces like the studio and the city, and analytics like pleasure and hotness. We will also engage with established concepts for the study of postcolonial African cultures, including nationalism, cosmopolitanism, globalization, diaspora, and Pan-Africanism. This is a seminar-based course open to graduate students, upper level undergraduate students, and other students with consent of the instructor. Proficiency in music is not required. WIM at 4 units only.
Last offered: Winter 2019
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
AFRICAST 220E: Renaissance Africa (COMPLIT 220, ILAC 220E, ILAC 320E)
Literature and Portuguese expansion into Africa during the sixteenth century. Emphasis on forms of exchange between Portuguese and Africans in Morocco, Angola/Congo, South Africa, the Swahili Coast, and Ethiopia. Readings in Portuguese and English. Taught in English.
Last offered: Winter 2020
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
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