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AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES PROGRAM
INTRODUCTION TO AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY & STUDIES
Professor Maceo Crenshaw Dailey, Jr., Ph.D. HIST 3329 AFST 2300
Director of African American Studies Program TR
Associate Professor, Department of History LART301
LiberalArtsBuilding, Room 401 12:00 – 1:20 p.m.
Telephone 747-8650
Spring 2005
SYLLABUS
Time permitting, all topics listed below will be considered this semester, although not necessarily in the order presented. Students would be well advised to read several topics in advance of lectures and discussions. The primary textbook for the course is:
Required Textbook
Clayborne Carson, Emma J. Lapsansky-Werner, Gary B. Nash
African American Lives The Struggle for Freedom
Recommended Textbooks
Darlene Clark Hine, William C. Hine, Stanley Harrold
The African-American Odyssey
James Blackwell, The Black Community
John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom
Paula Giddings, When and Where I Enter
Joanne Grant, Black Protest
In addition to these books, secondary scholarly essays and tertiary articles will be placed on reserve in the library throughout the semester. The reading assignments are by no means exhaustive; they will, however, provide clues to more detailed treatments of the great majority of issues and questions to be raised in the introductory course in African American Studies and History.
A word about the approach to be used. As we proceed in this introductory course, it will be conceptually helpful for us to keep in mind the statements of the eminent African American historian Benjamin Quarles:
“Because freedom is a deep river, Negroes would prefer to cross over in
calm time. But cross over they must, being Americans.”
“The central theme of American History may well be control of the Negro.”
We will substitute African American for the word “Negro”, but in essence wend our way through the historical era guided largely by the premises of Professor Quarles, and, in the arena of identity construction, what Kool G. Rap referred to as the “nationality of reality.”
Pertaining to a working definition of African American Studies, Professor Manning Marable of ColumbiaUniversity writes:
“African American Studies, broadly defined, is the systematic study of
the black experience, framed by the socioeconomic, cultural, and
geographical boundaries of Sub-Saharan Africa and the black Diaspora of
North American, the Caribbean, Brazil, and Latin American, and
increasingly Europe itself. At its core, it is also the black intellectual
tradition as it has challenged and interacted with Western civilization and
cultures. In the social sciences and humanities, that intellectual tradition
has assumed a complex burden over many generations, seeking to engage
in a critical dialogue with white scholarship on a range of complex issues, and
most significantly, the definition and reality of race as a social construct,
and the factors that explain the structures of inequality which, greatly define
the existence of black people.”
This definition clearly necessitates an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on paradigms, critical theories, and computer analyses; and understanding the humanizing nature of learning about and eradicating racism and other “isms” damaging to people.
Course requirements will include the submission of a book review and critique, satisfactory completion of mid-term and final examination, and regular attendance and participation in classroom discussions (each category representing twenty percent of the student’s grade). The assignments and format for the tests will be discussed more thoroughly within the first week of the semester. Welcome!
Week1:Introduction
Brief overview
Explanation of assignments
Construction of a theory of history
Carsonet. al.,
African-American Lives XIX - XXV
Week2:The African American Experience in the United States:
Scholars and Society: Sociological and Psychological
Dimensions of an Historic Problem
Handouts
Week3:“What is Africa To Me?”
Carson, et.al.,
African-American Lives pp. 3 - 25
Week 4:“Buked and Scorned”: The Middle Passage and All That
Carson, et.al.,
African-American Lives pp. 27 - 50
Week 5:The Origins of Slavery And The Lives of Slaves
Carson, et.al.,
African-American Lives pp. 51 - 158
Week 6: Freedom Over Me: Black Abolitionism and CommunityBuilding
Carson, et.al.,
African-American Lives pp. 159 - 240
Week 7:The Jubilee: The Coming of The Civil War
And The Problems of Reconstruction
Carson, et.al.,
African-American Lives pp. 241 - 266
Week 8: From “The Nadir” To The “New Negro”
Carson, et.al.,
African-American Lives pp. 267 - 318
Week 9:No Fear And No Fools: World War I,
The UNIA, And The Harlem Renaissance
Carson, et.al.,
African-American Lives pp. 319 - 372
Week 10:Depression, Deprivation, And Dilemmas American Style
Carson, et.al.,
African-American Lives pp. 373 - 424
Week 11:An American Dream For All, Including
African Americans: The Coming of The Civil Rights Movement
Carson, et.al.,
African-American Lives pp. 425 - 450
Week 12:“Strong Women, Strutting Men,” and
Sepia Children As Survivors
Carson, et.al.,
African-American Lives pp. 451 - 478
Week 13:Black Culture and Consciousness As Avenues To Uplift:
Reconsideration of Music, Dance, Humor, and Styling Out
Carson, et.al.,
African-American Lives pp. 479 - 551
Week 14:The Problems Of This Century
Darlene Clark Hines, William C. Hine, Stanley Harrold
The African-American Odyssey pp. 593 - 606
Book Critique Main Points:
Explain the limits of the work
Identify the central thesis
Note the assumptions under which the author operates
Summarize the main arguments
Evaluate the evidence used to support the arguments
Bring up anything you think the author left out.
Due Date: 10 November 2005
Book Review Steps
Author’s identity
Author’s aim in writing the book
Representative cross-sampling of sources used
Summary of content
Evaluation
Due Date: 4 October 2005
Mid-Term Examination:
Oct. 12, 2005 12 to 1:20 p.m. Room LART 301
Final Examination:
December 6, 2005 1 – 3:45 p.m. Room LART 301
Office Hours:
T – R 10 – 11 a.m.; 2 – 3 p.m.
And By Appointment