African American Studies 101 is a multidisciplinary course that embodies the empirical study of history, politics, culture, religion and other areas within the social sciences. The essential focus is on the life experiences of peoples of African descent in the United States and globally. The course integrates the works of scholars of ancient African civilization, New World enslavement of African Americans, economics, literature, arts, race, women studies, government and sport studies. Furthermore, through the interdisciplinary lifeline of African American Studies, this course will give special attention to black athleticism.

This course aims to familiarize students with major concepts and theories related to the study of the African Diaspora primarily, though not exclusively, in the Americas (North, South, and Central). This course links, compares, and contextualizes the historical experiences of African descendants in the U.S., the Caribbean, South America, and Africa within global processes of enslavement, colonialism, and systematic oppression. The course treats the African Diaspora as 1) historical phenomenon 2) a current condition of social, economic, and political life and 3) a way of imagining the future. We will explore theories of slavery, race, and capitalism; black resistance; post-emancipation economies and current-day neoliberalism; theories of gender; environmental justice in the African Diaspora; and theories of the black digital sphere.

These questions are intended to be discussed in small groups in the classroom. They consider the definition and impact of the African Diaspora as well as its similarities and differences in relation to other diasporas. 

This resource describes two primary sources that can be used in courses such as World History, African History, and the Atlantic World. 

After a discussion about the African diaspora, students will break into small group and read contemporary secondary sources about global migration, the African diaspora and economic development in Africa, and the Chinese government's response to the African diaspora during the coronavirus pandemic. Students will then share their findings with the class via a shared Google presentation. The learning objectives of this lesson are for students to explain contemporary geographic effects of migration, analyze relationships among and between places to reveal important spatial patterns, explain how government initiatives may affect economic development, and explain the causes and geographic consequences of recent economic changes, such as growing interdependence in the world economy.  

Call and response has an important history in traditional West African music, especially in spiritual music and protest movements. Although the specific expression of this practice varies across the diaspora depending on the geographic location and musical lineage of practitioners, there are striking similarities in seemingly disparate locations, like the southern United States, Cuba, and northern Brazil. The preservation of call and response practices within these locations (and many others) suggests the importance of collectivity when healing from systemic oppression.

With this interest in mind, David Diaz invites students to join into this call and response by listening to and producing sounds and/or movements as they are comfortable. In joining a collective, there is also space for individuality, and even dissonance. In that interest, students can recognize the shared histories and practices that the music reveals, as well as the particularities of specific cultures and historical actors.

This activity foregrounds African American historical experiences in the history of the state of Minnesota. Students will navigate multiple historical websites and consult primary historical texts. By synthesizing these primary texts, they will identify a common theme related to Dred or Harriet Scott. Then students will analyze the historical importance of that theme in Minnesota history more broadly. 

This course explores the collective historical and contemporary experiences of the African Diaspora. It examines the social, cultural and political relationships between Black communities, knowledge, and movements across the Diaspora. It examines the interwoven concepts of memory, culture and resistance, and span themes such as consciousness of Africa; the Haitian Revolution and resistance to slavery; African cultural transformation in the Americas; maroonage; Garvey and the UNIA; pan-African movements and global liberation struggles; women and resistance; Black Power, and issues of identity and race. 

This presentation considers the Liberia diaspora in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries focused on mobility, identity, and community. It discusses major political organizations and people related to the history of Liberia including the American Colonization Society and Joseph Jenkins Roberts. The presentation provides links to primary sources related to the people who emigrated to Liberia. 

This course provides an exploration of colonial and postcolonial clashes between theories of healing and embodiment in the African world and those of western bio-medicine. It examines how Afro-Atlantic religious traditions have challenged western conceptions of illness, healing, and the body and have also offered alternative notions of morality, rationality, kinship, gender, and sexuality. It also analyzes whether contemporary western bio-medical interventions reinforce colonial or imperial power in the effort to promote global health in Africa and the African diaspora.

This presentation emphasizes demonstrating history’s relevance to the present day and providing students with the tools to critically apply historical thinking. Pivotal to thinking critically about history is understanding the ways that historiographical debates, theoretical frameworks and methodological issues create a historical legacy. This presentation also considers who has the power to shape historical narratives and uses British colonial policy in Africa to think about this question.  

Witness the unstoppable joy of dancing bomba, Puerto Rico’s Afro-Puerto Rican dance of resistance. Meet sisters Mar and María Cruz who are dedicated to the dance and its legacy of survival, and trace some of the communities where bomba is at its most vibrant, from the Santurce area of San Juan, to Loíza, the bastion of Afro-Puerto Rican culture across the Rio Grande.

The Response Paper assignment asks students to synthesize themes and concepts, offer critique, and pose questions related to the representation of Black immigrants in American culture. The resource also offers a grading rubric. 

The final paper assignment asks students to use what they have learned about historical events as part of global processes in a course on the Global African Diaspora. It asks students to explain the historical conditions that may have led people from an African country to move to the United States, as well as any economic and cultural reasons. It asks students to describe the nature of the informal and formal economies in which African immigrants participate. And finally to explain the challenges (legal, financial, cultural, etc.) that African immigrants face and the ways in which they deal with those challenges.

This course considers reggae, or Jamaican popular music more generally—in its various forms (ska, rocksteady, roots, dancehall)—as constituted by international movements and exchanges and as a product that circulates globally in complex ways. By reading across the reggae literature, as well as considering reggae texts themselves (songs, films, videos, and images), students will scrutinize the different interpretations of reggae's significance and the implications of different interpretations of the story of Jamaica and its music. Beginning with a consideration of how Jamaica's popular music industry emerged out of transnational exchanges, the course will proceed to focus on reggae's circulation outside of Jamaica via diasporic networks and commercial mediascapes. Among other sites, we will consider reggae's resonance and impact elsewhere in the Anglo Caribbean (e.g., Trinidad, Barbados), the United Kingdom (including British reggae styles but also such progeny as jungle, grime, and dubstep), the United States (both as reggae per se and in hip-hop), Panama and Puerto Rico and other Latin American locales (e.g., Brazil), Japan and Australia, as well as West, South, and East Africa (Côte d'Ivoire, Tanzania, Uganda).

This presentation considers how to begin when teaching the global African diaspora. It emphasizes the incorporation of evidence generated by scholars outside of the discipline of history and offers selected examples as points of entry or intersection with curriculum already in use.