AFCA 295 - Seminar in Africana Studies

Credits: 3 credits in fall or winter, 4 in spring
Planned Offering: Spring 2015.

Prerequisite: Completion of FW requirement. Students in this course study a group of African-American, African, or Afro-Caribbean works related by theme, culture, topic, genre, historical period, or critical approach. In the Spring Term version, the course involves field trips, film screenings, service learning, and/or other special projects, as appropriate, in addition to 8-10 hours per week of class meetings. May be repeated for degree credit if the topics are different.

Spring 2015 topic:

AFCA 295-01: From the Underground Railroad to Hip-Hop: Concepts of the Underground in Black Literature and Culture (4). This course is designed to explore the concept of the underground through various examples of underground literature, underground cultural and social movements as well as various films and music that configure the underground symbolically or literally with its main characters, settings, plots and themes. Whether it appears in literature, film, music, political movements, philosophy, or cultural theory, the underground signals one of the most complex formulations of human identity. The chronological range of this project extends roughly from the 19th century (slavery and the Underground Railroad) to the 21st century (including underground moments in black literature, film, and the underground constitutions of hip hop culture). The subject of the ‘underground’ is the consistent theme/thread throughout the course. (HU) J. Peterson. Spring 2015