Consult special listings
09W: 11, may also be offered in 2009-2010
A multidisciplinary investigation into the lives and cultures of people of African descent in the Americas. Topics may include: the African background, religion and the Black church, popular culture, slavery and resistance, morality and literacy, the Civil Rights Movement, Black nationalism, theories of race and race relations. Dist: SOC; WCult: CI. Favor.
Not offered in 2008-2009, may be offered in 2009-2010
Multidisciplinary in scope, the course will survey critical social change in African cultures and civilizations through a study of history, art, literature, religion, economy, and politics, paying particular attention to the cultural impacts colonial rule on contemporary societies and states. Dist: SOC; WCult: NW.
09S, 09F: 10
Not offered in the period from 08F through 10S
08F: 12
09S: 10A
09W: 12
09F: 12
Not offered in the period from 08F through 10S
10W: 2
08F: 10A
09S:12
09F: 3A
Not offered in the period from 08F through 10S
A cross-disciplinary study of the contributions and problems of African American intellectuals in the United States. Given time constraints, we will focus primarily on twentieth century figures and scholarship, to understand works by such thinkers as W.E.B. DuBois, Alain Locke, Zora Hurston, Carter Woodson, Ralph Ellison, E. Franklin Frazier, Angela Davis, Stephen Carter, Derrick Bell, Cornel West and Patricia Williams, as well as the social and intellectual contexts in which they found, and continue to find, themselves. Dist: SOC; WCult: CI. Favor.
Not offered in 2008-2009, may be offered in 2009-2010
08F: 2A 09F: Arrange
09W: 12
Not offered in the period 08F through 10S
08F, 09F: 10A
Associated Courses:
Geography 25 Social Justice and the City
Geography 43 Geographies of Latin America
09W, 10W: 2A
This interdisciplinary course explores the constructions of gender identities in different African sociocultural contexts. The emphasis is on contemporary Africa, although we will discuss some of the historical framework of these identities. We will read historical accounts of gender in some pre-colonial African societies, investigate the impact of colonialism, and examine gender in some anticolonial movements. We will also analyze gender in urban and rural contexts, and address such questions as homosexuality and gay rights. WCult: CI. Coly.
Not offered in the period from 08F through 10S
This course will examine different aspects of the female experience in Africa. Beginning with a consideration of roles of women in pre-colonial African societies, with particular reference to descent, marriage and the family, ritual and religion, productive and reproductive systems, and political organization, the focus will then move through the colonial and contemporary periods to assess changes in female roles. Contrasting experiences for contemporary African women will be emphasized through exploration of their participation in national liberation and politics, of urban and rural lifestyles, Muslim, Christian, and animist religious traditions, educational background, and status differences arising out of social class. The focus for the course includes an analysis of formal political, social, and economic institutions; yet it assumes that African society has been shaped as well by the ‘muted’ perceptions and models of society held by women themselves, and by social processes to which both females and males have contributed. Dist: INT; WCult: NW. Amadiume.
Not offered in the period from 08F through 10S
Not offered in the period from 08F through 10S
09S: 12 10W: 10
10S: 10A
Not offered in the period from 08F through 10S
09S: 2A, may also be offered in 2009-2010
Not offered in the period from 08F through 10S
Not offered in the period from 08F through 10S
This course examines the question of abuse of power and creative resistance in African political discourse in select writings and films. We will cover topics such as the consequences of the colonial experience on African cultures and societies; the struggle for cultural freedom; the new elites and the peasantry; gender and economic, cultural and political expressions of power. We will analyze award-winning films. We will also be reading novels by two African women writers, Flora Nwapa and Sindiwe Magona, and the work of a male writer, Chinua Achebe, and short extracts by other African writers. Dist: INT or SOC; WCult: NW. Amadiume.
09S, 10S: 10
This course examines the environmental history of Africa and Asia, focusing on the period of European colonialism and its aftermath. Topics include deforestation and desertification under colonial rule; imperialism and conservation; the consequences of environmental change for rural Africans and Asians; irrigation, big dams and transformations in water landscapes; the development of national parks and their impact on wildlife and humans; the environmentalism of the poor; urbanization and pollution; and global climate change in Africa and Asia. Dist: INT or SOC; WCult: NW. Haynes.
09S: 10A 10S: 2A
09S: 10A
Not offered in the period from 08F through 10S
This course focuses on the cinemas of Francophone Africa. We will begin with an examination of the early Western filmic representations of Africans as wild savages. We will then proceed to examine how African filmmakers have challenged those images by creating new depictions of their societies. We will explore the social, historical, and political contexts of these films as well as examine each of them closely to better understand their aesthetic and narrative characteristics. Dist: ART; WCult: NW.
Associated Courses:
Environmental Studies 40, Foreign Study in Environment Problems I
Environmental Studies 42, Foreign Study in Environment Problems II
Geography 16, The Political Economy of Development
History 5.8, Africa and the World
History 68, History of North Africa from the Arrival of Islam to the Present
History 69, Islam in Africa
History 96.2, Colonialism and Culture in Asia and Africa
Not offered in the period from 08F through 10S
This course examines the problems of the past and the present in the politics of culture. Facing, negotiating interconnections of race, class and social justice, we will analyze the many ways in which African ideas and experiences of Africa are reinvented in the minds and writings of African American women. When and how are African ideas based on ethnographic writings reinterpreted and mediated between African cultural values and a Western audience? We will study documentary films, fiction and nonfiction texts. Major writers include Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, etc. The course is multidisciplinary, combining religion, culture social history and oral traditions. Open to all students. Dist: SOC; WCult: NW. Amadiume.
08F: 12
09W: 11 10W: Arrange
Not offered in the period from 08F through 10S
09S: 2A
Associated Courses:
Film and Media Studies 47, Racialized Body: Popular Media
French 70, Francophone Literature (If related to the African diaspora)
History 6, Guerrilla Warfare, Counter-Insurgency and Movements of National Liberation in Asia, Africa and Latin America
Music 4, Global Sounds
Music 51, Oral Tradition Musicianship
Sociology 22, The Sociology of International Development
09W: 10A
09W: 3B
09S: 2A
African plants, cuisines and knowledge have long enriched the world’s diets and agrarian economies, yet in contemporary Africa millions suffer from hunger. This course explores both aspects of Africa’s food history, as well as the connections between them. The topics covered include traditional African foodways and their transatlantic and global spread, modern Africa’s experience of famine and food aid, and questions of race and food rights in the United States. Freidberg.
09W: 12
Not offered in the period from 08F through 10S
All terms: Arrange
Available to students who wish to independently explore aspects of African and African American Studies which are not included in courses currently offered at Dartmouth. Open to qualified students with permission of the course instructor and the Chair. (Obtain Proposal Form in the program office.) No student may take more than two such courses without the approval of the program.
Open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors. The AAAS faculty.
May be offered in 2009-2010
09S: 12
All Terms: Arrange
For senior African and African American Studies majors toward the culminating experience, with permission of selected instructor and the Chair. (Obtain Proposal Form in the program office.)
Two Terms of Senior Year: Arrange
The honors student will pursue the project under guidance of selected faculty member and with permission of the Chair. See “A Guide to Honors in African and African American Studies” in the program office.
