Foundations of African-American Studies II: New Approaches to the Field (AMSTUD 228)

Within the last decade, African American Studies - an interdisciplinary field by nature that reveals as much about American culture and society in general as it does about African American life - has produced some of the most cutting-edge work in fields ranging from geography, to legal studies, to literary and performance studies, to technology and science studies, and beyond. This course will explore pioneering works from 2015 until now - from Safiya Umoja Noble's Algorithms of Oppression (2018) to Chanda Prescott Weinstein The Disordered Cosmos (2021) to Javier Wallace's Basketball Trafficking (2025) - as a way to consider some of the most salient topics to emerge in academic and other discourses within the last decade, but through the lens of Black Studies. Importantly, African American studies might take Black life as its center, but Black life in its myriad experiences reflect both the historical and material conditions of U.S. society as a whole. Together, we will read a key text a week in our effort to unpack the nuances of contemporary topics in Black study, as we also consider the relationality between these experiences and those of various backgrounds and demographics throughout the nation. Critical reading, discussion, and creative analysis/methods will be core approaches to engaging the material within this dynamic course.