AFRS

223 Milbank Hall George

Subject

AFRS

Type

course

Edition

2025-2026

Source

catalog.barnard.edu

225 Milbank Hall AFRS BC3020 Harlem Crossroads. 3 points. Not offered during 2024-2025 academic year. Studies Harlem in the context of African-American and African diaspora culture and society as well as American urbanization. Primarily focusing on Harlem of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the course offers students opportunities to discuss political economy, immigration, migration and the role of the city in social life. AFRS BC3055 Slave Resistance in the United States from the Colonial Era to the Civil War. 3 points. Not offered during 2024-2025 academic year. Analyzes the multifaceted nature of slave resistance, its portrayal and theorization by scholars. Critically examines the various pathways of resistance of enslaved Africans and African-Americans, both individually and collectively (e.g., running away, non-cooperation, theft, arson, as well as verbal and physical confrontation, revolts and insurrections). Considers how gender shaped acts of resistance. AFRS BC3110 THE AFRICANA COLLOQUIUM. 4.00 points. The Africana Studies Department offers special topics courses every year as colloquia. These colloquia provide opportunities for students to explore areas of particular interest within African Diasporic Studies in a seminar environment. Students earn 4 credits for these courses. There are multiple colloquia offered by the department every year. Some of the topics for these colloquia have included Critical Race Theory, Indian Ocean Diaspora, The New Black, Caribbean Women, and Black Shakespeare. As the topics change, students should check with the Chair of the Africana Studies Department if they have any questions about the topics for a particular academic year Fall 2025: AFRS BC3110 Course Section/Call Times/Location Instructor Points Enrol

Subject

AFRS

Type

course

Edition

2025-2026

Source

catalog.barnard.edu

409 Barnard Hall AFRS BC3110 THE AFRICANA COLLOQUIUM. 4.00 points. The Africana Studies Department offers special topics courses every year as colloquia. These colloquia provide opportunities for students to explore areas of particular interest within African Diasporic Studies in a seminar environment. Students earn 4 credits for these courses. There are multiple colloquia offered by the department every year. Some of the topics for these colloquia have included Critical Race Theory, Indian Ocean Diaspora, The New Black, Caribbean Women, and Black Shakespeare. As the topics change, students should check with the Chair of the Africana Studies Department if they have any questions about the topics for a particular academic year Fall 2025: AFRS BC3110 Course Section/Call Times/Location Instructor Points Enrol

Subject

AFRS

Type

course

Edition

2025-2026

Source

catalog.barnard.edu

t 202 Milbank Hall Troncoso AFRS BC2115 BLACK FEMINIST PORTAL: TRANSFORMATIVE TEXTS. 4.00 points. In the Spring of 2021, Black Feminist Portal will invite students engage a multi-generational literary and activist archive of survival and change. Using the emerging technology of the digital oracle, the course empowers students to engage the complexity of their own lives in this moment of historic change supported by the writing of Black women writers whose work is central to the formation of Black feminist theory, practice and possibility. Topics considered include: how the personal and the political shape each other, community accountability and responses to violence, and race and educational institutional change. There is also ample space in the course for students to focus on the transformations currently occurring in their own lives. This course will take place through a combination of asynchronous resources and live meetings via video conference and is made possible by a partnership with Black Feminist Film School which allows for the creation of in- depth materials that students can engage on their own time

Subject

AFRS

Type

course

Edition

2025-2026

Source

catalog.barnard.edu

318 Milbank Hall AFRS BC3055 Slave Resistance in the United States from the Colonial Era to the Civil War. 3 points. Not offered during 2024-2025 academic year. Analyzes the multifaceted nature of slave resistance, its portrayal and theorization by scholars. Critically examines the various pathways of resistance of enslaved Africans and African-Americans, both individually and collectively (e.g., running away, non-cooperation, theft, arson, as well as verbal and physical confrontation, revolts and insurrections). Considers how gender shaped acts of resistance.

Subject

AFRS

Type

course

Edition

2025-2026

Source

catalog.barnard.edu

306 Milbank Hall AFRS BC3100 Medicine and Power in African History. 4 points. Not offered during 2024-2025 academic year. Examines medical discourse and practice in Africa, emphasizing relationships between power and medical knowledge. Topics include: medicine and empire, tropical medicine, colonial public health and social control, labor, reproductive health, and HIV/AIDS. Barnard College Catalogue 2025-2026 45 AFRS BC3110 THE AFRICANA COLLOQUIUM. 4.00 points. The Africana Studies Department offers special topics courses every year as colloquia. These colloquia provide opportunities for students to explore areas of particular interest within African Diasporic Studies in a seminar environment. Students earn 4 credits for these courses. There are multiple colloquia offered by the department every year. Some of the topics for these colloquia have included Critical Race Theory, Indian Ocean Diaspora, The New Black, Caribbean Women, and Black Shakespeare. As the topics change, students should check with the Chair of the Africana Studies Department if they have any questions about the topics for a particular academic year Fall 2025: AFRS BC3110 Course Section/Call Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment

Subject

AFRS

Type

course

Edition

2025-2026

Source

catalog.barnard.edu

308 Diana Center AFRS BC3120 History of African-American Music. 3 points. Not offered during 2024-2025 academic year. Survey interrogates the cultural and aesthetic development of a variety of interconnected musical genres - such as blues, jazz, gospel, soul, funk, R&B, hip-hop, classical and their ever changing same/names - viewed as complex human activities daringly danced at dangerous discourses inside and outside the American cultural mainstreams. AFRS BC3121 Black Women in America. 4 points. BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS). will be decided then. Priority will be given to CCIS students (Africana Studies, American Studies and Women's Studies majors; minors in Race and Ethnic Studies). Enrollment limited to 20 students. Examines the roles of black women in the U.S. as thinkers, activists and creators during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Focusing on the intellectual work, social activism and cultural expression of African American women, we examine how they understood their lives, resisted oppression and struggled to change society. We will also discuss theoretical frameworks (such as "double jeopardy," or "intersectionality") developed for the study of black women. The seminar will encourage students to pay particular attention to the diversity of black women and critical issues facing Black women today. This course is the same as WMST BC3121.

Subject

AFRS

Type

course

Edition

2025-2026

Source

catalog.barnard.edu

Prerequisite

Students must attend first day of class and admission

111 Milstein Center AFRS BC3148 Literature of the Great Migration. 3 points. Not offered during 2024-2025 academic year. (Also ENGL BC 3148) Examination of fiction, poetry, essays and films about the Great Migration (1910-1950) of African-Americans from the rural South to the urban North, focusing on literary production in New York and Chicago. (This course satisfies the Harlem Requirement for the Africana Studies major). AFRS BC3160 Fanon’s Psychology of the Oppressed. 4.00 points. Frantz Fanon’s ideas have been influential for decades among theorists, practitioners, and activists alike. This seminar is focused llment on understanding Fanon’s particular perspective on the psychology of the oppressed and its relevance for examining the experience of past and present racialized inequality and its effects in society. The course is divided into four sections, which build cumulatively. I). An introductory section introduces Fanon’s central ideas (e.g., dialecticism, existentialism, post-colonialism) in their intellectual and socio-historical context (e.g., the Algerian revolution, African decolonization, South African Apartheid, the US civil rights and women’s rights movements). II). A second section locates Fanon in psychological theory and therapeutic theory and practice. The cultural and political (Eurocentric?) roots of psychological theory and practice are examined as are notions of oppression causing psychological and physical violence as well as psychopathology / psychological disorder. III). A third section examines Fanon and others psychological approaches to identity with particular attention to the presumed “inferiority complex” of oppressed peoples, nationalist and other reconstructions of identity in opposition to oppression, sociological psychological conceptualizations of stigma, and Dubois’s influential ideas regarding double consciousness. IV). A fourth and final section focuses on resistance and rebellion. The focus here is on the psycho- moral implications of (violent, peaceful, non-disruptive) action against oppression with reference to the distinct perspectives of Fanon in comparison to influential figures like Gandhi and M.L.K Jr. These issues are linked to a post-Fanon approach to the psychology of the oppressed called Liberation Psychology Fall 2025: AFRS BC3160 Course Section/Call Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment

Subject

AFRS

Credits (min)

2

Credits (max)

2

Type

course

Edition

2025-2026

Source

catalog.barnard.edu

308 Diana Center Neuroscience and Behavior (Barnard) NSBV BC1001 INTRODUCTION TO NEUROSCIENCE. 3.00 points. This course is required for all the other courses offered in Neuroscience and Behavior. The course introduces students to the anatomy and physiology of the nervous system. The topics include the biological structure of the nervous system and its different cell types, the basis of t the action potential, principles of neurotransmission, neuronal basis of behavior, sleep/wake cycles, and basic aspects of clinical neuroscience Fall 2025: NSBV BC1001 Course Section/Call Times/Location Instructor Points Enrollment

Subject

AFRS

Type

course

Edition

2025-2026

Source

catalog.barnard.edu

402 Milstein Center Kelley AFRS BC3585 POOR IN AMERICA: THE EXPERIENCE AND IMPACT OF FINANCIAL DEPRIVATION. 4.00 points. This course focuses on the life experiences and impact of poverty in the contemporary United States. We will be exploring the consequences of financial and material deprivation on work, housing, health, parenting, children, as well as the limits and opportunities for inter-generational mobility and how each of these intersect with gender, racial and ethnic identities. We will be learning about the experiences of individual persons as well as how these particular experiences reflect the overarching patterns of social, political and economic trends in the United States. The course will incorporate a diverse set of disciplinary perspectives to shed light on the challenges faced by persons living in poverty. In addition, there will be an emphasis on learning about and critically assessing methodological approaches applied in the literature. No prior knowledge of methods is required and any technical references will be explained in class AFRS BC3589 BLK SEXUAL PLTCS U.S.POP CLTR. 4.00 points.

Subject

AFRS

Type

course

Edition

2025-2026

Source

catalog.barnard.edu

Prerequisite

Permission of the Instructor

407 Barnard Hall AFRS BC3554 Blackness and Comedic Performance in the U.S.. 4 points. This course explores the history of race and comedic performance and, in particular, how comedy has historically shaped as well as challenged racial, gender and sexual identities from the mid-1800s to the present. From the performance of blackness by white blackface minstrels in the 1830s and 40s to vaudeville at the turn of the 20 th century, early film comedies, and the work of more recent stand-up comedians, the course will seek to answer some of the social questions posed by these performers. For example, does comedy more often reflect gender, ethnic, and racial stereotypes or challenge them? How do we account for the persistent emphasis upon racial and gender differences? Can comedy be “politically correct” and still be funny? How important is “in- group” laughter to comedy’s success and what should we make of the uncomfortable laughter of those not in the in-group? We will explore the work of comics from Bert Williams, Stepin Fetchit, and Hattie McDaniel to Moms Mabley, Chris Rock and Wanda Sykes. We will investigate the work of these comics through the ideas of modern thinkers who have written on the cultural history of American humor and the social and personal aspects of jokes and comedy. We will read and view the works of these comedians as well as important theoretical texts on humor that provide us with analytical tools to investigate how comedic performance has historically constituted blackness and African- American intellectual history. AFRS BC3556 Ethnography of Black America. 4 points. Not offered during 2024-2025 academic year. This course critically examines ethnographic texts about Blacks in the United States, focusing as much on what they proffer about Black American culture as on the various socio-political contexts in which this body of scholarship has been produced. The goal is to advance an understanding of the larger social forces undergirding the production not only of formations of Black culture, but also of knowledge about Black America. A further goal is to foster a critical understanding of the anthropological enterprise itself. AFRS BC3560 Human Rights and Social Change in Sub-Saharan Africa. 4 points. llment BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Reason and Value 6 (REA)., BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Ethics and Values. Examines the evolution of the ideas, institutions and practices associated with social justice in Africa and their relationship to contemporary international human rights movement and focuses on the role of human rights in social change. A number of themes will re- occur throughout the course, notably tensions between norms and reality, cultural diversity, economic and political asymmetries, the role of external actors, and women as rights providers. Countries of special llment interest include Liberia, Senegal, South African and Tanzania. AFRS BC3562 Caribbean Sexualities. 4 points. The seminar offers an interdisciplinary study of sexualities in the Caribbean from the conquest to the contemporary moment. The principal focus will be on how sexualities intersect with questions of gender, race, nation, and diaspora in the Anglophone, Francophone and Spanish-speaking Caribbean. We will approach the study of Caribbean sexualities from various disciplines and areas of study, including history, anthropology, sociology, ethnomusicology, performance studies, literary studies, gender studies, cultural studies, and postcolonial theory. The first part of the seminar addresses Caribbean sexuality in the context of conquest, colonization and slavery, and then national independence. The remainder of the course addresses areas that have drawn particularly intense scholarly debates, including Caribbean family formation, masculinity, and same-sex desire, as well as sex tourism, and the gender and sexual politics of Caribbean popular music and dance.

Subject

AFRS

Type

course

Edition

2025-2026

Source

catalog.barnard.edu

Prerequisite

Permission of the instructor.

113 Milstein Center AFRS BC3567 BLACKNESS" IN FRENCH. 4.00 points.

Subject

AFRS

Type

course

Edition

2025-2026

Source

catalog.barnard.edu

613 Milstein Center AFRS GU4000 HARLEM AND MOSCOW. 3.00 points. acknowledged as a watershed moment in the global struggle for worker’s rights, but it also played a considerable role in the fights against racism and colonialism (Lenin considered both tools of capitalist exploitation). In Soviet Russia’s project to make racial equality a central feature of communism, two urban locales featured prominently: its capital city of Moscow and the burgeoning Black cultural center that was Harlem, New York. This course will explore cross-cultural encounters between Moscow and Harlem as a way to ask larger questions about race, class, and solidarity across difference. Students can expect to read novels, memoirs, and cultural reportage from Harlem Renaissance figures (Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Dorothy West) who traveled to Moscow. Students will also learn about the role of race in early Soviet culture, particularly visual culture (films, children’s media, propaganda posters, etc.). This course includes a field trip to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem

Subject

AFRS

Credits (min)

3

Credits (max)

3

Type

course

Edition

2025-2026

Source

catalog.barnard.edu

Prerequisite

NA The Russian Revolution of 1917 is widely