Spring 2007

African-American and African Studies

AAS 102 - Crosscurrents of the African Diaspora (4)

Instructor: Claudrena Harold

TR 12:30 – 13:45

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 305 – African Politics, Literature, and Film (3)

Instructor: Andrew Lawrence

T 15:30-1800

WIL 141A

This course analyzes the intersection of the cultural and the political in contemporary sub-Saharan Africa through the media of literature and film. Together with background works discussing African historical and political developments, students will analyze and discuss some of the finest exemplars of world literature and film, including the work of such directors as David Achkar, Souleymane Cisse, Djibril Diop-Mambety, Flora Gomes, Gaston Kabore, Thomas Magotlane, Sembene Ousmane, Cheick Oumar Sissoko, and Jean-Marie Teno; and the work of authors including Chinua Achebe, J.M. Coetzee, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Bessie Head, Dambudzo Marechera, Zakes Mda, Njabulo Ndlebele, Sembene Ousmane, and Ngugi wa Thiongo. Themes include representations of Africa's precolonial and colonial past, negotiations of its present post-colonial realities, state and social power, changing gender relations, and traditions and modernities. Students will also evaluate the ways in which aesthetic approaches describe political themes; that is, the politics of culture as well as the culture of politics.

AAS 307: Afro-Brazilian History (3)

Instructor: Roquinaldo Ferreira

TR 12:30-13:45

GIL 141

This class will survey the history of Brazil from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries by highlighting issues related to the Afro-Brazilian population. The largest country in Latin America, Brazil was by far the single largest destination of the slave trade from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. No other country outside Africa has a larger population of African-descendants. The class deals with issues such as the rise of African slavery in sixteenth century Brazil, Brazilian links with West Africa and Central Africa until the mid-nineteenth century, Afro-Brazilian religions, resistance to slavery, and abolitionism. The class takes an approach to Brazilian history that emphasizes Brazil’s deep social, commercial and cultural links with Africa. In addition to lectures, movies/documentaries will be shown. Readings might include the following books: Hendrik Kraay, Afro-Brazilian Culture and Politics: Bahia, 1790s-1990s (NY, 1998); Matthew Restall (ed.), Beyond Black and Red: African-Native Relations in Colonial Latin America (Albuquerque, 2005); Stuart Schwartz, Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society: Bahia, 1550-1835 (Cambridge, 1988); Alida Metcalf, Go-Betweens and the Colonization of Brazil: 1500-1600 (Austin, 2006); Laura de Mello e Souza, The Devil and the Land of the Holy Cross: Witchcraft, Slavery, and Popular Religion in Colonial Brazil (Austin, 2004); James Sweet, Recreating Africa: Culture, Kinship, and Religion in the African-Portuguese World, 1441-1770 (Chapel Hill, 2003); David Eltis, Economic Growth and the Ending of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (New York, 1987).
(This course is cross-listed with HIST 307)

AAS 401: Independent Study (1-3)

Topic and requirements to be determined by the instructor and the student

AAS 402: Black Atlantic 1550-1850 (4)

Instructor: Roquinaldo Ferreira

R 15:30-18:00

CAB 335

This reading and discussion seminar problematizes the notion of the “Black Atlantic” as a conceptual framework to analyze the forced migration of Africans throughout the Atlantic. The class will place the development of the concept of the Black Atlantic against the backdrop of work by African-American and Caribbean intellectuals that argued for a pan-Africanist standpoint while analyzing the history of the African diaspora. The class combines readings in theory and methodology with readings dealing with the actual experiences of cultural and social interaction between Africans and Europeans around the Atlantic. It deals with issues such as mestiçagem, the formation of creole societies in Africa, and identity. Most of classes focus on the Northern Atlantic, but the class will also draw on examples from the Latin America – mainly Brazil – and Lusophone Africa. Readings include Herman Bennett, “The Subject in the Plot: National Boundaries and the ‘History’ of the Black Atlantic”, African Studies Review, 43 (2000); Charles Piot, “Atlantic Aporias: Africa and Gilroy’s Black Atlantic”. The South Atlantic Quarterly 100:1, Winter; Kristin Mann, “Shifting Paradigms in the Study of the African Diaspora and of Atlantic History and Culture”, Slavery and Abolition, 2001.
(This course is cross-listed as HIST 402A)

AAS 406A: Black Atlantic Representations of Violence (3)

Instructor: Régine Jean-Charles

M 15:30-18:00

MIN108

This course examines the phenomenon of violence in African-American, Caribbean, and African literatures and the development of discourses and the representations of violence throughout these literary histories. As we investigate these representations, we will also study discourses of violence along with some of the major debates surrounding violence in postcolonial contexts. In order to do so we will begin with Paul Gilroy’s concept on the shaping violence of The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. We will then travel through major historical moments in African Caribbean, and African-American literature in order to observe how representations of violence function in these contexts. To complement our conception of violence we will also refer to Hanna Arendt’s On Violence and Elaine Scarry’s The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World in order to situate the question of violence in a broader context. By framing our inquiry with Gilroy’s text, we initiate a movement that places emphasis on a network of ideas rather than geographic space. Thus the class is divided into two sections: the first “Moments in Black Atlantic Literatures,” does not chart a literal historic timeline, but rather a thematic one by looking at novels written in or based on particular moments in the histories of the Black Atlantic, in particular ancient times, slavery, colonization and deconolization. The second section, “Currents in Black Atlantic Literatures” is grouped around five categories that explore reappearing currents of significant cultural, social, historical, and political impact: immigration/migrations, sexual violence, state-sponsored violence, war and genocide. Through theoretical reading drawn from the fields of philosophy, trauma studies, feminist theory and postcolonial studies we will explore different ways of representing, reading, framing, and understanding violence in Black Atlantic literatures.

AAS 406B: Racial Geographies of Virginia (3)

Instructor: Ian Grandison

W 15:30-18:00

CAB 432

Even though its boundaries have become more uncertain, several notions still conjure the discipline of geography. Geography, we can reasonably assert, involves the objective investigation of places with the central purpose-albeit unspoken-of cataloging the earth's surface relative to opportunities and constraints for exploitation by humans. How does "race" fit into this project of geography? Does "human geography" or the headings, "demography," "population," "people," or "occupation" (intermingled as they are with such headings as "physical characteristics," "climate," "transport," or "towns") allow for engaging "race" critically as it is engaged in, say, cultural studies? To foreground this issue, in this experimental seminar, I am introducing the idea, "racial geography." Drawing on case-studies from the State of Virginia-including its historical configurations-we will try to develop themes and concepts to elucidate this idea. Consider, for example, the implications of a race-inflected exploration in the popular sub-discipline, urban geography. Quantitative and geometric models of urban distribution or pragmatic theories of urban siteing are of little use in understanding the location of Washington DC. No consideration of the "rank" and "size" of adjacent urban centers or of proximity to deep water for harbors or to gaps in a mountain barrier can explain this city was placed where it was placed at the turn of the nineteenth century. Why did the city, named after the foundingest of the founding fathers, remain a backwater for so long after the federal government relocated there? Chattel slavery was the reason for which urban location theory cannot account. It predetermined the fate of rival cities such as Quaker Philadelphia. It influenced the geography of the Civil War, and it explains why the Chesapeake from time to time still inundates facilities such as the National Archives as it seeks to reclaim its brackish swamps. Requirements of the seminar will include a mid-term exam and a research paper of 15 pages. Students should already have or be ready to develop the facility of interpreting and producing maps and other graphic materials. At the beginning of the semester, students will be asked to explain their motivations for wanting to participate in the seminar.

AAS 406C: Black Power and Revolutionary Politics

Instructor: Claudrena Harold

T 15:30-18:00

CAB 236

Tracing black women and men’s quest for political, economic, and cultural power from the Depression Years to the present, this seminar examines African Americans’ collective efforts to eradicate what philosopher Cornel West refers to as the “pervasive evil of unjustified suffering and unnecessary social misery in our world.” Significant attention will be given to black intellectuals and activists’ debates over the best way to deal with the economic consequences of white supremacy and global capitalism, the usefulness of armed self-defense as a weapon in the fight against racial injustice, and the problem of sexism within the black liberation movement. To better understand the diversity and breadth of black oppositional activity in the twentieth-century, students will examine the protest activities of a number of black leaders, cultural artists, and movement organizations. Organizations and activists to be examined include but are not limited to W.E.B. Du Bois, Paul Robeson and the Council of African Affairs, Ella Baker and SNCC, Malcolm X and the Organization of Afro-American Unity, Angela Davis and the American Communist Party, Amiri Baraka and the Black Arts Movement, Huey Newton and the Black Panther Party, Fannie Lou Hamer and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, Toni Cade Bambara, the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, and the more recent Black Radical Congress. Over the course of the semester, students will be introduced to the research methods and techniques used by historians. We will not only explore historians’ use of oral and written texts, but will also reflect on the ways in which scholars’ theoretical and political viewpoints inform their interpretation of primary sources. Students will have the opportunity to further develop their historical skills through a series of assignments designed to assist them in identifying research topics and questions; interpreting primary texts; and substantiating arguments with historical evidence.
(This course is cross-listed as HIUS 401K)

AAS 406 E - Afro-Brazilian Civilization (3)

Instructor: David Haberly

MWF 11:00-11:50

CAB 320

A general introduction, in English, to the literature and culture of Brazil from 1500 to the present, with special emphasis upon the role of Afro-Brazilians in the creation of that literature and culture. No knowledge of Portuguese is required, and lectures and readings will be in English. The course includes discussions of the nation's social and historical development, but these topics will be presented through readings in the major works of Brazilian literature, including the works of important Afro-Brazilian authors. (Enrollment restricted to participants in Brazil Study Abroad program.
(Cross-listed with POTR 427.)

AAS 451: Directed Research/DMP (3)

AAS 452: Thesis/DMP (3)

 

Department of Anthropology

ANTH 225: Nationalism, Racism, Culture, Multiculturalism (3)

Instructor: Richard Handler

MW 14:00-15:15

MRY 209

Introductory course in which the concepts of culture, multiculturalism, race, racism, and nationalism are critically examined in terms of how they are used and structure social relations in American society and, by comparison, how they are defined in other cultures throughout the world.

ANTH 388: Archaeology of Africa (3)

Instructor: Adria LaViolette

TR 9:30-10:45

CAB 316

This course surveys the archaeological knowledge currently available about the African continent. The emphasis will be on the Late Stone Age, when fully modern humans dominate the cultural landscape, and the subsequent Iron Age, but will also briefly cover pre-modern humans and the archaeology of the colonial period. We will discuss the great social, economic, and cultural transformations in African history known primarily through archaeology, and the most important archaeological sites and discoveries on the continent.

ANTH 401C: Contemporary African Societies (3)

Instructor: LaViolette

TR 1230-1345

CAB 331

This course engages the human landscape of modern Africa, through the close reading of a selection of monographs and African feature films from diverse cultural and geographical areas. The main texts are drawn from fiction, ethnography, and social history, and are taught against a backdrop of economic strategies, forms of social organization, and challenges facing modern African women and men. We will discuss urban dwellers and rural farmers, both the elite and poor, and the forces that draw them together; transnational migration; and belief systems. How relationships between men and women are contextualized and negotiated is a theme found throughout the readings and films, as well as the struggle of people in different circumstances to build new relationships with older beliefs and practices, and with new forms of government. Meets second writing requirement.

ANTH 528: Topics in Race Theory: White Supremacy (3)

Instructor: Wende Marshall

R 1900-2130

CAB 426

What is "White Supremacy"? Who is 'white"? How does an emphasis on race (i.e. "racism" and "race relations") obscure the relationship between white power and class oppression? What is to be gained by discourses that pathologize "blacks" and render "white" behavior normative? With attention to both discourse and practice the course will explore the meaning and power of whiteness. Satisfies second writing requirement.

 

Common Courses

CCFA 202: Arts and Cultures of the Slave South (4)

Instructors: Maurie McInnis and Louis Nelson

MW 15:30-16:45

PHS 203

An exploration of the interrelations between history, material and visual cultures, music, and literature in the formation of Southern identities. The course covers subjects ranging from the archaeology of seventeenth-century Virginia and the formation of African American spirituals, to creolization and ethnicities in Louisiana, to the plantation architectures of the big house and outbuildings and the literary traditions of antebellum women. Students are 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. (Y)

CCSS 200: Rural Poverty in Our Time (3)

Instructor: Grace Hale

R 15:30-17:20

WIL 402

This course will use an interdisciplinary format to 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 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 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).

 

Department of English

ENAM 314: African American Survey II (3)

Instructor: Lisa Woolfork

TR 11:00-12:15

CAB 323

Continuation of ENAM 313, this course begins with the career of Richard Wright and brings the Afro-American literary and performing tradition up to the present day.

ENAM 482D: African-American Speculative Fiction (3)

Instructor: Lisa Woolfork

TR 9:30-10:45

BRN 330

No description available.

ENAM 482E: The Harlem Renaissance (3)

Instructor: Deborah McDowell

TR 11:00-12:15

BRN 328

No description available.

ENCR 482 - Race in American Places (3)

Instructor: Ian Grandison

M 15:30-18:00

BRN 334

Do assumptions about race operate when we consider the idea of an “American Place?” This interdisciplinary seminar interrogates this question by exploring place in America within the context of contemporary culture wars, especially as these are circumscribed by the concept of race. We consider, for instance, how place is embroiled in the ideological work of distinguishing people according to identity and, then, of fixing identity groups within unyielding hierarchies. How, for example, does the seemingly innocuous story of The Three Little Pigs lead us to assume particular racial attributes of each pig based on the materials—straw, say, versus brick—and architectural styles—hut, say, versus cottage— of the house each builds? Do we identify people as “primitive” or “destitute” because they live in, say, wooden shacks. Do we assume that such people cannot govern themselves and, so, are unworthy of autonomy? We consider how such conflation of race and place are reinforced not only by social custom but also by planning and design policy and practice that define and rigorously maintain separate often unequal racial territories. Have you considered the ways in which such places as Charlottesville’s celebrated Downtown Mall, for example, might be configured or programmed to encourage symbolic ownership by one or other racial group? How the advent of Homeowners’ Associations maintains racial territories against the force of legal desegregation? Does the concurrency of homelessness and home-owners-associations in American society suggest anything about prevailing assumptions about a relationship between our right to privacy and our racial and class identity? We explore such issues through targeted discussion of readings; mandatory visits to places around Charlottesville; informal workshops (mainly to develop the ability to interpret maps, plans, and other graphic representations of places); and in-class presentations. Requirements include three informal small group exercises, an individual site-visit comment paper, a mid-term and final exam, and a group research project. The last requirement is presented in an informal symposium that represents the culmination of the semester.

ENCR 482A: Critical Race Theory (3)

Instructor: Marlon Ross

MW 15:30-16:45

MCL 2008

No description available.

ENGN 482/ENMC482A: African American Drama (3)

Instructor: Lotta Lofgren

TR 12:30 – 13:45

WIL 141B

We will survey African-American drama from the 1950's to the present. We will place the drama in relation to established norms, investigating the motives and methods of the playwrights for carving out new ground. We will examine the shared and divergent concerns of male and female playwrights, their sense of audience, the dilemma of writing as an individual and as a member of a group silenced too long, their relationship to the past, the present, and the future. We will also examine the changing definitions of the black aesthetic. Playwrights include, among others, James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry, Amiri Baraka, Ntozake Shange, August Wilson, and Suzan-Lori Parks.

ENLT 214M: Southern Literature (3)

Instructor: Morgan Myers

TR 9:30-10:45

PHS 205

No description available.

ENLT 255M: Race in American Culture (3)

Instructor: Sylvia Chong

MW 15:30-16:45

CAM 423

No description available.

ENWR 106: Rap as an Art Form (3)

Instructor: Jason Nabi

TR 9:30-10:45

BRN 310

No description available.

ENWR 106: Race in the U.S. (3)

Instructor: Brian Roberts

TR 12:30-13:45

BRN 330

No description available.

ENWR 110: Africa Speaks (3)

Instructor: Z’etoile Imma

MWF 11-11:50

MCL 2007

No description available.

 

Department of History

HIAF 100: African Encounters with the Others (3)

Instructor: Laura Stokes

T 13:00-15:30

CAB B021

No description available.

HIAF 201: Early African History (4)

TR 9:30-10:45

Instructor: Joseph Miller

RFN G004B

Starting broadly at the dawn of history and continuing in detail from the millennium before the Present Era, HIAF 201 follows the sometimes-surprising ways in which village elders, women, merchants, kings, cattle lords, and ordinary farmers pursued meaningful lives without the technologies that modern Americans take for granted. The last third of the course examines the ironic interplay of tragedy and ambition in a continent increasingly trapped in exiling its own people in slavery to Europeans, until the Atlantic slave trade began to wind down after about 1800. HIAF 201 is a lower-division introductory survey and presumes no prior knowledge of Africa or experience with the study of history. Students in all four years of their undergraduate careers and in all colleges of the University complete HIAF 201 with success. Beyond the Afro-American and African Studies curriculum, the course meets the "non-western/non-modern" requirement for the major in History and qualifies for the College "non-western perspectives" area requirement.

HIAF 404: Independent Study in African History (1-3)

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.

HILA 402A: Globalization in Latin American (4)

Instructor: Brian Owensby

R 13:00-15:30

BRN 332

In this advanced undergraduate colloquium we will explore the idea of “globalization” from the perspective of Latin America’s 500-year history of engagement with global phenomena. While globalization has become a buzzword in recent years, it has a long history in Latin America, from Spain’s 16th-century “conquest” of indigenous America, to the slave trade to places such as Brazil and Cuba, to the trans-Atlantic intellectual exchanges of the late 18th century, to the effects on Indian villages as Latin American countries began to participate in the international economy as providers of raw materials and commodities in the 19th century, to the rebellion of the Zapatistas in southern Mexico in the 1990s against NAFTA. Through a wide variety of texts and films we will seek a critical perspective on globalization as a broad historical process that must be understood in relation to local histories and happenings. The course will satisfy the second writing requirement. Enrollment will be limited to 12.

HILA 402B: Latin American In Quest of Identity (4)

Instructor: Herbert Braun

T 15:30-18:00

MCL 2007

In Latin America the search for identity has been a plural endeavor. Latin Americans have asked, “Who are we? Rarely have they asked, “Who am I? “Who are we? What kind of a people are we? What kind of a civilization? What is our destiny? What are the causes of our backwardness? What lies in our future? These thoughts run through the writings of almost all of Latin America’s great thinkers.
The course will be divided into two parts: In the first eight weeks we will read together from the writings of some of those great thinkers, including Bolívar, Sarmiento, Andrés Bello, José María Luis Mora, Lucas Alamán, Alcides Arguedas, Francisco Bulnes, José Ingenieros, José Enrique Rodó, José Martí, José Carlos Mariátegui, Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, Edmundo O’Gorman, Leopoldo Zea, Octavio Paz.
Students in this course will write a final interpretive essay on this quest for identity based on our readings of historical and contemporary writers. This essay will be between twenty and thirty pages in length.

HILA 404: Independent Study in Latin American History (1-3)

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.

HIST 307: Afro-Brazilian History (3)

Instructor: Roquinaldo Ferreira

TR 12:30-13:45

GIL 141

This course is cross-listed as AAS 307. See description in the AAS section, above.

HIST 402A: Black Atlantic 1550-1850 (4)

Instructor: Roquinaldo Ferreira

R 15:30-18:00

CAB 335

This course is cross-listed as AAS 402. See description in the AAS section, above.

HIUS 309 - Civil War and Reconstruction (3)

Prof. Gary Gallagher

TR 8:00 – 9:15

WIL 301

This course explores the era of the American Civil War with emphasis on the period 1861-1865. It combines lectures, readings, films, and class discussion to address such questions as why the war came, why the North won (or the Confederacy lost), how the war affected various elements of society, what was left unresolved at the end of the fighting, and how subsequent generations of Americans understood the conflict's meanings. Although this is not a course on Civil War battles and generals, about 50 per cent of the time in class will be devoted to military affairs, and we will make a special effort to tie events on the battlefield to life behind the lines. The course will be organized in two lecture meetings a week. Grades will be based on two geography quizzes (each 5% of the course grade), two take-home examinations (each 35% of the course grade), and a 7-page paper that integrates material from the lectures, readings, and films (20% of the course grade). Note: This course does not satisfy the second writing requirement. Required Books (some substitutions may be made): Edward Porter Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy; John Q. Anderson, ed., Brokenburn: The Journal of Kate Stone, 1861-1868; Ira Berlin and others, eds., Free at Last; Jean Berlin, ed., Letters of a Civil War Nurse; Andrew Delbanco, ed., The Portable Abraham Lincoln; A. J. L. Fremantle, Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 186; Glenn Linden and Thomas Pressly, eds., Voices from the House Divided; Frank Wilkeson, Turned Inside Out: Recollections of a Private Soldier.

HIUS 316: Viewing America 1945 to the Present (3)

Instructor: Brian Balogh

MW 10:00 – 10:50

GIL 150

This course will examine how Americans experienced some of the major events that shaped their lives. We will view what millions of Americans did by watching feature films, news reels, and footage from popular television shows and news broadcasts. We will also read primary and secondary texts that explore among other topics, the domestic impact of World War II, America's reaction to the atomic bomb, the rise of the military-industrial-university complex, the emergence of the Cold War, the culture of anxiety that accompanied it, suburbanization, the "New Class" of experts, the Civil Rights movement, changing gender roles in the work place and at home, the origins and implications of community action and affirmative action, the War in Vietnam, the Great Society, the counterculture, Watergate, the environmental movement, challenges to the authority of expertise, the decline of political parties, structural changes in the economy, the mobilization of interest groups from labor to religious organizations, the emergence of the New Right, the challenge to big government, the end of the Cold war, and the role of the electronic media in politics.

HIUS 324 - 20th Century South (3)

Instructor: Lori Schuyler

MW 9:00 – 9:50

RFN G004A

This course will explore the social, cultural, political, and economic history of the South in the twentieth century. Major themes of the course will include the rise and fall of legalized segregation, the development of a viable Republican party in the region, the role of southern reformers and activists, and the importance of historical memory. We will examine major events in the region from the perspectives of black southerners and white southerners, men and women, sharecroppers and landowners, Republicans and Democrats, moderates and activists. Readings for the course may include: W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk; Grace Lumpkin, To Make My Bread, Christopher MacGregor Scribner, Renewing Birmingham: Federal Funding and the Promise of Change, 1929-1979; Anne Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi.

HIUS 350: Work, Poverty and Welfare: 20th Century U.S. Social Policy (3)

Instructor: Guian McKee

TR 15:30-16:45

CAB 345

This course will examine the historical relationship between work, poverty, and the development of social policy in the United States during the twentieth century. Particular emphasis will be placed on the changing structure of the American workplace, shifts in societal conceptions about the place of the state in American life, and alterations in both the nature of poverty and perceptions of the poor in the United States. We will focus, however, on the interaction of these issues with social policy, broadly defined, as well as the role of race, gender, and political economy in defining these important dimensions of twentieth century American life. As a result, the course will approach the history of American social policy from the “ground up” and from the “top down”: we will study both the development of broad public policy structures and the experiences of Americans (both elites and non-elites) who determined the course of such policies and lived with their results. Students will engage in detailed historical explorations of maternalist welfare policies, progressivism, labor organizing, workplace reform, Social Security, AFDC (welfare), economic planning, public housing, urban renewal, employment policy, job training, the War on Poverty, Medicare and Medicaid, the welfare rights movement, and the reaction against the welfare state. The course will conclude with an examination of critical social policy developments in the last fifteen years, including the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, the failure of the Clinton health care plan, and recent proposals for social security and Medicare reform.
While primarily a lecture course, this class will provide extensive opportunities for student discussion of assigned readings and other materials. Course requirements will include a research paper of approximately 10 pages, a mid-term and final, regular attendance, and active participation in class discussions. The weekly reading will average 150 pages. Texts may include Michael B. Katz, In the Shadow of the Poorhouse: A Social History of Welfare in America; Theda Skocpol, Social Policy in the United States: Future Possibilities in Historical Perspective; Jennifer Klein, For All These Rights: Business, Labor, and the Shaping of America's Public-Private Welfare State; Ira Katznelson, When Affirmative Action Was White; David Shipler, The Working Poor: Invisible in America, as well as scholarly articles, primary sources, films, and other historical material.

HIUS 362: Women in America, 1869 to the Present

Instructor: Ann Lane

MW 11:00-11:50

MIN 125

This course will examine women's activities and consciousness from the last half of the nineteenth century to the present. We will pay special attention to how social and economic changes that accompanied industrialization and urbanization influenced women's lives and to the importance of race and class as categories for understanding women's experiences. The topics we will examine will include domestic and family roles, economic contributions, reproductive experience, and public activities. Reading will average about 200 pages per week.

Some of the required books for this course will be:
Dorothy Richardson, The Long Day
Beth Bailey, From Front Porch to Back Seat
Ann Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi
Mary Odem, Delinquent Daughters
Susan Douglas, Where the Girls Are

There will also be a packet of articles that will be part of the required reading for the course. There will be one midterm, one five to eight page paper, and a final examination. Each week we will have two lectures and one required discussion section.

HIUS 366 – African American History Since 1860 (3)

Instructor: Reginald Butler

MWF 13:00-13:50

CAB 316

This lecture course explores the history and culture of African Americans in the United States. We will examine some of the major themes, problems, events, structures, and personalities, paying particular attention to how African Americans themselves shaped their experiences. We will devote some portion of each class to the close examination of primary sources, with a particular focus on the historical implications for contemporary African American lived experiences.
Course requirements include written weekly reading responses, a short paper, midterm, and final.

Texts may include:
Eric Foner, A Short History of Reconstruction;
Leon Litwack, Trouble in Mind; Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow;
Steven Hahn, Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration,
Theodore Rosengarten, All God's Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw;
Tera Hunter, To 'Joy My Freedom;
Richard Wright, Black Boy.

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

Instructor: Julian Bond

T 15:30-17:30

WIL 402

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-lead, 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 and videos:
Roy Wilkins (with Tom Matthews), Standing Fast; James Forman, The Making of Black Revolutionaries; Julian Bond and Andrew Lewis, Gonna Sit at the Welcome Table, "Eyes on the Prize - America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965", # 1 to 6; "America at the Racial Crossroads, 1965 - 1985,” # 1 and 2; "The Road to Brown.”

HIUS 401C: Free Blacks in Urban and Rural America, 1776-1865 (4)

Instructor: Reginald Butler

T 13:00 – 15:30

CAB 242

American independence from Great Britain produced a revolutionary change in African American life. Condemned to perpetual, hereditary slavery by more than a century of British-American law and custom, African Americans seized the moment to challenge their subordinate place in American society and recast themselves as free and equal citizens. Sympathetic whites, moved by trans-Atlantic currents both secular and spiritual, took their first, cautious steps toward ending the African slave trade and gradually abolishing slavery. In the North and West, the slow death of slavery by court decree, legislative act, and constitutional provision gave rise to "coloured" enclaves in urban areas such as Boston, Providence, New York, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati. In the South, liberalized manumission laws produced substantial populations of "free blacks" or "free persons of color" in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Richmond, Charleston, and New Orleans. The rapid growth of these quasi-free communities (with their rural counterparts), coupled with growing restiveness among the slaves (as evidenced by the Haitian Revolution and, closer to home, the widely publicized slave conspiracies led by Gabriel, Denmark Vesey, and Nat Turner), produced a repressive, frequently violent white backlash with the openly stated aim of free black colonization or removal. How did "free black" urban and rural enclaves - like the much-celebrated "maroons" of Jamaica and "quilombos" of Brazil - defend themselves against the hostile forces arrayed against them? What strategies did they employ to preserve their fragile hold on freedom and forestall their deportation and dispersal?
Students in this course will conduct original archival research and write a major paper on the theme of "Free Black Life in Urban and Rural America." Possible research topics include:
• Education/literacy
• Apprenticeship
• Property ownership
• Geographic mobility/migration
• Free Blacks as slave holders
• The Canadian experience
• Institution-building (churches, schools, voluntary associations, etc.)
• Social/economic relations with "white" patrons
• Political activity
• Family life
• Mob violence and strategies for communal self-defense
• Ideologies of "race" and "color"
• Collective memory
• Social movements (emigration, colonization, abolition, civil rights, suffrage, etc.)
• Occupational status/class stratification within the "free black" caste
Students may be assigned chapters or excerpts from the following: Ira Berlin, Slaves Without Master: The Free Negro in the Antebellum South; Gary Nash, Forging Freedom: The Formation of Philadelphia's Black Community, 1720-1840; David Gellman, Jim Crow New York: A Documentary History of Race and Citizenship, 1777-1877; Thelma Foote, Black and White Manhattan: The History of Racial Formation in Colonial New York City; W. Jeffrey Bolster, Black Jacks: African American Seamen in the Age of Sail; Patrick Rael, Black Identity and Black Protest in the Antebellum North; Christopher Phillips, Freedom's Port: The African American Community of Baltimore,1790-1860; Gregg D. Kimball, American City, Southern Place: A Cultural History of Antebellum Richmond; Judith Kelleher Schafer, Becoming Free, Remaining Free: Manumission and Enslavement in New Orleans, 1846-1862; and Melvin Ely, Israel on the Appomattox: A Southern Experiment in Black Freedom from the 1790s Through the Civil War.

HIUS 401D: Remembering the Civil War, 1815 to Today (4)

Instructor: Matthew Speiser

R 15:30-1800

WIL 141A

This course is a seminar in which students will investigate the role of memory in history, by exploring how American memories of the Civil War have changed (and, in some cases, stayed the same) from the immediate wake of Appomattox to the present day. The course will examine the legacies of Union victory, Confederate defeat, slavery, emancipation, and Reconstruction in American culture. Students will explore key aspects of Civil War memory, including its prominent role in society and how competing memories have emerged, evolved, clashed, and weakened among different individuals, groups, regions, and eras.
Class discussions will focus on memory’s role in society, specifically regarding how Americans have remembered Civil War-era historical figures, their ideas, and their actions, as well as the societies, events, and circumstances surrounding them. We will examine how different people can remember the same event in different ways: how history can shift according to the eye of the beholder.
The readings in this class will examine the study of memory, memory’s place in academic as well as popular culture, and conscious attempts to shape American memory, as well as broader manifestations of Civil War memory throughout society, in fiction, film, scholarship, journalism, speechmaking, and other components of American culture. Each week, the reading selections will total between 200 and 300 pages. We will read some work from historians about Civil War memory, such as segments from David Blight’s Race and Reunion. Many of the readings will be primary sources, such as The Frederick Douglass Papers and a handbook celebrating the Civil War centennial in the 1960s. We will also read fictional and personal books like Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels and segments from Tony Horwitz’s Confederates in the Attic. Students will expand upon the class’s themes by writing a 25-page research paper grounded in primary documents.
For generations, Americans have debated the social, cultural, and political implications of mass migration from Europe, Africa, and Asia, and Latin America and the resulting ethnic-racial demographies for "our" national identity. In this seminar, students will combine traditional archival research with new technologies to explore the impact of African and African-American migration and settlement patterns on American culture and society. We will examine major themes and key episodes from each era of American history -- Colonial, Revolutionary, Early National, Antebellum, Civil War/Reconstruction, Jim Crow/Civil Rights - in preparation for our own, broadly collaborative digital history research projects. Students will be introduced to seminal texts, archival collections at U.Va., as well as relevant digital resources, including the Transatlantic Slaving Database; Virtual Jamestown; Virginia Runaways; Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the Civil War; American Memory; Historical Census Data Browser; Civil War Newspapers; and Race and Place. Students will be graded on the following basis: 50 % on the web-based exhibit that their team constructs; 25 % on an online journal chronicling the student's experience with creating digital history; 25 % on individual participation and work in the course. Each team will present a demonstration of its project in the last week of the course.

HIUS 401E: Digital History Seminar: Mapping the Impact of African and African-American Demographies on American Culture and Society (4)

Instructor: Scot French

W 15:30-18:00

Ruffner 227B

For generations, Americans have debated the social, cultural, and political implications of mass migration from Europe, Africa, and Asia, and Latin America and the resulting ethnic-racial demographies for "our" national identity. In this seminar, students will combine traditional archival research with new technologies to explore the impact of African and African-American migration and settlement patterns on American culture and society. We will examine major themes and key episodes from each era of American history -- Colonial, Revolutionary, Early National, Antebellum, Civil War/Reconstruction, Jim Crow/Civil Rights -- in preparation for our own, broadly collaborative digital history research projects. Students will be introduced to seminal texts, archival collections at U.Va., as well as relevant digital resources, including the Transatlantic Slaving Database; Virtual Jamestown; Virginia Runaways; Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the Civil War; American Memory; Historical Census Data Browser; Civil War Newspapers; and Race and Place. Students will be graded on the following basis: 50 % on the web-based exhibit that their team constructs; 25 % on an online journal chronicling the student's experience with creating digital history; 25 % on individual participation and work in the course. Each team will present a demonstration of its project in the last week of the course.

HIUS 401F: The Law and Politics of Slavery in the Early Republic (4)

Instructor: George Van Cleve

R 15:30-18:00

CAB 331

This seminar will explore how American slavery changed during the period 1770-1821, emphasizing how political and legal changes during that period affected the institution. The seminar will begin with four weeks of readings and discussions on various aspects of slavery and related developments during the early Republic. Readings will consider social and economic changes during this period that affected slavery, as well as the major reasons for its growth, differentiation, and geographic expansion. Readings will also address key political developments, such as the treatment of slavery in the Constitution and disputes over the expansion of slavery into territories and new States (e.g., the Louisiana Purchase, the Missouri Compromise). Finally, readings will consider legal developments such as the abolition of slavery in the northern states, and laws concerning the abuse of slaves. Students will be expected to read approximately 150 pages per week during the first four weeks. Students will also be expected to participate in primary source research training sessions in Alderman Library and the Small Special Collections Library. Students will choose topics for research papers that will be completed during the remaining weeks of the course, and presented in final course meetings at the end of the semester. A paper of approximately twenty-five pages based on primary source research will be required (85% of grade). Class and training participation will account for 15% of the grade. This course fulfills the second writing requirement.
Preliminary readings may include portions of the following: Robert William Fogel, Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery; Peter Kolchin, American Slavery, 1619-1877; Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America; Don E. Fehrenbacher, The Slaveholding Republic (ed. and completed by Ward McAfee); Paul Finkelman, “Slavery and the Constitutional Convention: Making a Covenant with Death,” in Richard Beeman, Stephen Botein, and Edward C. Carter II, eds., Beyond Confederation); Peter S. Onuf, Jefferson’s Empire: The Language of American Nationhood; Arthur Zilversmit, The First Emancipation; Thomas D. Morris, Southern Slavery and the Law, 1619-1860; Leonard L. Richards, The Slave Power; Philip D. Morgan, “Black Society in the Lowcountry, 1760-1810,” in Ira Berlin and Ronald Hoffman, eds. Slavery and Freedom in the Age of the American Revolution; Allan Kulikoff, “Uprooted Peoples: Black Migrants in the Age of the American Revolution, 1790-1820” in ibid.; Douglas R. Egerton, “Gabriel’s Conspiracy and the Election of 1800”; U.S. House of Representatives, Annals of Congress, 1st Cong. (February-March 1790); Philip D. Morgan, “The Poor: Slaves in Early America,” in David Eltis, Frank D. Lewis, and Kenneth L. Sokoloff eds., Slavery in the Development of the Americas.

HIUS 401J: Towns and Commerce in the Slave South, 1800-1860 (4)

Instructor: Amanda Mushal

M13:00-15:30

RFN 227B

As centers of commerce, shipping, and social and political engagement, towns and cities helped shape the history of the slave South. Yet southern history has generally been written as the history of an agricultural region. How did southern towns relate to plantation society? This course challenges students to explore the physical structure of southern towns, town as centers of social, economic, and political networks, ways in which race and slavery shaped and were shaped by urban environments, and the role of towns in discussions of southern distinctiveness, slavery and industrialization, and the development of southern nationalism.
This seminar is designed to introduce students to major issues in antebellum southern urban history, as well as to the resources available to scholars in this field. During the first part of the course, we will meet weekly to discuss assigned readings. Texts will include selections from Gregg Kimball, American City, Southern Place: A Cultural History of Antebellum Richmond, Edward D.C. Campbell, Jr., and Kym S. Rice, eds., African-American Life in the Antebellum South, Lisa Tolbert, Constructing Townscapes: Space and Society in Antebellum Tennessee, and William H. Pease and Jane H. Pease, The Web of Progress: Private Values and Public Styles in Boston and Charleston, 1828-1843, as well as other essays and journal articles. We will consider key issues raised by the authors as well as their use of historical evidence. We will also examine antebellum newspaper articles, public records, and other primary documents which students may wish to engage in their research projects.

HIUS 40IK: Black Power and Revolutionary Politics

Instructor: Claudrena Harold

T 15:30-18:00

CAB 236

This course is cross-listed as AAS 406C. See the description in the AAS section, above.

 

Department of Music

MUSI 207 - Roots Music in America (3)

Instructor: Richard Will

MW 11:00 – 11:50

WIL 301

According to mainstream media, "roots music" like gospel, blues, country, folk, and bluegrass nourishes more popular genres such as rock and hip-hop, while also expressing the emotional and social concerns of (mainly) rural African-American and White American communities. We will examine both claims by studying the origins and development of roots genres and the way they are depicted in films, criticism, politics, and elsewhere.

MUSI 208 - African American Gospel Music (3)

Instructor: Melvin Butler

MW 12-12:50

MIN 125

No description available.

 

Department of Politics

PLAP 370 - Racial Politics (3)

Instructor: Lynn Sanders

TR 11:00 – 11:50

PHS 204

Examines how attributions of racial difference have shaped American Politics. Topics include how race affects American political partisanship, campaigns and elections, public policy, public opinion, and American political science. Prerequisite: One course in PLAP or instructor permission.

PLAP 382: Civil Liberties and Civil Rights (3)

Instructor: David Obrien

MW 13:00 – 13:50

WIL 301

Studies judicial construction and interpretation of civil rights and liberties reflected by Supreme Court decisions. Includes line-drawing between rights and obligations.

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

Instructor: Robert Fatton

M 13:00 – 15:30

CAB 318

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.

PLIR 424A: International Relations in Southern Africa (3)

Instructor: Andrew Lawrence

R 15:30-18:00

CAB 316

No description available.

 

Department of Religious Studies

RELA 279: African Ritual and Religion (3)

Instructor: Njoki Osotsi

TR 14:00- 15:15

HAL 123

The class is a survey of African traditional religions with special emphasis on ritual. The central goal of the course is to introduce the students to a wide variety of religious practices in Africa, both indigenous and foreign. The class will study the African traditional approach to the sacred in the traditional and mainstream religions. A range of religious and ritual performances, including initiations and healing rituals will be studied, with the aim of engaging the students' minds and curiosity in the great diversity. The course requires the students to question their basic perspectives, assumptions and biases particularly regarding non-western religions and cultures. The class will achieve these objectives through relevant readings, lectures, movies and discussions. By the end of the class, it is hoped that the student will have broadened their views on religion, especially as it is practiced in Africa. Final exam; 2 quizzes; two short essays.

RELA 410 - Yoruba Religions (3)

Prof. Benjamin Ray

TR 9:30 – 10:45

CAB 210

Studies Yoruba traditional religion, ritual art, independent churches, and religious themes in contemporary literature in Africa and the Americas.

 

Department of Sociology

SOC 487: Immigration (3)

Instructor: Milton Vickerman

MW 15:30 – 16:45

CAB 316

Examines contemporary immigration into the United States from the point of view of key theoretical debates and historical circumstances that have shaped current American attitudes toward immigration.
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Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese

POTR 427 - Afro-Brazilian Civilization (3)

Instructor: David Haberly

MWF 11:00 – 11:50

CAB 320

A general introduction, in English, to the literature and culture of Brazil from 1500 to the present, with special emphasis upon the role of Afro-Brazilians in the creation of that literature and culture. No knowledge of Portuguese is required, and lectures and readings will be in English. The course includes discussions of the nation's social and historical development, but these topics will be presented through readings in the major works of Brazilian literature, including the works of important Afro-Brazilian authors.