65 courses with the subject AAS, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
AAS 1010Introduction to African-American and African Studies I4
Effective Date 01/01/2011 This introductory course surveys the histories of people of African descent in Africa, the Americas, and the Caribbean from approximately the Middle Ages to the 1880s. Emphases include the Atlantic slave trade and its complex relationship to Africa; the economic systems, cultures, and communities of Africans and African-Americans in the New World, in slavery and in freedom; the rise of anti-slavery movements; and the socio-economic systems that replaced slavery in the late 19th century.
AAS 1020Introduction to African-American and African Studies II4
Effective Date 03/01/2009 This introductory course builds upon the histories of people of African descent in Africa, the Americas, and the Caribbean surveyed in AAS 1010. Drawing on disciplines such as Anthropology, History, Religious Studies, Political Science and Sociology, the course focuses on the period from the late 19th century to the present and is comparative in perspective. It examines the links and disjunctions between communities of African descent in the United States and in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa. The course begins with an overview of AAS, its history, assumptions, boundaries, and topics of inquiry, and then proceeds to focus on a number of inter-related themes: patterns of cultural experience; community formation; comparative racial classification; language and society; family and kinship; religion; social and political movements; arts and aesthetics; and archaeology of the African Diaspora.
Effective Date 01/01/2026 This course addresses how, why and when to conduct a variety of research types including archival methods and historiography, ethnographic, quantitative and critical analysis as a means to study topics related to Black communities and individuals. Considerable attention is given to strategies for engaging in and presenting research, both written and oral. Ethical issues associated with conducting research are addressed in depth.
AAS 2210Introduction to African Literatures & Cultures3
Effective Date 11/20/2024 This course is a survey of literary texts in English by contemporary African writers. Students will read a variety of texts including novels, short stories, poetry, film and songs and critically analyze the cultural and aesthetics of the literary landscape. Particular attention will be on how authors engage themes such as identity, patriarchy, gender, class, and politics in post-colonial structures.
Effective Date 01/01/2026 Black Genders provides an introduction to African American and African Studies with a specific emphasis on how gender and sexuality inform the ways Blackness is studied, narrated, and experienced throughout the African diaspora.
AAS 2220Introduction to Race, Class, Politics & the Environment3
Effective Date 11/20/2024 Students will be introduced to the evidence and debates surrounding the claims that racialized and poor communities disproportionately shoulder society’s environmental burdens. Through a variety of analytical and contextual lenses, we examine fundamental environmental problems faced by individuals and communities of color and the policies and initiatives designed to address them.
AAS 2224Black Femininities and Masculinities in the US Media3
Effective Date 02/28/2013 This course, taught as a lower-level seminar, will address the role the media has played in creating images and understandings of ‘Blackness’ in the United States, particularly where it converges with popular ideologies about gender.
AAS 2225Black Love: Media Representations vs. Reality3
Effective Date 11/20/2024 How do media representations shape our perceptions and lived experiences of Black love? In this course, we will examine media portrayals of Black love alongside theoretical readings about the historical, social, and cultural elements that impact the development of Black relationships. In addition to exploring examples of Black romantic relationships, we will also explore Black love in the context of family, friendships, and community.
Effective Date 01/01/2026 This course examines the experiences of African migrants and refugees through the lens of race, ethnicity, and migration. Through an engagement with the International Rescue Committee in Charlottesville and migrants in the area as well as literary and other written sources, notions of displacement, migration, genocide, ethnic and racial formation among other factors that are important in understanding international migration.
Effective Date 11/20/2024 This course will focus on recent African arrivals to the United States, exploring the history of Africans who voluntarily entered the country. We will examine the lives of Africans who came to the US in the late 19th, 20th, and 21st century as students, visitors, missionaries, & temporary residents, as well as the reasons for African migration, settlement patterns and adjustment issues, and immigrant relationships with Americans, black and white.
AAS 2263UVA in Kenya - Swahili Cultures: Then & Now3
Effective Date 09/28/2023 Located in Kenya as a study abroad experience, this course is aimed at providing students with an immersive, interactive and intellectually enriching experience of the Swahili coast. Some of the main themes covered include language, cultures and practices, a critical understanding of the experience of race and racism, slavery and enslavement in the Swahili coast, and the historical cultural context of the region.
Effective Date 03/01/2009 An interdisciplinary course analyzing the relationship between black bodies and biomedicine both historically and in the present. The course is co-taught by Norm Oliver, M.D. (UVa Department of Family Medicine), and offers political, economic, and post-structuralist lenses with which to interpret the individual and socio/cultural health and disease of African-Americans. Readings range across several disciplines including anthropology, epidemiology/public health, folklore, history, science studies, political science, sociology and literary criticism. Topics will vary and may include: HIV/AIDS; reproductive issues; prison, crime and drugs; and body size/image and obesity; the legacy of the Tuskegee Syphilis Trials. Cross listed as ANTH 2450.
Effective Date 05/01/2026 Lower-level topics course: reading, class discussion, and written assignments on a special topic in African-American and African Studies Topics change from term to term, and vary with the instructor.
AAS 2600The Literatures & Cultures of the Black South3
Effective Date 01/01/2026 This course introduces African American literature through the cultural, historical, and imaginative landscapes of the Black South. We will read canonical texts alongside film and media to trace stories of resistance, survival, and creativity across generations. Each class begins with music (blues, spirituals, hip hop) foregrounding sonic traditions that shape Black Southern expression. Together, we will encounter profound visions of freedom.
Effective Date 01/01/2026 In this class, our task is to think through a few big questions: how do Black people’s bodies show up in contemporary United States culture? What are the histories of these representations? Why do they matter? As this conversation is important for all students, this course is designed to be accessible for undergraduate students at any level.
Effective Date 01/01/2026 Do we live in hopeful times, or are we stuck in a cycle of broken promises? This course explores how Black writers, thinkers & filmmakers wrestle with that question. Some imagine a future shaped by progress, multiculturalism & creative possibility. Others confront the deep roots of anti-Blackness in American life, asking whether freedom has ever really existed for Black people. We will read fiction, watch films & explore sources that offer powerful, sometimes conflicting, visions of Black life.
Effective Date 10/06/2017 In this course, we will trace the history of reggae music and explore its influence on the development of Jamaican literature. With readings on Jamaican history, we will consider why so many reggae songs speak about Jah and quote from the Bible. Then, we will explore how Marcus Garvey’s teachings led to the rise of Rastafarianism, which in turn seeded ideas of black pride and black humanity into what would become reggae music.
Effective Date 01/01/2026 The course introduces students to the history of the US over the 20th century through a focus on popular music. We will emphasize the social and cultural contexts for popular music, including Jim Crow segregation in the South, the Cold War, urbanization, the popular music industry, radio, television and other mass communications media, labor and class relations, the modern civil rights movement, the 1960s youth counterculture and its legacy, feminism and gay liberation movements.
Effective Date 11/20/2024 This seminar examines the historical and contemporary trajectories and the cultural and intellectual contributions of Afro-descendant peoples in Latin America. Students explore the myriad ways in which Afro-Latin Americans have shaped their societies from the colonial period to the present day.
Effective Date 08/01/2026 Which performances of Blackness do we find acceptable, and which do we scorn? How have Black Americans worked to assert their value in a media climate that seemingly relies on dichotomies of exceptionalism and deficiency? We will examine how African American culture, history, and experiences–“Blackness”–are presented in popular media. We will focus on representations of Blackness as offered up by Black people and how, intra-racially, concepts of racial uplift and good Black citizenship.
Effective Date 10/06/2017 In this course, students will gain an understanding of the richness and variety of African life. While no course of this kind can hope to give more than a broad overview of the continent, students will learn which intellectual tools and fundamental principles are necessary for approaching the study of the hundreds of cultural worlds that exist today on the African continent. This course will draw from ethnographic texts, literary works and film.
Effective Date 11/20/2024 This course will introduce students to themes in the history of Africa and the African Diaspora through novels. The class encourages students to read several novels as history. The novels will help us understand various themes in African history from the precolonial era to independence, exploring the role of religion, gender, slavery, and colonialism, and relationship with the African Diaspora in the lives of African peoples.
Effective Date 01/01/2022 In this interdisciplinary survey course on women leaders in urban areas in Africa, we will examine the experiences of women from diverse societies across the Eastern and Southern regions of Africa during the colonial and postcolonial periods. Of particular importance is how women in these societies have faced challenges and how they emerge as leaders in their communities. Requisites Students can’t enroll if previously taken AAS 2559 #25 Women Leaders in Africa
Effective Date 01/01/2026 How are archives built and maintained? How can we use historical archives to tell stories about Black life? Students will investigate the politics of knowledge production, power in the archive, and the limitations of various source materials through close reading, conversations with archivists, and hands-on archive exploration.
Effective Date 08/01/2009 This course examines women’s religious activities, traditions and spirituality in a number of different African contexts. Drawing on ethnographic, historical, literary, and religious studies scholarship, we will explore a variety of themes and debates that have emerged in the study of gender and religion in Africa. Topics will include gendered images of sacred power; the construction of gender through ritual; sexuality and fertility; and women
AAS 3113Horror Noire: A History of Black Americans in Horror3
Effective Date 11/20/2024 The horror genre provides daring, unflinching lessons. It is a syllabus of our social, political, and racial world. Black horror, in particular, has established itself as a primer on the quest for social justice. What can such a boundary-pushing genre teach us about paths to solidarity and democracy? What can we learn about disrupting racism, misogyny, and anti-Blackness?
Effective Date 03/01/2009 Breaking with popular constructions of the region as a timeless tropical paradise, this course will re-define the Caribbean as the birthplace of modern forms of capitalism, globalization, and trans-nationalism. We will survey the founding moments of Caribbean history, including the imposition of slavery, the rise of plantation economies, and the development of global networks of goods and peoples.
Effective Date 08/01/2026 What are the origins of anti-Haitian antagonism in the U.S. and why has it persisted? From zombies to AIDS to the sensational headlines animating recent presidential debates, we uncover why Haiti has played a central role in U.S. political discourse, immigration policy, and popular culture for centuries. Explore the connection between history, film, photography, literature, and more!
Effective Date 01/01/2026 Discover how ideas about race and gender shaped the culture of US empire in the Caribbean. Using music, literature, film, newspapers, poetry, visual art, and more, we investigate a series of hidden “gender wars” to uncover how the tropics became a testing site for U.S. domination. This course exposes students to histories of Afro-Caribbean cultural production, politics, resistance practices, performance.
Effective Date 11/20/2024 This course provides a historical and analytical understanding of the issues involving race, racism, race relations in American sport. This course provides an overview of the sporting events, activism, icons, and time periods that have been shaped by Americas continued struggle to improve race relations.
Effective Date 08/01/2019 An intensive examination of African-American social criticism centered upon, but not limited to, the life and thought of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. We will come to grips with the American legacy of racial hatred and oppression systematized in the institutions of antebellum chattel slavery and post-bellum racial segregation and analyze the array of critical responses to, and social struggles against, this legacy.
AAS 3220Environmental Justice: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Policy & Practice3
Effective Date 01/01/2026 Through selected case studies, we will examine theories of racism and justice, the conceptual history and definitions of environmental racism, the historical development and goals of the environmental justice movement, stakeholder responses to environmental inequities , the impact of environmental justice policies on environmental inequities as well as their impact on subsequent political behavior and the impact of environmental justice policies
Effective Date 03/01/2009 A history of the American South from the arrival of the first English settlers through the end of Reconstruction in 1877. Cross-listed with HIUS 3231.
Effective Date 01/01/2026 This course examines the plantation as both a historical site and persistent structure of power. We will study the plantation’s afterlives in literature, history, and media, asking how writers and creatives grappled with its meanings across time. Here, at UVA, where enslaved labor built and sustained the institution, the study of the plantation is not abstract–it is local and lived.
AAS 3300Social Science Perspectives on African American and African Studies3
Effective Date 10/09/2017 This course will focus on major debates, theories, and methodological approaches in the social sciences that contribute to African American Studies. The course helps students to consider how a multidisciplinary approach enriches efforts to analyze such issues as health disparities, education, and incarceration as they relate to the African Diaspora.
AAS 3310Environmental Justice in the Mid-Atlantic Region3
Effective Date 11/20/2024 This course is dedicated to examining government responses to environmental injustice. Our readings and discussions will use an interdisciplinary social-science perspective to track the trajectory of environmental justice activism and official responses to it in the five states (DE, MD, PA, VA, WVA) the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has designated as comprising the important but understudied mid-Atlantic region.
AAS 3450Race, the Law, and the American Constitution3
Effective Date 11/20/2024 This course will introduce students to the substance of the Constitution, the conditions under which it was developed, what it means, how its meaning has been determined, changed, interpreted and the ways in which it has shaped and has been shaped by ideas about and considerations of race.
AAS 3500Intermediate Seminar in African-American & African Studies3
Effective Date 08/01/2026 Reading, class discussion, and written assignments on a special topic in African-American and African Studies. Topics change from term to term, and vary with the instructor.
Effective Date 10/06/2017 Over the course of the semester, we will explore the genre of the contemporary musical novel in order to better understand why writers and readers are so intrigued by the figure of the musician as a literary trope. Pairing close listening and music theory with close readings of seminal blues, jazz, reggae, mambo, calypso and rock novels set in the US, UK, Jamaica, Trinidad, France and Germany.
Effective Date 10/09/2017 This course examines the history and legacy of the African American struggle for civil rights in twentieth century America. It provides students with a broad overview of the civil rights movement – the key issues, significant people and organizations, and pivotal events – as well as a deeper understanding of its scope, influence, legacy, and lessons for today.
Effective Date 10/06/2017 This course examines an array of African cultural worlds from the perspective of a variety of different life story genres. We will be addressing biography, autobiography, autofiction, memoirs, diaries, biographical documentary film and various artistic representations. Some critics claim that such genres, concentrating on the ‘individual’ in Western terms, are not appropriate for representing African experiences of personhood.
Effective Date 08/01/2019 In this course, we will read a sampling of some exciting new works of fiction from Africa’s young and established writers. In particular, we will examine the literary innovations that African writers use to narrate issues affecting the continent such as dictatorship, the lingering effects of colonization, the postcolonial nation state, the traumas of war and geo-politics, religion, gender and sexuality, and migration, among others.
AAS 3749Food and Meaning in Africa and the Diaspora3
Effective Date 02/28/2013 This course investigates the traditions and symbolics of food and eating in Africa and throughout the African Diaspora – wherever people of African descent have migrated or have been forced to move. This course will help students to investigate the way the foods people eat’ or don’t eat’ hold meaning for people within a variety of cultural contexts.Topics will include symbol, taboo, sexuality, bodies, ritual, kinship & beauty, among others.
Effective Date 11/20/2024 This course explores themes and issues in the lives of women in Africa. These include women in early African history, culture, and the role of gender in Africa, encounter with Islam and the West, womens search for autonomy, etc. Emphasis is placed, as much as is possible, on the perspectives of women, how they view their history and their ongoing struggle for self-determination.
Effective Date 01/01/2026 This course examines the social traditions and political strategies that defined Black women’s lives in the West since the 1600s. We discover how they theorized, pursued, and experienced liberation during and after slavery. Harnessing groundbreaking scholarship across disciplines, this course offers a broad perspective on Black women’s subjectivity, theories of freedom, and their importance to modern world history.
Effective Date 08/01/2024 Using a mix of scholarly and popular-press readings and an examination of digital artifacts, we will analyze the creations and contributions of Black digital culture from the mid-90s to the present. Covering topics including the early Black blogosphere; the creation of niche content sites like BlackPlanet.com; the emergence of Black Twitter; the circulation of memes, and the use second-screening. Requisites Students can’t enroll if previously taken AAS 3559 #29 Reading Black Digital Culture
Effective Date 11/20/2024 How do movies, viral videos, and memes impact the material lives of Black girls? This course offers an introduction to the emergent and growing field of Black Girlhood Studies, especially in relation to media representation and engagement. The course will cover foundational texts about Black girlhood alongside a range of media to explore the ways in which Black girlhood has been constructed and portrayed through these platforms.
Effective Date 10/06/2017 This course will examine how culture matters for understanding race and social inequality. It will survey social science research about cultural forms such as everyday discourse, styles of dress, music, literature, visual arts, and media as they relate to race and inequality.
AAS 3830Being Human: Race, Technology, and the Arts3
Effective Date 10/06/2017 This course is an introduction to Afrofuturism, exploring race and alienness, race and technology, and race and modernity through global futuristic representations of blackness in TV, film, music, art, and literature.
AAS 3853From Redlined to Subprime: Race and Real Estate in the US3
Effective Date 01/01/2023 This course examines the history of housing and real estate and explores its role in shaping the meaning and lived experience of race in modern America. We will learn how and why real estate ownership, investment, and development came to play a critical role in the formation and endurance of racial segregation, modern capitalism, and the built environment.
AAS 4005Morven’s Enslaved and Descendant Communities3
Effective Date 03/27/2023 This course invites students to explore the complex, multilayered history and evolving interpretation of UVA’s Morven Farm, with a focus on the site’s 19th century enslaved and descendant communities. The course combines lectures, research, and seminar-style discussions with field trips to area archives and historic sites. Does not count toward 4000-level seminar requirement. Requisites Students can’t enroll if previously taken AAS 4559 #3 Morven’s Enslaved Communities
Effective Date 04/19/2013 Course examines the crucial relationship between the Civil Rights Movement and mass media from 1950s through early 1970s, looking at a variety of media forms: Hollywood cinema, network television, mainstream newspapers, photojournalism, the black press, and news as primary documents that can tell us something about American race relations during this period and how the nation responded to challenges posed by a powerful social change movement.
AAS 4500Advanced Seminar in African-American and African Studies3
Effective Date 09/28/2015 Reading, class discussion, and research on a special topic in African-American and African Studies culminatiing in the composition of a research paper. Topics change from term to term, and vary with the instructor. Primarily for fourth-year students but open to others.
AAS 4501Advanced Research Seminar in History & AAS4
Effective Date 02/06/2024 Reading, class discussion, and research on a special topic in African-American and African Studies culminating in the composition of a research paper. Topics change from term to term, and vary with the instructor. Primarily for fourth-year AAS and History students–double majors and others. Crosslisted with the History major seminar.
AAS 4570Advanced Research Seminar in African-American & African Studies3
Effective Date 08/01/2026 Reading, class discussion, and research on a special topic in African-American and African Studies culminating in the composition of a research paper. Topics change from term to term, and vary with the instructor. Primarily for fourth-year students but open to others.
Effective Date 01/01/2026 This course provides a high-level introduction to the core authors, thinkers, texts, and tenets of a U.S.-based Black feminist intellectual tradition. It is intended to provide a substantial orientation to Black feminist scholarship and to prepare students for further engagement with Black feminist concepts and principles in academic, social, and cultural settings.
Effective Date 10/01/2018 How does “Africa” shape the contours of queerness? We will explore the complex iterations of afro-queer subjectivities in the the circum-Atlantic world. Importantly, we will examine the extent to which the afterlife of slavery in the Americas intersect with the state of postcoloniality in Africa, and how blackness and queerness get conditioned at these intersections. By providing an introduction to various artists, activists, and intellectuals in both Africa and its myriad diasporas, this interdisciplinary seminar will thus examine what it means to be both black and queer historically, spatially, and contemporarily.
AAS 4749Engaging Local Histories: River View Farm4
Effective Date 11/20/2024 This course situates and sheds light on various aspects of Black history and culture in Albemarle County and the surrounding regions through the lens and example of River View Farm and those who lived there, farmed there, and led local and regional communities. Part of the work of this class involves actively working with the Ivy Creek Foundation to support their mission of providing education about local Black histories to the public.
Effective Date 03/28/2009 Allows students to work on an individual research project. Students must propose a topic to an appropriate faculty member, submit a written proposal for approval, prepare an extensive annotated bibliography on relevant readings comparable to the reading list of a regular upper-level course, and complete a research paper of at least 20 pages.
