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AFST 290

Topics in Africana Studies

This course explores some issue, theme or period related to Africana Studies. May be repeated for credit with different topics.

Distribution Area Prerequisites Credits
1/2-1 course

Spring Semester information

Deborah Geis

290A: Tps:Intro African American Literature


Karin Wimbley

290B: Tps:No Place Like Home: Identity, Memory, and Exile in World Literature and Film

Whether real or imagined, "home" defines who we were, reflects who we are, and shapes who we aspire to be. In fact, our identities are curated by our ever changing relationship to home. This course explores narratives about home in world literature and cinema. Specifically, we will explore plays, essays, poetry, short stories, and films from across the world to query: What is the definition of "home"? How does memory and the sensual world articulate our connection(s) to home? How can dislocation and exile alter our sense of home and belonging? Can the dislocation caused by exile be both a disabling estrangement and liberating insight? Course texts include works by Aimé Césaire, Kayo Hatta, Carmen Maria Machado, Ousmane Sembene, Dominique Loreau, to name a few.


Aliyah Turner

290C: Tps:Hyphenated Identities: Constructing a framework investigating Afro-Caribbean American Duality


Fall Semester information

Karin Wimbley

290A: Tps:African American Cinema

Reading African American cinema as a pivotal archive in African American cultural production, this course explores the diverse black aesthetic traditions that African American film has and continues to develop, explore, and shape. Specifically, the course will track how films produced, written, and/or directed by African Americans are situated in larger debates about the politics of race and representation.