AFST 53535 - Black History for Educators: An Interdisciplinary Approach

Credits: 3

This course offers an interdisciplinary approach to examining African American history through several humanities disciplines, including History, English, Sociology, and Philosophy. Students will explore the rich and diverse culture of African Americans from pre-colonial West Africa to the present, gaining a broad but rigorous overview of the U.S. Black experience, with a particular focus on New Jersey’s Black communities. Major themes and historical figures will include Trans-Saharan trade and West African empires, U.S. Slavery and Emancipation, The Harlem Renaissance and Great Migration, Civil Rights/Black Power movements, the post-World War II urban crisis, Hip Hop culture, Black conservatism, and the Black Lives Matter movement. Students will examine the political experience of African Americans, a range of prominent thinkers like Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, Anna Julia Cooper, and Alain Locke along with a survey of writings by authors like Phillis Wheatley, Zora Neal Hurston, Audre Lorde, Thomas Sowell, Glen Loury, and Alicia Garza. Students will study a range of genres, including music, art, fiction, poetry, autobiography, and nonfiction, from the earliest published work by African Americans through to the present day. Finally, they will complete a capstone project that demonstrates their understanding of the comprehensive knowledge and innovative pedagogical approaches acquired during the course.

Course Attributes: GCAT, GRAD