Courses

Africana Studies is an interdisciplinary and multi-method curriculum anchored by Black epistemologies. The range of subject areas covered include slavery, colonization, local Richmond history, gender and sexuality, and a variety of research methods. This approach provides students with the theoretical and methodological facility at the heart of Africana Studies and courses from the African descendent perspective in a variety of academic and cultural areas. 

Fall 2024 Africana Studies Courses

Introduction to Africana Studies 
TR 10:30 - 11:45 am
Deborwah Faulk
Introduction to Africana Studies introduces students to the breadth of motivations, dimensions, and consequences of African diasporic life and thought. Students will study the various interdisciplinary and thematic approaches to the field, including the history of Africana Studies as a discipline and its core research methodologies.

 

The Rumors of War Seminar
MW 1:30 - 2:45 pm
Jillean McCommons
The Rumors of War Seminar explores how the history of peoples of African descent, predating the modern concept of race, continues to impact the culture and lives of those in the African diaspora. The class emphasizes the legacies of slavery and colonization, including the role of race and place worldwide and in the history of the University and greater Richmond area.

Seminar:  "Sellout" Shades of Black Internal Alterities in the Americas
MW 10:30 - 11:45 am
Manuella Meyer
What does it mean to be a “sellout?” What is a Black white supremacist? These present-day questions inform this course. Along the way to understanding where these terms emerged, how they grew, and what works their modern rhetorical uses perform, this course examines carefully chosen moments in the historical development of Afro-descent people's socio-political, economic, and cultural ideologies that went against the grain of “blackness” in the Americas. Although oppressive conditions of enslavement, colonialism, de facto and de jure racial segregation have negatively affected the lives of Afro-descent people for centuries, the responses to anti-black racism have been far from monolithic. Whether it be nineteenth (19th) century Cuba, mid-twentieth (20th) century Brazil, or early twenty-first (21st) century United States, the course investigates instances of divergence within Afro-diasporic communities to help us understand black cultural diversity in new ways.

Africana Studies

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  • AFST 101 Introduction to Africana Studies

    Units: 1

    Description
    An interdisciplinary and thematic approach to the African diaspora throughout the Americas, including its motivations, dimensions, consequences, and the importance of its study. Beginning with the encounters between Africans and the Portuguese in the 15th century, this class will open up diverse paths of inquiry to understand the presence and implications of Africans in the New World.
  • AFST 201 The Rumors of War Seminar

    Units: 1

    Description
    The history of slavery and colonization with attention to the world before and after 1492. The course uses this approach to closely examine the history of the land of UR within a broader context of the 1492 moment, from the earliest days of the land being claimed by European settlers, to its purchase by free Black families, to its current owners - the University of Richmond.
  • AFST 301 Seminar in Africana Studies

    Units: 1

    Description
    Surveys multidisciplinary approaches to Africana Studies, with specific emphasis on the wide range of theories and methods employed by scholars in the field.

     

    Prerequisites

    AFST 101 or AFST 201 or permission of instructor.

  • AFST 400 The W.E.B. Du Bois Senior Seminar

    Units: 1

    Description
    In depth study of the work and life of one major scholar in the field (such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Angela Davis, Walter Rodney, Sylvia Wynter, C.L.R. James, Kwame Nkrumah, etc.). Serves as the main research capstone of the major, providing a foundational, historical analysis of the development of Black Studies, along with key theories of the field.

     

    Prerequisites

    AFST 101, AFST 201, and AFST 301.