Spring 2009 Courses

African-American and African Studies Program

AAS 102 - Crosscurrents in the African Diaspora (4)

Instructor: Claudrena Harold

1230-1345 TR, WIL 301

This introductory course builds upon the histories of people of African descent in Africa, the Americas, and the Caribbean surveyed in AAS 101. Drawing on disciplines such as Anthropology, History, Religious Studies, Political Science and Sociology, the course focuses on the period from the late 19th century to the present and is comparative in perspective. It examines the links and disjunctions between communities of African descent in the United States and in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa. The course begins with an overview of AAS, its history, assumptions, boundaries, and topics of inquiry, and then proceeds to focus on a number of inter-related themes: patterns of cultural experience; community formation; comparative racial classification; language and society; family and kinship; religion; social and political movements; arts and aesthetics; and archaeology of the African Diaspora.

AAS 215 - Culture and World Politics (3)

Instructor: Maurice Apprey

1530-1800 T, CAB B026

AAS 220 - African Women Writers (3)

Instructor: Z'etoile Imma

1100-1215 TR, CAB 224

AAS 308 - Fugitive Slaves in a Global Perspective (3)

Instructor: Lydia Wilson

1400-1515 TR, CAB B026

This course surveys anthropological, historical, and archaeological approaches to the study of fugitive slaves, also known as maroons.  The course considers the importance of maroon studies in highlighting Africans' resistance to enslavement in the Americas and explores themes taken up in more recent research, such as community formation.  Students will examine the public interpretation of maroon history, review research on fugitive slaves in a variety of world regions, and consider the continued challenges some descendant communities have faced.  

AAS 351 - The Politics of Development in Africa (3)

Instructor: Kristen Phillips

1400-1515 MW, WIL 215

Since the mid-twentieth century "development" has served as the dominant paradigm (as well as the justification) for international intervention into the political, economic, and social affairs of African communities and states. In this course we will draw on anthropological theories, ethnographies of development, and critiques of development to explore the history and politics of these interventions. We will begin by examining the kinds of interventions that foreshadowed development - trade, colonialism, missionization. We will then trace the life history of the development project in post-colonial Africa through its diverse agents and various incarnations: from its inception, through structural adjustment programs, democratization and the post-development critique, to the emergence of neoliberalism as development's governing philosophy. Throughout, we will draw on ethnographies of development in Africa to gain a deeper understanding of how people living in Africa experience their economic, political, and social positions in today's world and how international interventions have shaped these experiences, for better and for worse.

AAS 366 - African American History Since 1865 (3)

Instructor: Claudrena Harold

1530-1620 TR, WIL 301

This course surveys the major political, economic, and cultural developments in black America from the end of the Civil War to the present. Specifically focusing on the complex character of black life in the United States, students will examine African Americans’ protracted struggle to build strong families and communities, create vibrant and socially meaningful artistic productions, and confront what philosopher Cornel West refers to as the “pervasive evil of unjustified suffering and unnecessary social misery in our world.” Exploring the political and philosophical concerns pursued by activists and intellectuals like W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells, Ralph Ellison, Angela Davis, Amiri Barka, Toni Cade Bambara, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, this class critically engages black Americans’ complex views on what it means to be American, modern, and human. Organizations and movements that will be discussed include but are not limited to the Garvey Movement, SNCC, the Black Panther Party, the Nation of Islam, and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers. Cultural expressions and movements that will be explored include but are not limited to the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Arts Movement, 1960s jazz and soul, funk, and hip-hop.

Cross-listed as HIUS 366

AAS 382 - Black Protest Narrative (3)

Instructor: Marlon Ross

1400-1515 TR, BRN 330

This course explores the relation between modern racial protest and African American narrative art (fiction, autobiography, film, narrative poetry) from the mid-1930s to the early 1970s, focusing on the Great Depression, World War II, the Civil Rights movement, and the emergence of Black Power. As well as examining the social, political, and economic contexts of protest narratives, we’ll probe their aesthetic, formal, and ideological structures, and assess how protest writers represent controversial topics of the time, such as lynching, segregation, sharecropping, disenfranchisement, anti-Semitism, unemployment, migration, urbanization, religion, sexuality, war and military service, strikebreaking, cross-racial coalitions, and the role of the individual in social change. We start with the most famous protest narrative, Richard Wright’s Native Son, then study other narratives, many of which challenge Wright’s forms and ideas. Other writers include Angelo Herndon, William Attaway, Ann Petry, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Gwendolyn Brooks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Alice Walker, and Bobby Seale, as well as pertinent readings in history, literary criticism, journalism, and social science. Requirements include heavy reading schedule. midterm, final exam, and reading journal.

Cross-listed as ENAM 382

AAS 401 - Independent Study (1-3)

Allows students to work on an individual research project. Students must propose a topic to an appropriate faculty member, submit a written proposal for approval, prepare an extensive annotated bibliography on relevant readings comparable to the reading list of a regular upper-level course, and complete a research paper of at least 20 pages.

AAS 406A -  From Gold Coast to Reparations: A Social History of American Slavery (3)

Instructor: Deirdre Cooper Owens

1500-1830 T, CAB 130

This course will survey African slavery in the Americas broadly (16th century – 19th century) and the U.S. South during both the colonial and antebellum eras. In addition to centralizing the market costs of slavery and exploring the “world the slaves made,” we will also examine the little-known world of slavery among native peoples. Lastly, we will analyze both the impact and legacy of slavery on contemporary American society.

AAS 406B - Ethnicity and Religion in Nigeria and South Africa (3)

Instructor: John Willis

1530-1800 R, CAB 334

This course explores the diversity of gendered and ethnic identities in sub-Saharan African societies.  Drawing from various moments in South Africa’s and Nigeria’s history, it examines how these identities have been historically articulated in words and action.  It considers the cultural symbols and practices from which individuals and groups have drawn to define gender and ethnic norms.  In many respects, these countries have very different histories reflecting alternative visions of Africa.  South Africa has long been known as a multi-racial society, a magnet of European settlement, an apartheid state, and the most westernized and mineral-rich African nation.  Conversely, Nigeria has developed a reputation as a mono-racial, multi-ethnic and multi-religious society, a repellant to European settlement, a military state fraught with ethnic conflicts, and as Africa’s most corrupt and human-resource rich nation.  Students will examine some of the historical factors that have contributed to the development of these nations and the images of them that circulate both on the continent and in Europe and the United States.  The course asks several questions: Does the use of gender and ethnicity as categories of analysis allow students to see more points of similarity than difference between the two nations?  How have notions of gender become associated with ethnic and national identities? What have been some of the social, political, and economic implications of an individual’s location as a gendered or ethnic being?

AAS 406C - Contemporary Art of the African Diaspora (3)

Instructor: Andrea Douglas

1530-1800 M, WIL 141A

AAS 451 - Directed Reading and Research for DMP (3)

Independent Study

Similar in format to AAS 401, but meant to be equivalent to twice as much work (6 credits), and taken over a full year. Students in the DMP enroll under these numbers for thesis writing.

AAS 452 - Thesis for DMP (3)

Meeting time to be determined by instructor and student

American Studies Program

AMST 201 - Arts and Cultures of the Slave South (3)

Instructor: Maurie McInnis and Louis Nelson

1530-1645 MW, CLK 107

"Arts and Cultures of the Slave South” is an undergraduate, interdisciplinary course that covers the American South to the Civil War. While the course centers on the visual arts—architecture, material culture, decorative arts, painting, and sculpture—it is not designed as a regional history of art, but an exploration of the interrelations between history, material and visual cultures, foodways, music and literature in the formation of Southern identities. The course will cover subjects ranging from African American spirituals to creolization and ethnicities in Louisiana, from the plantation architectures of both big house and outbuildings to the narratives of former slaves. In the process, students will be introduced to the interpretive methods central to a wide range of disciplines, from archaeology and anthropology, to art and architectural history, to material culture, literature, and musicology. In addition to two weekly lectures by co-faculty Maurie McInnis and Louis Nelson, students will also attend weekly discussion sections and special events including guest lectures, field trips, movie nights, and demonstrations and samplings of traditional southern foods.

Cross-listed as ARTH 263 and CCFA 202

AMST 201 - Rural Poverty in Our Time (3)

Instructor: Grace Hale

1530-1710 T, MIN 125

This course will explore the history of non-urban poverty in the American South from the 1930s to the present. Weaving together the social histories of poor people, the political history of poverty policies, and the cultural history of representations of poverty, the course follows historical cycles of attention and neglect: rural poverty during the Great Depression, rural poverty from the war on poverty to the Reagan Revolution, and rural poverty in the age of Katrina, the present. In each section, we will examine the relationship between representations (imagining poverty), policies (alleviating poverty), and results (the effects of those representations and policies in the economic, political, and psychological status of poor people).

Cross-listed as HIUS 360

AMST 401A-1 - American Film: Los Angeles in Hollywood (3)

Instructor: Eric Lott

1700-1930 R, BRN 310

Not exactly a conventional film course, this one will use Hollywood cinema as the centerpiece of an inquiry into the cultural history and imaginary geography of Los Angeles.  In addition to cultural historians and geographers such as Mike Davis, Sue Ruddick, and Eric Avila, we’ll read theorists of the so-called culture industry (e.g., Theodor Adorno), social commentators and gossips on L.A. and Hollywood (e.g., Carey McWilliams, Chester Himes, John Gregory Dunne, Kenneth Anger), and such novels as Nathanael West’s Day of the Locust (1939), Budd Schulberg’s What Makes Sammy Run? (1941), and Michael Tolkin’s The Player (1988).  Plus, of course, the films, all of them about Los Angeles or Hollywood itself: e.g., King Vidor’s Show People (1928), Preston Sturges’ Sullivan’s Travels (1941), Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity (1944), Howard Hawks’ The Big Sleep (1946), Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard (1950), Stanley Donnen/Gene Kelly’s Singin in the Rain (1952), Nicholas Ray’s Rebel Without a Cause (1955), Robert Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly (1955), Roger Corman’s Little Shop of Horrors (1960), Mark Robson’s Valley of the Dolls (1968), Melvin Van Peebles’ Sweet Sweetback’s Baadass Song (1971), Roman Polanski’s Chinatown (1974), Hal Ashby’s Shampoo (1975), Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep (1977), Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982), Amy Heckerling’s Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), James Cameron’s The Terminator (1984), William Friedkin’s To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Luis Valdez’s La Bamba (1987), John Singleton’s Boyz n the Hood (1991), Joel Schumacher’s  Falling Down (1993), Robert Altman’s Short Cuts (1993), Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994), Tim Burton’s Ed Wood (1994), Carl Franklin’s Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), F. Gary Gray’s Set It Off (1997), Curtis Hanson’s L.A. Confidential (1997), Joel and Ethan Coen’s The Big Lebowski (1998), Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia (1999), David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr. (2001), Lisa Cholodenko’s Laurel Canyon (2002), Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator (2004).

Cross-listed as ENLT 255-2

Department of Anthropology

ANTH 291A - People, Culture and Environments of Africa (3)

Instructor: Matthew Powlowicz

1000-1050 MWF, CAB 123

Humans and the natural environment engage in a complex interaction. Humans transform their surroundings even as those surroundings shape the societies and cultural institutions they create. This course pursues both the question of how this interaction has proceeded in different places and among different peoples in Africa, and the cultural significances given to the environment so that we might better understand why it proceeded in that way. Drawing on evidence from ethnography, archaeology, ethnohistory and folklore we will examine how nature becomes entangled with political power and social ranking, with memory and group identity, and the consequences for the environment, and for the people who live there, which result.

ANTH 291B - Religion and Relationships: Caribbean Perspectives (3)

Instructor: Todne Thomas

0900-0950 MWF, CAB 324

This course analyzes the constitution and reproduction of Caribbean religious communities within the social contexts of enslavement, emancipation, postcolonialism, and transnationalism. Assigned readings survey ethnographies of Christianity, Hinduism, and Afro-Caribbean traditions like Rastafarianism, Vodun, and Candomble'. Course discussions and themes consider the contours of Caribbean religious groups as well as means by which ritual, religious ideologies, and kinship discourses enmesh practitioners in religious networks.

ANTH 554A - Africa and Social Theory (3)

Instructor: Sasha Newell

1530-1800 W, CAB B028

The encounter between Europe and Africa has produced some of the most important social theory and some of the most problematic misrepresentations. This course tracks the social imaginary of Africa in relationship to the development of theoretical frameworks through which Africa is represented. If the concept of the fetish was born out of cross-cultural misunderstandings between Europe and Africa, to what extent is Africa itself a fetish through which the European self is produced? Exploring the anthropology of exchange, bodies and persons, kinship, witchcraft, and colonialism in Africa, we investigate the implications for collective representations of Africa. At the same time we consider Africa's symbolic role within theories of modernity, race, economy, and religion through which Europe sets itself apart in the global hierarchy. This class thus explores the ambiguous zone between the 'real', the imaginary, and the theory of Africa, and the way each has fed into the construction of the other.

This class will fulfill the second writing requirement.

SWAH 102 - Introduction to Swahili II (3)

Instructor: Michael Wairungu

0900-0950 MWF, CAB 224

1100-1150 MWF, MIN 130

This is the second part of a two-semester beginning Swahili course. It will focus on developing the already acquired Swahili listening, speaking, reading and writing skills so as to understand basic Swahili, and actively participate in day-to-day Swahili cultural activities. Enrollment in this course is subject to Instructor's Permission as the student is required to have completed SWAH 101 at UVa. Upon completion of this course, students will be expected to demonstrate evidence of the acquisition of: a) basic skills in performing day-to-day interactions such as greetings, interpersonal conversations, and comprehension in Swahili; b) use of simple but fairly communicative grammatical constructions; c) appreciation of basic cultural practices of the Swahili-speaking people. Class meetings shall be supplemented by technology sessions where deemed appropriate.

Department of Art History

ARTH 263 - Arts and Cultures of the Slave South (4)

Instructor: Maurie McInnis and Louis Nelson

1530-1645 MW, CLK 107

"Arts and Cultures of the Slave South” is an undergraduate, interdisciplinary course that covers the American South to the Civil War. While the course centers on the visual arts—architecture, material culture, decorative arts, painting, and sculpture—it is not designed as a regional history of art, but an exploration of the interrelations between history, material and visual cultures, foodways, music and literature in the formation of Southern identities. The course will cover subjects ranging from African American spirituals to creolization and ethnicities in Louisiana, from the plantation architectures of both big house and outbuildings to the narratives of former slaves. In the process, students will be introduced to the interpretive methods central to a wide range of disciplines, from archaeology and anthropology, to art and architectural history, to material culture, literature, and musicology. In addition to two weekly lectures by co-faculty Maurie McInnis and Louis Nelson, students will also attend weekly discussion sections and special events including guest lectures, field trips, movie nights, and demonstrations and samplings of traditional southern foods.

Cross-Listed as AMST 201 and CCFA 202

Department of Drama

DRAM 307 - African American Theatre (3)

Instructor: Theresa Davis

1400-1515 TR, DRM 217

Presents a comprehensive study of “Black Theatre” as the African-American contribution to the theatre. Explores the historical, cultural, and socio-political underpinnings of this this theatre as an artistic form in American and world culture. Students gain a broader understanding of the relationship and contributions of this theatre to theatre arts, business, education, lore, and humanity. A practical theatrical experience is a part of the course offering.

Department of English

CPLT 342 - Contemporary Drama (3)

Instructor: Lotta Löfgren

1530-1645 TR, BRN 334

This is the second half of a two-semester course on modern and contemporary American and European drama (with a few forays into other regions), covering post-Absurdism to the present. The first half is not a prerequisite. We will examine postwar quests for dramatic and theatrical structures relevant to a socially and morally chaotic world. From a study of reactions to the Theatre of the Absurd, we move to an investigation of contemporary drama, celebrating the success of women and minority playwrights in our own period. These playwrights, earlier deprived of a voice, have transformed theater of the past fifty years. We will read plays by Ntozake Shange, Tom Stoppard, Wole Soyinka, Derek Walcott, Tony Kushner, Sam Shepard, Caryl Churchill, Suzan-Lori Parks, and others.

Course requirements: two short papers, a long paper or a project (one option is to write your own play), a final exam.

Cross-listed as ENGN 342

ENAM 314 - African American Literature (3)

Instructor: Lisa Woolfork

0930-1045 TR, CAB 118

A continuation of ENAM 313, African American Literature I, this course concentrates on twentieth and twenty-first century African American novels, short stories, prose essays, and poetry. This lecture and discussion based class will address literature from pivotal cultural and political moments in African American life, such as the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement. Writers include, but are not limited to, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and several contemporary authors. Mandatory assignments include response paragraphs, papers, quizzes, midterm and final exams.

ENAM 382 - Black Protest Narrative (3)

Instructor: Marlon Ross

1400-1515 TR, BRN 330

This course explores the relation between modern racial protest and African American narrative art (fiction, autobiography, film, narrative poetry) from the mid-1930s to the early 1970s, focusing on the Great Depression, World War II, the Civil Rights movement, and the emergence of Black Power. As well as examining the social, political, and economic contexts of protest narratives, we’ll probe their aesthetic, formal, and ideological structures, and assess how protest writers represent controversial topics of the time, such as lynching, segregation, sharecropping, disenfranchisement, anti-Semitism, unemployment, migration, urbanization, religion, sexuality, war and military service, strikebreaking, cross-racial coalitions, and the role of the individual in social change. We start with the most famous protest narrative, Richard Wright’s Native Son, then study other narratives, many of which challenge Wright’s forms and ideas. Other writers include Angelo Herndon, William Attaway, Ann Petry, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Gwendolyn Brooks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Alice Walker, and Bobby Seale, as well as pertinent readings in history, literary criticism, journalism, and social science. Requirements include heavy reading schedule. midterm, final exam, and reading journal.

ENAM 482C - African-American Speculative Fiction (3)

Instructor: Lisa Woolfork

1100-1215 TR, CAB 335

This class focuses on a genre of African American literature that is best described as "speculative." While all literature can be said to "speculate" about different topics, themes or events, the literary offerings in this class will venture into imagined worlds of horror, science fiction, fantasy as crafted by African American authors. Writers include Samuel Delany, Octavia Butler, Tananarive Due and others. We will use these primary texts and other sources from film and television to question the racial markings and motives of "mainstream" speculative literatures and to consider the implications of the genre for African American literature and culture.

ENGN 342 - Contemporary Drama (3)

Instructor: Lotta Löfgren

1530-1645 TR, MRY 113

This is the second half of a two-semester course on modern and contemporary American and European drama (with a few forays into other regions), covering post-Absurdism to the present. The first half is not a prerequisite. We will examine postwar quests for dramatic and theatrical structures relevant to a socially and morally chaotic world. From a study of reactions to the Theatre of the Absurd, we move to an investigation of contemporary drama, celebrating the success of women and minority playwrights in our own period. These playwrights, earlier deprived of a voice, have transformed theater of the past fifty years. We will read plays by Ntozake Shange, Tom Stoppard, Wole Soyinka, Derek Walcott, Tony Kushner, Sam Shepard, Caryl Churchill, Suzan-Lori Parks, and others.

Course requirements: two short papers, a long paper or a project (one option is to write your own play), a final exam.

cross-listed as CLPT 342

ENGN 482B - Ethnic American Drama (3)

Instructor: Lotta Löfgren

1230-1345 TR, BRN 330

This seminar celebrates the richness, diversity, passion, and sophistication of contemporary ethnic American drama. We will read plays by African American, Asian American, Hispanic American, and Native American dramatists. We will examine their shared concerns and their cultural particularities, and explore how all groups negotiate traditional dramatic forms and even fundamental definitions of theater to express their own visions. Our work with these plays will challenge old methods of interpretation and our own cultural assumptions. We will try to understand how these plays are and are not uniquely American by examining the plays themselves and reading a selection of theoretical works. We will explore some of the political challenges to and ramifications of ethnic American drama. We will read plays by David Henry Hwang, Ntozake Shange, Thomson Highway, Maria Irene Fornes, Suzan-Lori Parks, Wakako Yamauchi, Cherrie Moraga, William Yellow Robe, and others.

Cross-listed as ENMC 482B

ENLT 247 - Black Writers and Black Music(3)

Instructor: Eric Nunn

1530-1645 MW, BRN 312

This course traces the interrelations of twentieth-century African American literary and musical histories from W. E. B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk through the Negro Renaissance of the 1920s and the Black Arts movement of the 1960s to the present day.

ENLT 247- Black Writers and the Media (3)

Instructor: Benjamin Fagan

1700-1850 TR, BRN 312

Restricted to 1st and 2nd year students.

In this course students will examine a key trope that permeates African American literature: media. We will approach this term in two senses. On the one hand, we will look at how texts appear in diverse mediums, be they newspapers, anthologies, audio recordings, or television coverage. On the other hand, students will read key works that place the problem of media representation at the center of their projects. Students will spend a significant amount of time with each selected text, allowing them to develop critical close reading skills. Moreover, by examining one work in multiple mediums they will be able to investigate how form and presentation inflect a text's meaning. We will read texts ranging from 18th century poetry to 21st century oratory. We will read canonical authors such as Phyllis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass, and Ralph Ellison, and also consider the works of lesser-known writers such as Martin Delany and Francis Ellen Watkins.

ENLT 255-2 - American Film: Los Angeles in Hollywood (3)

Instructor: Eric Lott

1700-1930 R, BRN 310

Not exactly a conventional film course, this one will use Hollywood cinema as the centerpiece of an inquiry into the cultural history and imaginary geography of Los Angeles.  In addition to cultural historians and geographers such as Mike Davis, Sue Ruddick, and Eric Avila, we’ll read theorists of the so-called culture industry (e.g., Theodor Adorno), social commentators and gossips on L.A. and Hollywood (e.g., Carey McWilliams, Chester Himes, John Gregory Dunne, Kenneth Anger), and such novels as Nathanael West’s Day of the Locust (1939), Budd Schulberg’s What Makes Sammy Run? (1941), and Michael Tolkin’s The Player (1988).  Plus, of course, the films, all of them about Los Angeles or Hollywood itself: e.g., King Vidor’s Show People (1928), Preston Sturges’ Sullivan’s Travels (1941), Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity (1944), Howard Hawks’ The Big Sleep (1946), Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard (1950), Stanley Donnen/Gene Kelly’s Singin in the Rain (1952), Nicholas Ray’s Rebel Without a Cause (1955), Robert Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly (1955), Roger Corman’s Little Shop of Horrors (1960), Mark Robson’s Valley of the Dolls (1968), Melvin Van Peebles’ Sweet Sweetback’s Baadass Song (1971), Roman Polanski’s Chinatown (1974), Hal Ashby’s Shampoo (1975), Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep (1977), Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982), Amy Heckerling’s Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), James Cameron’s The Terminator (1984), William Friedkin’s To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Luis Valdez’s La Bamba (1987), John Singleton’s Boyz n the Hood (1991), Joel Schumacher’s  Falling Down (1993), Robert Altman’s Short Cuts (1993), Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994), Tim Burton’s Ed Wood (1994), Carl Franklin’s Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), F. Gary Gray’s Set It Off (1997), Curtis Hanson’s L.A. Confidential (1997), Joel and Ethan Coen’s The Big Lebowski (1998), Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia (1999), David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr. (2001), Lisa Cholodenko’s Laurel Canyon (2002), Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator (2004).

Cross-listed as AMST 401-A1

Department of French Language & Literature

FREN 346 - African Literatures and Cultures (3)

Instructor: Kandioura Drame

1000-1050 MWF, CAB 236

This course will explore aspects of African literatures and cultures. It will focus on selected issues of special resonance in contemporary African life. Oral literature and its continuing impact on all other art forms. Key issues in French colonial policy and its legacy in Africa: language, politics, education. The course will examine the image of the postcolonial state and society as found in contemporary arts, paintings, sculpture, music, and cinema. Selections from painters like Cheri Samba (Democratic Republic of Congo), Werewere Liking (Cameroun) and sculptors like Ousmane Sow, including such popular icons as Mamy Wata and forms such as Souwere glass painting; from musicians like Youssou Ndour (Senegal), Cheb Khaled (Algeria), Seigneur Rochereau, Tshala Muana (DRC), Salif Keita (Mali), and Cesaria Evora (Cape Verde); from Mande, Peul, and Kabyle oral literatures in French translation; from filmmakers D.D. Mambety, Moussa Sene Absa, and Ngangura Mweze. Visit to National Museum of African Arts depending on availability of funding. The final grade will be based on contributions to discussions, a mid-term exam, 2 papers, and a final exam.

Prerequisite: French 332

FREN 411 - Francophone Literature of Africa (3)

Instructor: Kandioura Drame

1200-1250 MWF, CAB 424

Introduction to the Francophone literature of Africa; survey, with special emphasis on post- World War II poets, novelists, and playwrights of Africa. The role of cultural and literary reviews (Légitime Défense, L'Etudiant noir, and Présence Africaine) in the historical and ideological development of this literature will be examined. Special reference will be made to Caribbean writers of the Negritude movement. Documentary videos on African history and cultures will be shown and important audio-tapes will also be played regularly. Supplementary texts will be assigned occasionally. Students will be expected to present response papers on a regular basis.

In addition to the required reading material, 2 essays (60%), regular class attendance, and contribution to discussions (10%), and a final exam (30%) constitute the course requirements. Papers are due on the dates indicated on the syllabus.

Department of History

HIAF 202 - Modern African History (4)

Instructor: John E. Mason

0930-1045 TR, CMN G010

This course explores the history of Africa from the decline of the Atlantic slave trade, in the early nineteenth century, to the present. Our goal is to examine the historical roots of the continent's contemporary condition, both good and bad. We look at the slave trade and its consequences, the European conquest of most of the African continent, African resistance to colonial rule, and the reestablishment of African independence.

We concentrate on three regions: West Africa, especially Nigeria; Central Africa, especially the Congo and Rwanda; and southern Africa, especially South Africa. We pay particular attention to the ways in which colonialism affected ordinary Africans and with the various strategies that Africans employed to resist, subvert, and accommodate European domination.

HIAF 202 is an introductory course and assumes no prior knowledge of African history. There will be two blue book exams, a mid-term and a final and periodic quizzes on the readings

HIAF 401A - History Seminar - Modern African Conflict, Decolonization to the Present (4)

Instructor: John P. Cann

1530-1800 M, RAN 212

This seminar investigates the conduct of selected wars following the British, French, and Belgian decolonizations in Africa. Students will begin by developing an appreciation of the small war theorists and African culture to provide a framework for the understanding and analysis of this genre of conflict in both its military dimension and its broader socio-cultural context. The seminar will then consider the case studies of Biafra (1967-1970), the Portuguese Colonial War (1961-1974) and its aftermath, including the South African Border War (1966-1989), the Rhodesian Front War (1962-1980), and RENAMO in Mozambique (1976-1992) before proceeding to a selection of subsequent and often continuing conflicts, such as, Senegal (1982-2004), Algeria (1954-1962 and 1992-present), Chad (1978-1987), Sudan (1955-1972 and 1983-2005), Uganda (1987-2005), Sierra Leone (1991-2002), and the US involvement in Somalia (1992-1994). It will examine both internal factors, such as, tribal animosities, water and property rights, child soldiers, and religious tension, and external ones, such as, the role of NGOs, military companies, peacekeepers, former colonial powers, and neighboring states, in each of the contests. Readings are drawn from published materials with no more than 250 pages per week. Grading is based on class participation (50%) and on a research paper (50%) of approximately 20 pages on a relatively modern African conflict of the student’s choice that analyzes its causes, its participants and their motivations, its conduct, and the outcome based on the themes developed in seminar.

HIAF 404 - Independent Study in African History (3)

(Topic to be determined by instructor and student)

In exceptional circumstances and with the permission of a faculty member any student may undertake a rigorous program of independent study designed to explore a subject not currently being taught or to expand upon regular offerings. Independent Study projects may not be used to replace regularly scheduled classes.

Enrollment is open to majors or non-majors.

HILA 202 - Modern Latin America (3)

Instructor: Brian P. Owensby

0930-1045 TR, RFB G004B

This course will explore the historiesof Latin America from the wars of independence between 1808-1830 to the present day. Emphasis will be on understanding the relationship between large economic structures and the lives of historical actorsin political, social, and cultural terms and in global context. Wewill read primary and secondary sources. I will lecture once a weekand we will have a semi-socratic discussion of the readings once aweek. I will ask you to write two interpretive essays, one roughly atmid-term and the other at the end of the semester.

Enrollment will belimited to 60.

HILA 402A - History Colloquium - Mestijaze and Race Mixing in Latin American History (4)

Instructor: Brian P. Owensby

1300-1530 T, RFN 227A

This colloquium will delve into the history of how Indigneous People, Europeans, and Africans met in the crucible of conquest and created anovel social order from the biological and cultural mixing thatcharged by the crossed circuits of desire, misunderstanding, violence,and accident. We will discuss “mestizaje”—cultural and biological mixing—the role of intermediaries, race, and race relations, from the16th- to the 21st centuries. We will read a broad range of books. Students will write interpretive essays aimed at problematizing conventional “racial” thinking.

Enrollment will be limited to 12 motivated students.

HIUS 360 - Rural Poverty in Our Times (3)

Instructor: Grace Hale

1530-1710 T, MIN 125

This course will explore the history of non-urban poverty in the American South from the 1930s to the present. Weaving together the social histories of poor people, the political history of poverty policies, and the cultural history of representations of poverty, the course follows historical cycles of attention and neglect: rural poverty during the Great Depression, rural poverty from the war on poverty to the Reagan Revolution, and rural poverty in the age of Katrina, the present. In each section, we will examine the relationship between representations (imagining poverty), policies (alleviating poverty), and results (the effects of those representations and policies in the economic, political, and psychological status of poor people).

Cross-listed as AMST 201

HIUS 366 - African American History from the Civil War to the Present (3)

Instructor: Claudrena Harold

1530-1620 TR, WIL 301

This course surveys the major political, economic, and cultural developments in black America from the end of the Civil War to the present. Specifically focusing on the complex character of black life in the United States, students will examine African Americans’ protracted struggle to build strong families and communities, create vibrant and socially meaningful artistic productions, and confront what philosopher Cornel West refers to as the “pervasive evil of unjustified suffering and unnecessary social misery in our world.” Exploring the political and philosophical concerns pursued by activists and intellectuals like W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells, Ralph Ellison, Angela Davis, Amiri Barka, Toni Cade Bambara, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, this class critically engages black Americans’ complex views on what it means to be American, modern, and human. Organizations and movements that will be discussed include but are not limited to the Garvey Movement, SNCC, the Black Panther Party, the Nation of Islam, and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers. Cultural expressions and movements that will be explored include but are not limited to the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Arts Movement, 1960s jazz and soul, funk, and hip-hop.

Cross-listed as AAS 366

HIUS 367 - History of the Civil Rights Movement (3)

Instructor: Julian Bond

1530-1730 T, CLK 107

This lecture course examines the history, philosophies, tactics, events and personalities of the Southern movement for civil rights from 1900 through the late 1960s, with special concentration on the years from the mid-'40s forward.

The Southern movement - variously called the black struggle, the freedom fight, or the civil rights movement - was a black-led, interracial mass movement which effectively ended legal segregation by the mid-60s.

Lectures will outline the movement's three over-lapping and occasionally complimentary phases - lobbying, litigation and protest.

In the first phase, from 1910 to the middle '30s, it developed a campaign of propaganda, education and lobbying to shape public opinion and create a climate favorable to civil rights.

In phase 2, from the '30s to the '50s, it sought and won important test cases in housing segregation and the right to vote, and attacking separate and unequal schools.

The last phase, lasting a decade from '54 through '65, was a decade of protests - boycotts, sit-ins, and mass demonstrations - as well as grass-roots organizing campaigns that laid the groundwork for minority electoral victories in the late '60s and '70s.

Through the leadership of various national and local organizations, and through anti-segregation campaigns directed by indigenous and extra-communal leadership figures who built on extensive pre-existing networks of church, fraternal, social and labor organizations, drawing strength and followers from a protest community rooted in black America and created in response to white supremacy, the movement succeeded in eliminating legal segregation. The movement's well-known and lesser-known proponents and their strategies will be examined.

Grades will be determined from a final examination, student participation in sections, and two five- to seven-page papers.

Texts:
Wilkins, Roy, with Tom Matthews, Standing Fast, Da Capo Press
Forman James, The Making of Black Revolutionaries, University of Washington Press
Bond, Julian and Andrew Lewis, Gonna Sit at the Welcome Table, Thompson Learning

Videos:
"Eyes on the Prize - America's Civil Rights Years, 1954 - 1965", # 1 to 6 "America the at the Racial Cross words, 1965 - 1985", # 1 and 2; PBS Video, Blackside Inc., Boston
"The Road to Brown", William Elwood, Producer, California Newsreel

HIUS 403 - Virtual Vinegar Hill: Visualizing an African American Memoryscape (4)

Instructor: Scot French and Bill Ferster

1530-1800 W, CAB 118

In the 1960s, Charlottesville's Vinegar Hill neighborhood -- an African American residential-business district born of late-19th and early-20th century black enterprise -- was declared "blighted" by local authorities and demolished under the federally funded Urban Renewal program. Civic leaders and project boosters hailed the demolition/redevelopment project, coupled with the opening of modern public housing complexes for those forcibly displaced, as a much-needed facelift for the downtown area. Yet, for Charlottesville's African American citizens, the project produced a profound sense of loss that lingers to this day. Vinegar Hill, as a site of memory, has come to symbolize the displacement of the African American working and business classes; the destructive impact of urban renewal/gentrification on African American community life; and the erasure of African American history from Charlottesville's commemorative landscape.

Building on the collaborative efforts of University researchers and local community groups, this class will explore the possibilities for visualizing the Vinegar Hill "memoryscape" through a state-of-the-art interactive website. Hundreds of historical photographs, maps, and household surveys have been scanned and entered into a database, thanks to the previous efforts of U.Va. faculty and student researchers. Likewise, newspaper articles on the topic have been indexed, and some audio- and video-taped oral histories are available for inclusion. At this stage of the project, with so much of the scanning and transcription completed, the digital component of the class will focus on the application of new visualization technologies and the prospects for advancing scholarship through the careful framing of historical problems or questions. What might the thoughtful application of visualization technologies to this data reveal? Prior experience with humanities computing is helpful, but not required.

Prospective readings include selections from: J. Douglas Smith, Managing White Supremacy: Race, Politics, and Citizenship in Jim Crow Virginia; James Saunders and Renae Shackelford, Urban Renewal and the End of Black Culture in Charlottesville, Virginia: An Oral History of Vinegar Hill; Ann Kelly Knowles, Past Time, Past Place: GIS for History; and David J. Staley, Computers, Visualization, and History: How New Technology Will Transform Our Understanding of the Past.

Each student will complete a 12-15-page research paper in preparation for a "visualization" to be developed in consultation with the instructors.

Grading will be based on reading responses/class participation (30 percent); a 12-15-page research paper (35 percent), and the development and public presentation of the visualization (35 percent).

 

Media Studies

 

Department of Music

MUSI 212 – History of Jazz Music (4)

Instructor: Scott DeVeaux

1100-1150 MWF, MRY 209

Survey of jazz music from before 1900 through the stylistic changes and trends of the twentieth century; important instrumental performers, composers, arrangers, and vocalists.

No previous knowledge of music required.

MUEN 369 – African Music and Dance Ensemble (2)

Instructor: Michelle Kisliuk

1715-1915 TR, MRY 110

Hands-on course featuring drumming, dancing and singing from Ghana (Ewe) and from the Central African Republic. Public performance is expected. A guest artist will join us in residence for the final week of class and performance.

Prerequisite: Instructor permission by audition.

Note: Because the subject matter changes each semester, courses numbered MUEN 360-369 may be repeated for credit, but no more than eight performance credits may be applied toward the baccalaureate degree in the College.

MUSI 212 - History of Jazz (4)

Instructor: Scott Deveaux

1200-1250 MWF, WIL 301

Survey of jazz music from before 1900 through the stylistic changes and trends of the twentieth century; important instrumental performers, composers, arrangers, and vocalists.

MUSI 309 - Performance in Africa (4)

Instructor: Michelle Kisliuk

1600-1650 TR, MRY 110

An undergraduate seminar focusing on the cultural contexts and issues surrounding African music and dance.

There is also a practical component, which requires participation in the African Music and Dance Ensemble as part of the credit for Musi 369.

Admission by informal audition during first class meeting.

Department of Politics

PLAP 524B - Policy and Politics Inequality (3)

Instructor: Vesla Weaver

1900-2130 R, CAB B020

PLCP 581 - Government and Politics of Sub-Saharan Africa (3)

Instructor: Robert Fatton

1400-1630 M, CAB 320

Studies the government and politics of sub-Saharan Africa. Includes the colonial experience and the rise of African nationalism; the transition to independence; the rise and fall of African one-party states; the role of the military in African politics; the politics of ethnicity, nation- and state-building; patromonialism and patron-client relations; development problems faced by African regimes, including relations with external actors; and the political future of Southern Africa.

Prerequisite: Some background in comparative politics and/or history of Africa; not open to students who have taken PLCP 381.

Department of Psychology

(No courses offered for Spring 2009)

Department of Religious Studies

RELA 285 - Afro-Creole Religions of the Americas (3)

Instructor: Jalane Schmidt

1230-1345 TR, CAB 311

A lecture course with weekly discussion section meetings which surveys African-derived religions in Latin American and the Caribbean, such as Cuban Santeria, Brazilian Candomble, and Jamaican Rastafarianism.  A reading of contemporary ethnographic sources is supplemented by the screening of documentary films.

RELA 390 - Islam in Africa (3)

Instructor: Cynthia Hoehler-Fatton

1300-1350 MW, CAB 311

This course offers an historical and topical introduction to Islam in Africa. After a brief overview of the central features of the Muslim faith, our chronological survey begins with the introduction of Islam to North Africa in the 7th century. We will trace the transmission of Islam via traders, clerics, and jihads to West Africa. We shall consider the medieval Muslim kingdoms; the development of Islamic scholarship and the reform tradition; the growth of Sufi brotherhoods; and the impact of colonization and de-colonization upon Islam. Our overview of the history of Islam in East Africa will cover: the early Arab and Asian mercantile settlements; the flowering of classical Swahili courtly culture; the Omani sultanates and present-day Swahili society as well as recent "Islamist" movements in the Sudan and other parts of the East African interior.

 Readings and classroom discussions provide a more in-depth exploration of topics encountered in our historical survey. Through the use of ethnographical and literary materials, we will explore questions such as the translation and transmission of the Qur'an, indigenization and religious pluralism; the role of women in African Islam; and African Islamic spirituality. Midterm, final, short paper, participation in discussion.

RELA 410 - Yoruba Religions (3)

Instructor: Benjamin Ray

0930-1045 TR, CAB 210

An in depth study of Yoruba religion through its oral traditions, ritual performances, traditional art, independent churches, and its representation in literature. The course will cover the following subjects: Ifa divination; sacred kingship; the orisha; the concept of supreme being; plays by Ijimere, Soyinka, and Osofisan; Yoruba art and aesthetics; concepts of personal destiny, final judgment, and rebirth.

RELC 523 - Pentecostalism (3)

Instructor: Valerie Cooper

1530-1800 T, CAB 330

This course will study the history, practices, and theology, of Pentecostalism, the fastest growing Christian movement in the world, from its origins among poor whites and recently freed African Americans to its phenomenal expansion in places like South America, Asia and Africa. The course will explore Pentecostalism’s theological and historical relationship to the Methodist, Holiness, Apostolic, and Charismatic movements, as well as Pentecostal belief in phenomena like speaking in tongues, healing, miracles, and prophecy. Finally, the course will use race, class, and gender analysis to evaluate the cultural influences of Pentecostalism in the US and elsewhere in the world.

Department of Sociology

SOC 341 - Race and Ethnic Relations (3)

Instructor: Milton Vickerman

1400-1515 MW, WIL 216

Introduces the study of race and ethnic relations, including the social and economic conditions promoting prejudice, racism, discrimination, and segregation. Examines contemporary American conditions, and historical and international materials.

Studies in Women and Gender

SWAG 224 - Black Femininities and Masculinities in the U.S. Media (3)

Instructor: Lisa Shutt

1700-1930 TR, CLK G004

Restricted to first and second year students.

In weekly readings, writing and discussions we will explore the nature of the institution in which we all reside: the university. In order to focus on the role of gender and women as a central issue, we will learn how the American university was formed, how it developed over time and how it functions today. Some of the books we will read, in whole or in part: In the Company of Educated Women: A History of Higher Education in America (Barbara Solomon); The Making of the Modern University (Julie Reuben); Transforming Knowledge (Elizabeth Minnich); The Lecherous Professor (Deitz and Weiner); Exiles and Communities: Teaching in the Patriarchal Wilderness (Joanne Pagano); and The Blue Angel (Francine Prose).

SWAG 237 - Feminism in America, 1910 – Present (3)

Instructor: Cori Field

1100-1215 TR, MIN 130

This course will explore the history of feminism in America from the 1910s to the present day.  We will examine the various philosophies and strategies of people who have allied themselves with the feminist movement as well as those who have opposed it.  We will ask how activists imagined sexual equality and what reforms—political, legal, economic, cultural, or psychological—they proposed.  We will explore the connections between feminism and other movements including avant-garde modernism, labor organizing, black civil rights, pacifism, gay rights, and immigration reform.  By focusing on differences among women, we will debate whether there ever was—or could be—a woman’s rights movement that spoke to all women.

Most of the assigned readings are primary documents.  While I will provide short lectures introducing those documents, the majority of our class-time will be spent discussing and interpreting primary sources as a group.

This course meets the Second Writing Requirement.

Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese

(No courses offered for Spring 2009)