Courses

This course introduces students to the interdisciplinary study of African American culture and experiences. The course surveys the field of Black Studies by introducing topics or issues relevant to Black American life from an interdisciplinary perspective. In this course, history, sociology, religion, literature, and philosophy provide the foundation for exploring dimensions of Black Studies. Literary works, historical works, social science theory, and contemporary issues will serve as texts for students to analyze. This course is taught from an interdisciplinary perspective, which requires students to explore their cultural frames of reference as a parallel process for studying Black cultures.

Crosslisting: QS 102.

African/Diaspora Dance I focuses on African-centered forms of dance in one of many possible genres across the African Diaspora (e.g., traditional African forms, dances of the African Diaspora, African American vernacular, Hip-Hop, Contemporary African, etc.). Taught from a cultural perspective, this course emphasizes fundamentals such as fluidity, use of the head, spine, and pelvis, grounded and weighted qualities, isolations, and complex embodied rhythms. Concert attendance, short written critical responses, and weekly written journals are examples of outside work that is required. No previous dance experience is expected.

Crosslisting: DANC 122.

This survey course will introduce students to the history of Africa from the earliest times to 1880 - also known as pre-colonial African history. Though the focus is on Africa south of the Sahara, North Africa will be featured from time to time. Topics include the earliest human settlements in Africa, empires and kingdoms in East, West, and Southern Africa, Islam and Christianity in Africa, slavery, and the partitioning of the continent by powers in the mid 1800s.

Crosslisting: HIST 131.

This course examines myths about Africa, the history of colonialism on the continent in the 19th and 20th centuries, the rise of primary resistances to colonialism in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and how this fed the secondary and tertiary resistance movements from the 1930s through to the 1990s when the apartheid regime collapsed in South Africa. Through close readings of the historiography, students will grapple with the history of colonialism and the postcolonial era in Sub Saharan Africa.

Crosslisting: HIST 132.

The Denison University Gospel Choir carries the tradition of sharing love and hope through song to our community. We learn and perform songs in the true African American gospel tradition, as well as some that are contemporary and inspiring.

Crosslisting: MUSP 133.

This course explores the history of African Americans in the United States from their origins in North America to the end of the Civil War 1865. It is organized chronologically, beginning with the arrival of the first Africans in North America and proceeding through the evolution of slavery in tandem with the growth of the United States, the development of ideas and laws about race, the struggle for freedom and equality, and the creation of African American identity, community, and culture. We will study the contributions that African Americans have made to the economic, political, and cultural development of the United States. We will also pay special attention to the processes by which African Americans – even under slavery – demonstrated agency and resisted racism, subjugation, and enslavement. This course is designed to present an introduction to African American history and lay a foundation for further study.

Crosslisting: HIST 183.

This course will examine the history of African Americans in the United States from the end of Civil War to the beginning of the 21st century. Beginning with the ways in which formerly enslaved peoples made the transition to freedom and culminating with the election of the first African American president, this course will analyze the evolution of Black politics, labor, activism, and culture. We will explore the contributions that African Americans have made to the political, cultural, and social development of the United States. We will also pay special attention to the processes by which African Americans have navigated U.S. race relations, became a political force, and fought for equality, inclusion, and justice.

Crosslisting: HIST 193.

The course delves into the meanings of Blackness in national and international contexts. With a focus on the relationships among Africans, the African Diaspora, and African Americans, the course will explore connections and distinctions between African and African Diaspora cultures and histories. The course will also consider relationships between African Americans and other racial and ethnic groups in the US. The course materials include foundational theoretical, historical, and literary texts that help to define Blackness, race, and Diaspora.

A consideration of the increasingly complex behavior of music in the modern (or postmodern) world. We will pay particular attention to the function of music: its uses, how it is part of - and helps to define - daily life for several diverse populations in many diverse locales, and how it is transmitted in a global culture. The ability to read musical notation is not required.

Crosslisting: MUS 219.

This course explores how Africa has been portrayed in cinema, with a focus on the shift from colonial myths to contemporary African realities. The course will refine students' French language skills, with an emphasis on pronunciation, listening comprehension, and oral communication. Through the analysis of films by African filmmakers, students will discuss a range of themes such as global issues, health, humanitarian crises, and environmental challenges, while actively developing their ability to communicate in French.

Crosslisting: FREN 220.

African/Diaspora Dance II focuses on African-centered forms of dance in one of many possible genres across the African Diaspora (e.g., traditional African forms, dances of the African Diaspora, Hip-Hop, African American vernacular, contemporary African, etc.). Taught from a cultural perspective, this course deepens exposure to fundamentals and aesthetics with complex phrasing and multi-layered movement. Emphasis is placed on fluidity, use of the head, spine, and pelvis, grounded and weighted qualities, isolations, and complex embodied rhythms. Limited work outside the classroom is required. Examples include concert attendance, focused, relative research inquiries, weekly journal writing, and video essays.

Prerequisite(s): DANC 122 or DANC 132.

Crosslisting: DANC 222.

This course explores the connection between politics and religion among Black Americans and the role religion plays in the African-American quest for liberation. It also examines the cultural continuities between African traditional religions and Black religion in the United States. The course examines theological and ethical issues, such as the color of God and the moral justifiability of violent revolution. Students will be given an opportunity to study contemporary religious movements, such as Rastafarianism and the Nation of Islam, along with more traditional African sectarian practices such as voodoo and Santeria.

Crosslisting: REL 228.

This course is a hands-on, experimental, learn-as-we-go experience that introduces students to using digital tools and sources to conduct original historical research, formulate historical arguments, and communicate historical ideas in digital formats. To focus our efforts, we will apply what we learn to a particular area of historical study: runaway slave advertisements and runaway slave narratives from nineteenth-century Ohio.

Crosslisting: HIST 289 and DH 229.

This course will explore the historical development of African-American gospel music in the 20th Century. The course will begin an examination of the pre-gospel era (pre-1900s-ca. 1920), move on to gospel music's beginnings (ca. 1920s), and continue unto the present. The course will explore the musical, sociological, political, and religious influences that contributed to the development of the various gospel music eras and styles. Through class lectures, demonstrations, music listening, reading and writing assignments, students will learn about the significant musical and non-musical contributions of African American gospel artists and the historical development of African American gospel music. Students will also strive to gain an understanding of the African American musical aesthetic and to determine how it is retained and expressed with African American gospel music and other musical genres. The class is open to students, staff, and faculty of all levels.

Crosslisting: MUS 234.

The class explores the global roots and routes of Hip Hop/House music and dance that emerges from Black/Latino diaspora communities on the streets, parks, house parties, abandoned warehouses, and clubs in New York and Chicago. Hip Hop/House is now a prolific global export, permeating and evolving popular culture and international dance competitions in Nigeria, New Zealand, France, the Philippines, South Africa, Japan, and more. We will also zoom into how Hip Hop serves as cultural capital for youth culture, indigenous decolonization, queer humanity/freedom, and more. We will consider how globalization and cultural appropriation in Hip Hop/House are set off by capitalism. Along with articulating the social and political significance of the dances, a primary focus in this class is to develop artistic aptitudes in groove, freestyle, choreography, and cipher participation. This course is taught through practical dance sessions, mini-lectures, media viewings, and class discussion.

Crosslisting: DANC 236.

From women’s Suffrage to Black Lives Matter, biblical texts, ideas, and ideals have played a significant role in movements and struggles for equity and justice in the United States. In this course, we will consider the role that sacred texts play in movements for social change, analyze how ideas about the Bible and the Bible as an idea are invoked in public discourse, and evaluate the rhetorical and interpretive moves by which the same sets of texts could be invoked to maintain the status quo or transform relations of power. This course will discuss historical movements for social change in the United States, but will focus primarily on movements for anti-racism and reproductive justice in the 21st century.

Crosslisting: REL 238 and WGST 218.

The Mash Potato, Moonwalk, Twerking, Neh-Neh, Running Man, and the Savage Remix Challenge are all examples of black dance moves that have gained worldwide attention. This class explores dance icons such as James Brown, Tina Turner, Michael Jackson, and Beyoncé, who have popularized Black dance around the globe. The case studies will provide prompts for the physical study of dance and conversational starters for examining the intersections of music and dance industries, racism, gender, cultural (mis)appropriation, hybridity, and social media. International viewpoints of Black dance as a global export in locations such as Gabon, New Zealand, and India is considered. Teaching and learning approaches include mini-lectures, class dialogues, media viewings, practical dance exercises, and discussion boards.

Crosslisting: DANC 240.

The Caribbean is home to hundreds of islands and many nations, but the shared history of European colonialism and the Atlantic trade in enslaved people has given some geopolitical coherence to the region, which is culturally, ethnically, racially, and linguistically diverse. Though literature from the Caribbean is written in many languages, this course surveys Anglophone Caribbean literature and it analyzes it within the historical, political, and social contexts of colonialism, postcolonialism, and diaspora.

Crosslisting: ENGL 252.

Offers a historical survey of major texts, movements, and/or themes in the development of a distinct African American literary tradition. By examining texts from multiple genres and periods, students will be introduced to critical concepts central to the study of African American literature, including Middle Passage, slavery, diaspora, race, class, gender, sexuality, ecology, migration, language, and power.

Crosslisting: ENGL 254.

A study of the literature of various ethnic, racial and regional groups of the United States. This course explores cultural heritages, historical struggles, artistic achievements and contemporary relations of groups in American society.

Crosslisting: ENGL 255.

A study of contemporary Anglophone African novels, all of which engage with histories and experiences of European colonialism.

Crosslisting: ENGL 260.

This class explores Black women's leadership orientations in organizations. Afrocentric and womanist frameworks are used to inquire about Black women's leadership in the context of their lives. In this course we explore and theorize Black women's use of communal and generative leadership orientations as well as their application of a multiple and oppositional consciousness. Organizational dilemmas stemming from their race, class, and gender, as well as the unique challenges Black women leaders face in creating a supportive life structure are examined. Students will critique the omission of Black women's leadership styles in the mainstream theories about leadership, as well as explore the implications of Black women's leadership for expanding mainstream theory.

Crosslisting: WGST 265.

This course frames dance as a complex political activity made public through various agendas of race, creed, national origin, sexuality, and gender. Students may simultaneously be exposed to poststructuralist epistemology, feminist theory, and power & justice ideologies while they are meeting a survey of historical works from a selected cultural context. In this way, the course is less about coming to know a canon of "masterworks" and more about learning how to interrogate dance in many cultures from multiple perspectives. Students will be expected to engage in movement activities as a method toward an embodied understanding of theory, but will not be evaluated on their movement performance or ability. No dance experience necessary.

Crosslisting: DANC 274.

In this course, we will examine how contemporary artists utilize combinations of personal, cultural, and historical research to inform their art production methods, a topic highly relevant in today's art world. Over the semester, we will focus on several artists of marginalized identities who work at the intersection of contemporary Art and ceramic practice. By critically examining these artists' processes, we can gain insight into how to develop our own methods of self-affirming research and studio art production with clay and ceramics. This course provides an understanding of art production in the ceramics studio, insight into methods of contemporary arts practice, and the use of Art as a mode of inquiry into personal and/or shared cultural histories.

Crosslisting: ARTS 286.

This course explores the intersections of race and scientific and technological development. It connects the histories of race science and the emergence of modern technology by analyzing the social, political, and intellectual influences on their co-evolution. Drawing on work in science and technology studies (STS), sociology of knowledge, sociology of race, and from Black radical thinkers, this class looks at questions of Black futurities in light of a rigorous and informed historical perspective.

This course focuses on the experiences of Black athletes in the United States with great emphasis placed on the 20th and 21st centuries. Through an examination of personal narratives and social movements, students will explore the numerous factors that have shaped the individual and collective experiences of those of African descent through sports and gain an understanding of the role sports have played in the lives of Black athletes in the United States. The class will place specific themes, such as race and racism, slavery and freedom, and oppression and resistance, through a socio-cultural prism of athletics.

Prerequisite(s): HESS 100 or HESS 200 or BLST 101 or HESS 100, HESS 203, and BLST 101.

Crosslisting: HESS 308.

Historical and contemporary African-American women's literature grounds an inquiry into black women's literary and intellectual traditions within the matrix of race, gender, class, and sexual relations in the United States.

Crosslisting: ENGL 325 and WGST 325.

Since 1868, Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment has served as the principal benchmark for legal debates over the meanings of equality in the United States. This course explores the origins of the amendment in the post-Civil War period and the evolution of its meanings throughout the late nineteenth, twentieth, and early twenty-first centuries. We will examine closely the contested interpretations of equal protection and due process; the rise, fall, and rebirth of substantive due process; and the battles over incorporating the Bill of Rights. We will pay particular attention to how struggles for racial and gender equality have influenced debates over the amendment, and how the amendment has reshaped the parameters of U.S. citizenship.

Crosslisting: HIST 392.

This course explores the history of the African-American urban experience. In the mid-18th century, the African-American community began to transition from a rural to an urban population. By the mid-20th century, African-Americans had become an overwhelmingly urban group. The course examines the process of the rural-to-urban transformation of African-Americans and the ways in which they have confronted, resisted, and adjusted to urban conditions of housing, employment, education, culture, and public space.

This course explores the history of the ideology of Black Power and its various dimensions and incarnations from its origins in the early 20th century to its significance in the present. Topics to be addressed may include, but are not limited to: definitions of Black Power, applications of this ideology to politics and economics, artistic aesthetics, gender dynamics, key figures and organizations, current manifestations, meanings for the African-American community, and reactions from the larger American society.

Crosslisting: HIST 297.

An analysis of the interrelationship between the cultural phenomenon and the literature of the Harlem Renaissance, particularly the way in which the social, economic and political conditions of the era helped to shape the literary art of the 1920s.

Crosslisting: ENGL 355.

A study of representative samples of Black literature ranging from slave narratives to contemporary Black fiction.

Crosslisting: ENGL 356.

Readings in literature and criticism from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, in response to the experience of colonialism.

Crosslisting: ENGL 357 and INTL 257.

This course focuses on the movement, genre, and aesthetic known as Afrofuturism and related concepts such as Africanfuturism and Astro-Blackness. Students will read a selection of critical essays and literature that represent or engage with these concepts and explore media such as film and music. Here are some key questions that the course will try to answer: What is Afrofuturism? When and where did it begin? Is it a national or global phenomenon? What are some of the messages “encoded” in Afrofuturism when it comes to Blackness? How does this genre engage with not only race but class, gender, sexuality, age, and so on.

Crosslisting: ENGL 358 and WGST 358.

The goal of this course is to examine the historical experiences of African Americans in education and related aspects of life. Much of the course will focus on Blacks' experiences in schooling in the South from Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. In addition, students will contrast African American schooling experiences with those of Native Americans and others during this period. Students who enjoy and benefit from cooperative and participatory learning environments are encouraged to take this course.

Prerequisite(s): EDUC 213 or BLST 101 or BLST 235.

Crosslisting: EDUC 360.

A student in good standing may work intensively in areas of special interest under the Directed Study plan. A Directed Study is appropriate when, under the guidance of a faculty member, a student wants to explore a subject more fully than is possible in a regular course or to study a subject not covered in the regular curriculum. A Directed Study should not normally duplicate a course that is regularly offered. Directed Studies are normally taken for 3 or 4 credits. A one-semester Directed Study is limited to a maximum of 4 credit hours. Note: Directed Studies may not be used to fulfill General Education requirements.

A student in good standing may work intensively in areas of special interest under the Directed Study plan. A Directed Study is appropriate when, under the guidance of a faculty member, a student wants to explore a subject more fully than is possible in a regular course or to study a subject not covered in the regular curriculum. A Directed Study should not normally duplicate a course that is regularly offered. Directed Studies are normally taken for 3 or 4 credits. A one-semester Directed Study is limited to a maximum of 4 credit hours. Note: Directed Studies may not be used to fulfill General Education requirements.

Independent Study engages a student in the pursuit of clearly defined goals. In this effort a student may employ skills and information developed in previous course experiences or may develop some mastery of new knowledge or skills. A proposal for an Independent Study project must be approved in advance by the faculty member who agrees to serve as the project advisor. Note: Independent Studies may not be used to fulfill General Education requirements.

Independent Study engages a student in the pursuit of clearly defined goals. In this effort a student may employ skills and information developed in previous course experiences or may develop some mastery of new knowledge or skills. A proposal for an Independent Study project must be approved in advance by the faculty member who agrees to serve as the project advisor. Note: Independent Studies may not be used to fulfill General Education requirements.

For many, the history of slavery is synonymous with the Southern United States. But slavery was not limited to the U.S. and by approaching slavery from a comparative perspective, we will deepen our understanding of slavery as an institution, slaves as historical actors, and therefore the legacies of slavery throughout the Americas. We will explore regional differences within slaves' opportunities to form families, to create cultures, to rebel, and to labor for their own benefits; as well as the interactions of African cultural visions and Christianity.

Crosslisting: HIST 365.

This course focuses on black political thought in the United States and around the world by considering how Afrocentric scholars, activists, and intellectuals have considered and acted to realize justice for Black persons (and thus for all persons). The course will broadly focus on the experience of blackness since ~1500CE, also known as “modernity.” This choice of periodization is based on arguments made by foundational theorists of race such as Orlando Patterson, Omi & Winant, and Charles Mills, among others, who argue that racial formation is a sociohistorical process that unfolds over time and place, such that categories of race are neither eternal, unchangeable, or material, but subject to creation, evolution, and transformation through intellectual, political, social, and legal struggles. While we may experience race as real, the creation of race as a category of meaning was a political project. We will pay special attention to the experience and political significance of enslavement, colonization, and Afro-independence struggles to consider the meaning of freedom and grapple with contemporary legacies of violence. How does Black Political Thought enrich our understanding of significant political questions such as the nature of political equality, justice, and democracy? The course may include, among others, thinkers such as David Walker, Maria Stewart, Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, Alain Locke, Franz Chinua Achebe, Fanon, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Patricia Hill Collins, Orlando Patterson, Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Michael Dawson, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Angela Davis, and Claudia Rankine.

Prerequisite(s): No FYS, sophomores by consent of instructor.

Crosslisting: PPA 384.

This course explores how education, and particularly schools, can reproduce inequalities as well as strategies for challenging the oppression that many populations experience as a result of the structure of formal education and the social forces that shape it. The course includes a 20-25 hour curricular service-learning commitment in a local school or community organization, which provides opportunities to explore course themes in ‘real world’ classrooms and reflect on these experiences in their coursework. This course fulfills the Social Sciences and Women of Color in the U.S. distribution requirements for WGST majors and the Black Studies (BLST) cross-listed course requirement for WGST majors/minors, as well as the ‘P - Power and Justice’ graduation requirement.

Prerequisite(s): EDUC 213.

Crosslisting: WGST 391 and EDUC 390.

How have ideas about race shaped law, legal institutions, and legal practices in the United States? Conversely, how have law, legal institutions, and legal practices shaped how we think about and make race? In line with the work of Critical Race Theorists (such as Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Gary Peller), the fundamental assumption of the course is that these two domains are integrally related, such that to think of or analyze one requires thinking of or analyzing the other, as well. Thus, studying race without considering the law’s role in shaping race is deficient, and studying law without considering how race has shaped it is similarly unsatisfactory. This follows from contributions by scholars such as Michael Omi and Howard Winant, who argue that categories of race are socio-historical formations rather than eternal essences and that racial categories can be created, transformed, and destroyed; part of our work in this course will be to trace how categories of race in US politics have been built by law and within legal practices and institutions. To better understand our world, we should consider how they work together to shape our institutions and lives. The bulk of the course will consider the interaction between race and law in major policy areas such as immigration, incarceration and policing, education, or housing. No FYS, sophomores by consent of the instructor.

Prerequisite(s): BLST majors or minors.

Crosslisting: PPA 375.

This course provides a venue in which to explore chosen topics in Black Studies. Topics vary according to the interests of students and faculty. This course may be cross-listed based on the topic and disciplines that inform it.

For many, the history of slavery is synonymous with the United States South. But slavery was not limited to the US and by approaching slavery from a comparative perspective, we will deepen our understanding of slavery as an institution, slaves as historical actors, and therefore the legacies of slavery throughout the Americas. We will explore regional differences within slaves' opportunities to form families, to create cultures, to rebel, and to labor for their own benefits; as well as the interactions of African cultural visions and Christianity.

Sport in the United States is far more than a source of leisure, entertainment, or fitness. Rather, sport – particularly when played on a college or professional level – has become an institution that, in becoming embedded in our culture, both reflects and shapes our society. Through readings, class discussions, and the writing of a 15-20 page research paper based on the analysis of historical documents and scholarship, this course will explore the intersection of race and sport in U.S. history. While college and professional sports have often been viewed as vehicles for obtaining equality and upward mobility, sports have also reflected and perpetuated inequality in American society. We will interrogate the construction and significance of race in American sports, including its intersections with class, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity. Paying special attention to the experiences of athletes of color in a variety of sports, we will explore the ways that they navigated the world of sports and thought about and utilized their positions to advocate for social change. We will also use sport as a space to think about concepts of identity, community, and nationalism. Note that this course is not eligible to fulfill a Social Sciences General Education requirement. If taken as under the History cross-listing, it will fulfill a Humanities GE. If taken under the BLST cross-listing, it will fulfill an Interdivisional GE.

Crosslisting: HIST 393.

This is an intensive seminar for juniors and seniors that will focus on a specific topic in Black Studies to develop interdisciplinary and intersectional approaches. Students will get opportunities to explore and apply Black Studies approaches and theories, learn research methods, and develop scholarly and creative projects appropriate to the topic.

Prerequisite(s): BLST 101 or BLST 201 or consent.

New and reconstructed works choreographed by faculty and guest artists in African/Diasporan dance are learned by students and rehearsed for public performance. Participation can include attending biweekly company classes and contributing to the production of the performance. Differences in course number refer to genres of performance work. By audition or invitation only; auditions are typically held during the first two weeks of each semester or immediately preceding a short residency by a guest artist.

Crosslisting: DANC 422.

Students may enroll in Senior Research in their final year at Denison. Normally, Senior Research requires a major thesis, report, or project in the student's field of concentration and carries eight semester-hours of credit for the year. Typically, a final grade for a year-long Senior Research will not be assigned until the completion of the year-long Senior Research at the end of the second semester. In which case, the first semester Senior Research grade will remain "in progress" (PR) until the completion of the second semester Senior Research. Each semester of Senior Research is limited to a maximum of 4 credit hours. Note: Senior Research may not be used to fulfill General Education requirements.

Students may enroll in Senior Research in their final year at Denison. Normally, Senior Research requires a major thesis, report, or project in the student's field of concentration and carries eight semester-hours of credit for the year. Typically, a final grade for a year-long Senior Research will not be assigned until the completion of the year-long Senior Research at the end of the second semester. In which case, the first semester Senior Research grade will remain "in progress" (PR) until the completion of the second semester Senior Research. Each semester of Senior Research is limited to a maximum of 4 credit hours. Note: Senior Research may not be used to fulfill General Education requirements.