African and African American Studies (AAAS)
AAAS 200 - KNOWING BLACKNESS: INTRODUCTION TO AFRICAN AND AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES
Short Title: INTRO TO AAAS
Department: African & African Amer Studies
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Lecture
Distribution Group: Distribution Group I
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level
Description: An exploration of the origins and development of African Studies and African American Studies. Through a focus on the articulation and resolution of field-changing debates, the course introduces students to methodologies and practices that have led to and that continue to lead to knowing Africa and African-descendent people with earnest regard for the complexity and subtlety that the subjects require.
AAAS 204 - INTRODUCTION TO BLACK ART IN AMERICA: 1900S TO TODAY
Short Title: BLACK ART IN AMERICA
Department: African & African Amer Studies
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Lecture
Distribution Group: Distribution Group I
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level
Description: This class examines the history of Black art in America since the early 1900s. What is Black Art? Who are the artists, curators, scholars, and theorists who have asked and answered this question over the decades? Is a Black aesthetic inherently revolutionary and interested in the political lives of black people and their liberation? Or is a Black aesthetic best exemplified by the manipulation of materials, visual composition, and saturation? Or both? We will engage theories of black art and aesthetics that emerged in the 1920s through today to take seriously the question: how does the visual life of blackness matter? In this class we will break through the traditional rhetoric of diversity and representation and discuss how artists over the decades have insisted instead on redistributions of power, radical and speculative material practices, and structural change. It is my priority to make this course on black aesthetics joyous, safe, and accessible to students of all genders, sexualities, and disabilities. Cross-list: HART 204.
AAAS 238 - SPECIAL TOPICS
Short Title: SPECIAL TOPICS
Department: African & African Amer Studies
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar, Independent Study, Internship/Practicum, Laboratory, Lecture, Lecture/Laboratory
Credit Hours: 1-4
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level
Description: Topics and credit hours may vary each semester. Contact department for current semester’s topic(s). Repeatable for Credit.
AAAS 245 - RACE, RESISTANCE, AND REVOLUTION: BLACKS AND BLACKNESS IN THE MAKING OF LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBB
Short Title: RACE, RESISTANCE, & REVOLUTION
Department: African & African Amer Studies
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Lecture
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Lower-Level
Description: Broadly, this course is at once a colonial history of Latin America and the Caribbean that concerns itself with the role of Africans and the making of Blackness across the region. The course treats Africa, Iberia, and the Americas in dialogue, running from the early fifteenth century through the Haitian Revolution. This CAAAS course addresses slavery, freedom and the question of Black life vis-a-vis indigeneity in the early Americas as a central theme and point of departure. Cross-list: HIST 245.
AAAS 300 - CONTEMPORARY BLACK FICTION
Short Title: WRITING BLACK LIVES
Department: African & African Amer Studies
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Distribution Group: Distribution Group I
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Undergraduate, Undergraduate Professional or Visiting Undergraduate level students.
Course Level: Undergraduate Upper-Level
Description: In this course, students will be reading, reflecting, and dissecting short stories, novels, television scripts, and other works of fiction crafted by artists across the Black diaspora. Students will thoroughly discuss process and intent, with an extensive focus on craft.
Course URL: humanities.rice.edu/center-for-african-and-african-american-studies
AAAS 510 - INTRODUCTION TO AFRICAN AND AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES
Short Title: INTRO TO DIASPORIC STUDIES
Department: African & African Amer Studies
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
Course Level: Graduate
Description: This is the core course for the Certificate in African and African American Studies. It will provide an introduction to cross- and multi-disciplinary approaches to the histories, cultures and experiences of African and African Diasporic people, while also introducing students to the work of Rice faculty working in the field.
AAAS 524 - COMPARATIVE HISTORIES OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM IN THE ERA OF RACIAL SLAVERY
Short Title: COMPARATIVE HISTORIES
Department: African & African Amer Studies
Grade Mode: Standard Letter
Course Type: Seminar
Credit Hours: 3
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
Course Level: Graduate
Description: This graduate seminar considers the history and historiography of slavery comparatively in the era of Atlantic-racial enslavement. Considering slavery through the lens of sovereignty and political claims, this course traces slavery in Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Americas across time and space. It seeks to engage slavery's political history while analyzing key African and African American Studies theoretical interventions in relationship to the material histories of racial slavery. This study questions the extent to which scholars have engaged the archive of slavery sufficiently in their theorizations of Blackness and Black Study.
AAAS 600 - AFRICAN AND AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES COLLOQUIUM
Short Title: AF & AFAM STUDIES COLLOQUIUM
Department: African & African Amer Studies
Grade Mode: Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory
Course Type: Research
Credit Hours: 0
Restrictions: Enrollment is limited to Graduate level students.
Course Level: Graduate
Description: Through readings and discussions the colloquium highlights key issues related to African and African American studies for graduate students preparing to conduct research in the field. Repeatable for Credit.