Program in African American Studies

Faculty

Director

  • Eddie S. Glaude

Director of Undergraduate Studies

  • Kinohi Nishikawa

Director of Graduate Studies

  • Ruha Benjamin

Associated Faculty

  • Jacob S. Dlamini, History
  • Paul Frymer, Politics
  • Hanna Garth, Anthropology
  • Simon E. Gikandi, English
  • William A. Gleason, English
  • Dan-El Padilla Peralta, Classics
  • Laurence Ralph, Anthropology
  • J. Nicole Shelton, Psychology
  • Stacey A. Sinclair, Psychology
  • Keith A. Wailoo, History
  • Leonard Wantchekon, Politics
  • Judith Weisenfeld, Religion
  • Frederick F Wherry, Sociology

Sits with Committee

  • Dannelle Gutarra Cordero

Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts

  • Ayah Nuriddin
For a full list of faculty members and fellows please visit the department or program website.

Program Information

The Department of African American Studies offers an undergraduate certificate that expands and deepens a student's understanding of race in the United States and in the world. The certificate is equivalent to an academic "minor" in African American Studies. Earning a certificate is straightforward and allows students to experience an enriching course of study that complements any Princeton concentration. Students who opt to pursue a certificate gain access to an extraordinary bibliography that prepares them to think about race and power in sophisticated ways.

The Program in African American Studies was founded on the assumption that the study of African American history and culture, and of the role that race has played in shaping the life and the institutions of the United States, is central to an American liberal education. Given the continuing and evolving centrality of race in American political, economic, social, and cultural life, and indeed, in every region of the world, reflection on race and on the distinctive experiences of Black people is indispensable for all Princeton students as global citizens. Drawing on a core of distinguished faculty in areas such as art and archaeology, comparative literature, English, history, philosophy, law and political science, psychology, religion, and sociology, the program promotes teaching and research of race with a focus on the experience of African Americans in the United States.

The program's curriculum reflects the complex interplay between political, economic, and cultural forces that shape our understanding of the historic achievements and struggles of African-descended people in this country and their relation to others around the world. Toward that end, the certificate is organized into three thematic subfields:

African American Culture and Life (AACL)

In the African American Culture and Life subfield, students encounter the theoretical canon and keywords that shape the contemporary discipline of African American Studies. Accessing a range of interdisciplinary areas, situated primarily in the United States, students will learn to take a critical posture in examining the patterns and practices that order and transform Black subjects and Black life.

Global Race and Ethnicity (GRE)

In the Global Race and Ethnicity subfield, students use the prevailing analytical tools and critical perspectives of African American Studies to consider comparative approaches to groups, broadly defined. Students will examine the intellectual traditions, sociopolitical contexts, expressive forms, and modes of belonging of people who are understood to share common boundaries/experiences as either:

  1. Africans and the African Diaspora outside of the United States; or
  2. non-African-descended people of color within the United States.

Race and Public Policy (RPP)

In the Race and Public Policy subfield, students use and interrogate social science methodologies in examining the condition of the American state and American institutions and practices. With an analysis of race and ethnicity at the center, students will examine the development of institutions and practices, with the growth and formation of racial and ethnic identities, including changing perceptions, measures, and reproduction of inequality.

Admission to the Program

The Program in African American Studies offers students concentrating in another department the opportunity to earn a certificate in African American Studies. Undergraduate students may apply for formal admission to the certificate program at any time once they have taken and achieved a satisfactory standing in any African American Studies (AAS) course.

Program Requirements

  1. Students must complete two AAS core survey courses from the list below:
    • AAS 244 Introduction to Pre-20th Century Black Diaspora Art
    • AAS 245 Introduction to 20th Century African American Art
    • AAS 353 African American Literature: Origins to 1910
    • AAS 359 African American Literature: Harlem Renaissance to Present
    • AAS 366 African American History to 1863
    • AAS 367 African American History Since Emancipation
  2. Students must take three additional courses in AAS, cross-listed by AAS, or from our approved cognates list.  At least one (1) of these must be in the GRE subfield.

Certificate of Proficiency

Students who fulfill all the requirements of the program will receive a certificate in African American Studies upon graduation.

Please consult the listing for the Program in African American Studies for additional information.

 

 

Courses

AAS 201 African American Studies and the Philosophy of Race (also
PHI 291
) Fall CDEC

This course introduces students to the field of African American Studies through an examination of the complex experiences, both past and present, of Americans of African descent. Through a multidisciplinary perspective, it reveals the complicated ways we come to know and live race in the United States. Students engage classic texts in the field. All of which are framed by a concern with epistemologies of resistance and of ignorance that offer insight into African American thought and practice. AAS Subfield: AACL Instructed by: E. Glaude Jr., I. Perry

AAS 202 Introductory Research Methods in African American Studies (also
SOC 202
) Not offered this year SA

The purposes of this course are to assist the student in developing the ability to critically evaluate social science research on the Black experience and to do research in African studies. To accomplish these goals, the course will acquaint students with the processes of conceptualization and basic research techniques, and some of the unique issues in conducting research on the Black experience. A variety of appropriate studies will be utilized. Instructed by: Staff

AAS 203 The Sixties: Documentary, Youth and the City (See HIS 202)

AAS 208 Media, Sex, and the Racialized Body (See GSS 208)

AAS 209 Race, Racism, and Racial Justice (See PHI 208)

AAS 211 The American Experience and Dance Practices of the African Diaspora (See DAN 211)

AAS 213 The Lucid Black and Proud Musicology of Leroi Jones/Amiri Baraka (See LCA 213)

AAS 221 Inequality: Class, Race, and Gender (See SOC 221)

AAS 222 Introduction to Hip-Hop Dance (See DAN 222)

AAS 230 Topics in African American Studies (also
ENG 231
) Spring LA

This topics course explores the complex interplay between political, economic, and cultural forces that shape our understanding of the historic achievements and struggles of African-descended people in the United States and their relation to others around the world. Instructed by: E. Glaude Jr.

AAS 239 Introduction to African Literature and Film (See COM 239)

AAS 241 The Golden Rhinoceros: Histories of the African Middle Ages (See COM 241)

AAS 244 Introduction to Pre-20th Century Black Diaspora Art (also
ART 262
/
LAS 244
) Fall CDLA

This course focuses on the networks, imaginaries, and lives inhabited by Black artists, makers, and subjects from the 18th through 19th centuries, revolving around the Caribbean (particularly the Anglophone Caribbean), North America, and Europe. We will reflect on how pre-20th-century Black artists are written into history or written out of it. We will explore the aesthetic innovation of these artists and the visionary worlds they created and examine their travels, their writings, along with the social worlds and communities they formed. The course incorporates lectures and readings and, if possible, museum visits. AAS Subfield: AACL, GRE Instructed by: A. Kesson

AAS 245 Introduction to 20th-Century African American Art (also
ART 245
) Not offered this year LA

This surveys history of African American art during the long 20th-century, from the individual striving of late 19th century to the unprecedented efflorescence of art and culture in 1920s Harlem; from the retrenchment in Black artistic production during the era of Great Depression, to the rise of racially conscious art inspired by the Civil Rights Movement; from the Black feminist art in the 1970s, to the age of American multiculturalism in the 1980s and 1990s; and finally to the turn of the present century when ambitious "postblack" artists challenge received notions of Black art and racial subjectivity. AAS Subfield: AACL, GRE Instructed by: C. Okeke-Agulu

AAS 250 Religion and the African American Political Imagination (See REL 250)

AAS 256 African American Religious History (See REL 256)

AAS 260 Introduction to African Art (See ART 260)

AAS 261 Art and Politics in Postcolonial Africa (See ART 261)

AAS 262 Jazz History: Many Sounds, Many Voices (See MUS 262)

AAS 263 Bondage and Slaving in Global History (See CLA 225)

AAS 300 Junior Seminar: Research and Writing in African American Studies Fall SA

As a required course for AAS concentrators, this junior seminar introduces students to theories and methods of research design in African American Studies. Drawing on a wide-ranging methodological toolkit from the humanities and social sciences, students will learn to reflect on the ethical and political dimensions of original research in order to produce knowledge that is intellectually and socially engaged. This is a writing-intensive seminar with weekly essay assignments. Instructed by: N. Murakawa, T. Hunter

AAS 303 Topics in Global Race and Ethnicity (also
GSS 406
/
HUM 347
) Fall/Spring HASA

This seminar uses the prevailing analytical tools and critical perspectives of African American Studies to consider comparative approaches to groups, broadly defined. Students will examine the intellectual traditions, socio-political contexts, expressive forms, and modes of belonging of people who are understood to share common boundaries/experiences as either (1) Africans and the African Diaspora outside of the United States; and/or (2) non-African-descended people of color within the United States. Instructed by: Staff

AAS 306 Topics in Race and Public Policy (also
HUM 329
/
JRN 336
) Fall/Spring CDSA

This seminar uses and interrogates social science methodologies in examining the condition of the American state and American institutions and practices. With an analysis of race and ethnicity at the center, students will examine the development of institutions and practices, with the growth and formation of racial and ethnic identities, including changing perceptions, measures, and reproduction of inequality. Instructed by: Staff

AAS 307 Black Dance: History, Theory, Practice (See DAN 305)

AAS 310 American Pentecostalism (See REL 310)

AAS 311 Citizenships Ancient and Modern (See CLA 310)

AAS 312 Storytellers - Building Community Through Art (See THR 313)

AAS 316 #Dancing Black: Black American Dance from 1970 to Today (See DAN 302)

AAS 317 Race and Public Policy (See SPI 331)

AAS 319 Caribbean Women's History (also
LAS 368
/
GSS 356
) Spring HA

This seminar investigates the historical experiences of women in the Caribbean from the era of European conquest to the late twentieth century. We will examine how shifting conceptions of gender, sexuality, race, class, and the body have shaped understandings of womanhood and women's rights. We will engage a variety of sources - including archival documents, films, newspaper accounts, feminist blogs, music, and literary works - in addition to historical scholarship and theoretical texts. The course will include readings on the Spanish-, English-, and French-speaking Caribbean as well as the Caribbean diaspora. AAS Subfield: GRE Instructed by: R. Goldthree

AAS 320 Studies in Religion (See REL 373)

AAS 321 Black Rage and Black Power (also
REL 321
) Not offered this year HA

This course examines the various pieties of the Black Power Era. We chart the explicit and implicit utopian visions of the politics of the period that, at once, criticized established Black religious institutions and articulated alternative ways of imagining salvation. We also explore the attempt by Black theologians to translate the prophetic Black church tradition into the idiom of Black power. We aim to keep in view the significance of the Black Power era for understanding the changing role and place of Black religion in Black public life. Instructed by: E. Glaude Jr.

AAS 322 Afro-Diasporic Dialogues: Black Activism in Latin America and the United States (also
LAS 301
/
LAO 322
/
AMS 323
) Spring HA

This course explores how people of African descent in the Americas have forged social, political, and cultural ties across geopolitical and linguistic boundaries. We will interrogate the transnational dialogue between African Americans and Afro-Latin Americans using case studies from Brazil, Cuba, Haiti, and Puerto Rico. Exploring how Black activists and artists from the US have partnered with people of color in Latin America and the Caribbean to challenge racism and economic inequality, while also considering why efforts to mobilize Afro-descendants across the Americas have often been undermined by mutual misunderstandings. AAS Subfield: GRE Instructed by: R. Goldthree

AAS 323 Diversity in Black America (also
AMS 321
) Fall CDSA

As the demographics of Blacks in America change, we are compelled to rethink the dominant stories of who African Americans are, and from whence they come. The seminar explores the deep cultural, genealogical, national origin, regional, and class-based diversity of people of African descent in the United States. AAS Subfield: AACL, GRE Instructed by: I. Perry

AAS 324 Excavate/Illuminate: Creating Theater from the Raw Material of History (See HUM 321)

AAS 325 African American Autobiography (also
ENG 393
/
REL 366
) Not offered this year LA

Highlights the autobiographical tradition of African Americans from the antebellum period to the present as symbolic representations of African American material, social, and intellectual history and as narrative quests of self-development. Students will be introduced to basic methods of literary analysis and criticism, specifically focusing on cultural criticism and psychoanalytic theory on the constructed self. Instructed by: Staff

AAS 326 Topics in African American Culture & Life (also
ENG 286
) LA

In this seminar, students encounter the theoretical canon and keywords, which shape the contemporary discipline of African American Studies. Accessing a range of interdisciplinary areas, situated primarily in the United States, students will learn to take a critical posture in examining the patterns and prat order and transform Black subjects and Black life. Instructed by: Staff

AAS 327 20th Century Masters Not offered this year LA

This special topics course will focus on artists and intellectuals whose corpus reflects and illuminates 20th century African American life. Instructed by: Staff

AAS 329 Rhythm Tap Dance Lab: Explorations in Black Embodied and Electronic Music (See DAN 303)

AAS 331 Beyond Tuskegee: Race and Human Subjects Research in US History (also
HIS 382
) Fall CD

This course explores the history of human subjects research as a scientific practice and how practitioners interpreted the use of living and dead bodies for producing scientific knowledge. Examining how and why certain bodies become eligible for research and experimentation. Showing how race, class, gender, and disability shape the history of human subjects research, and show how human subjects were also deliberately selected from vulnerable populations. It will focus on the experiences of African Americans as research subjects, and consider other vulnerable populations such as children, the disabled, and the incarcerated. AAS Subfield: AACL Instructed by: A. Nuriddin

AAS 335 Modern Brazilian History (See HIS 333)

AAS 339 Black Mirror: Race, Technology, and Justice (also
EGR 339
) Spring CDSA

Are robots racist? Is software sexist? Are neural networks neutral? From everyday apps to complex algorithms, technology has the potential to hide, speed up, and even deepen discrimination. Using the Black Mirror TV series as a starting point, we will explore a range of emerging technologies that encode inequity in digital platforms and automated decisions systems, and develop a conceptual toolkit to decode tech promises with sociologically informed skepticism. Students will apply design justice principles in a collaborative project and learn to communicate course insights to tech practitioners, policy makers, and the broader public. Instructed by: R. Benjamin

AAS 340 Christians and Incarceration (See REL 308)

AAS 344 Race and Politics in the United States (See POL 344)

AAS 345 Black Radical Tradition (also
GSS 381
) Fall CDHA

This course surveys a genealogy of U.S. Black politics and culture in order to gain purchase on the idea of a "Black Radical Tradition." We will examine historical cases of deliberative activities, intimate life, and aesthetic choice in Black communities, orienting our discussions around the following questions: What are the stakes in defining the Black Radical Tradition? What qualifies as 'the political' for Black subjects? And, to what extent are conceptions of politics historically contingent? Students will develop inventive engagements with Black political history and learn concepts that are important to the study of race and politics. Instructed by: Staff

AAS 346 The American Jeremiad and Social Criticism in the United States (also
REL 367
) Not offered this year HA

An examination of the religious and philosophical roots of prophecy as a form of social criticism in American intellectual and religious history. Particular attention is given to what is called the American Jeremiad, a mode of public exhortation that joins social criticism to spiritual renewal. Michael Walzer, Sacvan Bercovitch, and Edward Said serve as key points of departure in assessing prophetic criticism's insights and limitations. Attention is also given to the role of Black prophetic critics, such as James Baldwin, Martin Luther King Jr., and Cornel West. Instructed by: E. Glaude Jr.

AAS 347 In Living Color: Performing the Black '90s (See THR 392)

AAS 351 Law, Social Policy, and African American Women (also
GSS 351
) Not offered this year SA

Journeying from enslavement and Jim Crow to the post-civil rights era, this course will learn how law and social policy have shaped, constrained, and been resisted by Black women's experience and thought. Using a wide breadth of materials including legal scholarship, social science research, visual arts, and literature, we will also develop an understanding of how property, the body, and the structure and interpretation of domestic relations have been frameworks through which Black female subjectivity in the United States was and is mediated. Instructed by: I. Perry

AAS 352 Black and Indigenous Feminist Survival and Experimentation in the Americas (See AMS 351)

AAS 353 African American Literature: Origins to 1910 (also
ENG 352
) Fall LA

This introductory course traces the emergence of an African American literary tradition, from the late-18th century to the early 20th. In readings, assignments, and discussion we will consider the unique cultural contexts, aesthetic debates, and socio-political forces underpinning African American literary cultural and practice. Over the course of the semester, we will investigate the poetry of Phillis Wheatley and Paul L. Dunbar, the political oratory of Sojourner Truth and David Walker, slave narratives by Frederick Douglass and Harriet Wilson, writing by W.E.B. DuBois, and novels by Frances Harper. AAS Subfield: AACL Instructed by: A. Womack

AAS 354 Black Dramatists in the English-Speaking World (See ENG 354)

AAS 355 Pleasure, Power and Profit: Race and Sexualities in a Global Era (See GSS 345)

AAS 356 Race and the Inhumanities (See CLA 342)

AAS 357 Black Politics and Public Policy in the U.S. (See SPI 337)

AAS 358 Sexuality and Religion in America (also
REL 379
/
GSS 359
) Spring CDHA

Sexuality has long been a contested and contentious issue within American religions, yet only recently have scholars begun to address it forthrightly. This course will explore the emerging literature on sexuality and religion as a way to understand how approaches to sex and sexuality within "sacred spaces" have shaped private behavior and public opinion. We will give particular attention to African American religious traditions and American evangelicalism and Catholicism more broadly for the way they have been especially influential in framing (and inhibiting) sexual discourse and practices in the United States. AAS Subfield: AACL Instructed by: W. Best

AAS 359 African American Literature: Harlem Renaissance to Present (also
ENG 366
) Spring LA

A survey of 20th- and 21st century African American literature, including the tradition's key aesthetic manifestos. Special attention to how modern African American literature is periodized and why certain innovations in genre and style emerged when they did. Poetry, essays, novels, popular fiction, a stage production or two, and related visual texts. AAS Subfield: AACL Instructed by: K. Nishikawa

AAS 362 Race and the American Legal Process: Emancipation to the Voting Rights Act Not offered this year SA

This course examines the dynamic and often conflicted relationships between African American struggles for inclusion, and the legislative, administrative, and judicial decision-making responding to or rejecting those struggles, from Reconstruction to the passage of the Voting Rights Act. In tracing these relationships we will cover issues such as property, criminal law, suffrage, education, and immigration, with a focus on the following theoretical frameworks: equal protection, due process, civic participation and engagement, and political recognition. Instructed by: I. Perry

AAS 365 Migration and the Literary Imagination (also
REL 362
) Fall LA

This course will explore the various meanings of migration and mobility found in 20th-century African American literature. Through careful historical and literary analysis, we will examine the significant impact migration has had on African American writers and the ways it has framed their literary representations of modern Black life. AAS Subfield: AACL Instructed by: W. Best

AAS 366 African American History to 1863 (also
HIS 386
) Not offered this year HA

This course explores African American history from the Atlantic slave trade up to the Civil War. It is centrally concerned with the rise of and overthrow of human bondage and how they shaped the modern world. Africans were central to the largest and most profitable forced migration in world history. They shaped new identities and influenced the contours of American politics, law, economics, culture, and society. The course considers the diversity of experiences in this formative period of nation-making. Race, class, gender, region, religion, labor, and resistance animate important themes in the course. AAS Subfield: AACL Instructed by: T. Hunter

AAS 367 African American History Since Emancipation (also
HIS 387
) Spring CDHA

This course offers an introduction to the major themes, critical questions, and pivotal moments in post emancipation African American history. Traces the social, political, cultural, intellectual, and legal contours of the black experience in the United States from Reconstruction to the rise of Jim Crow, through the World Wars, Depression, and the Great Migrations, to the long civil rights era and the contemporary period of racial politics. Using a wide variety of texts, images, and creative works, the course situates African American history within broader national and international contexts. AAS Subfield: AACL Instructed by: Staff

AAS 368 Topics in African American Religion (also
REL 368
) Not offered this year LA

Assesses the value of religion and its impartations of the historical, ethical, and political in African American life. Courses will also critique African American religion from a broader contextual basis by establishing commonalities and differences across historical and cultural boundaries. Instructed by: W. Best

AAS 372 Postblack - Contemporary African American Art (also
ART 374
/
AMS 372
) Fall CDLA

As articulated by Thelma Golden, postblack refers to the work of African American artists who emerged in the 1990s with ambitious, irreverent, and sassy work. Postblack suggests the emergence of a generation of artists removed from the long tradition of Black affirmation of the Harlem Renaissance, Black empowerment of the Black Arts movement, and identity politics of the 1980s and early 90s. This seminar involves critical and theoretical readings on multiculturalism, race, identity, and contemporary art, and will provide an opportunity for a deep engagement with the work of African American artists of the past decade. AAS Subfield: AACL, GRE Instructed by: C. Okeke-Agulu

AAS 373 What is Black Art: Art History and the Black Diaspora (See ART 373)

AAS 376 Race and Religion in America (See REL 377)

AAS 380 Law and Public Policy in African American History (also
AMS 382
) Spring CDHA

This course explores how ideas and discourses about race shape how public policy is debated, adopted, and implemented. Black social movements and geopolitical considerations prompted multiple public policy responses to racial discrimination throughout the twentieth century. Despite these policy responses, discrimination persists, raising theoretical concerns about the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion, political representation, the role of the state (meaning government or law) in promoting social justice, and the role of social movements and civil society in democratizing policymaking and addressing group oppression. Instructed by: N. Murakawa, K. Taylor

AAS 382 Race, Religion, and the Harlem Renaissance (See REL 372)

AAS 383 Cinema in Times of Pandemic: Research Film Studio (See COM 373)

AAS 384 Prejudice: Its Causes, Consequences, and Cures (See SPI 345)

AAS 385 The Hidden History of Hollywood - Research Film Studio (See CHV 385)

AAS 387 Puerto Ricans Under U.S. Empire: Memory, Diaspora, and Resistance (See SPA 387)

AAS 388 Unrest and Renewal in Urban America (See HIS 388)

AAS 390 Law, Policy and the Black Lives Matter Movement (See SPI 395)

AAS 391 Experimenting in Dark Times: 19th C African American Literature and Culture (See ENG 391A)

AAS 392 Topics in African American Literature (also
ENG 392
/
GSS 341
) Not offered this year LA

A historical overview of Black literary expression from the 19th century to present day. Will emphasize a critical and analytical approach to considering the social, cultural, and political dimensions of African American literature. Instructed by: Staff

AAS 393 Race, Drugs, and Drug Policy in America (See HIS 393)

AAS 394 African American Women's History (See HIS 390)

AAS 397 New Diasporas (See ENG 397)

AAS 398 Curating Within Obscurity: Research as Exhibition Structure and Form (See VIS 373)

AAS 399 Illegal Gatherings Act - South African Protest Theatre (See THR 355)

AAS 402 Princeton and Slavery (See HIS 402)

AAS 403 Race and Medicine (See ANT 403)

AAS 405 Advanced Seminar in American Studies (See AMS 404)

AAS 410 Mortality at the Margins: Race, Inequality and Health Policy in the United States (See GHP 409)

AAS 411 Art, Apartheid, and South Africa (also
ART 471
/
AFS 411
) Not offered this year CDLA

Apartheid, the political doctrine of separation of races in South Africa (1948-1990), dominated the (South) African political discourse in the second half of the 20th century. While it lasted, art and visual cultures were marshaled in the defense and contestation of its ideologies. Since the end of Apartheid, artists, filmmakers, dramatists, and scholars continue to reexamine the legacies of Apartheid, and the social, philosophical, and political conditions of non-racialized South Africa. Course readings examine issues of race, nationalism and politics, art and visual culture, and social memory in South Africa. AAS Subfield: GRE Instructed by: C. Okeke-Agulu

AAS 412 Human Trafficking and its Demise: African and European Slaves in Modern Islam (16th-21st century) (See NES 395)

AAS 413 Major Author(s) (See ENG 411)

AAS 434 Gender and Sexuality in African History (See COM 434)

AAS 443 Black Worldmaking: Freedom Movements Then and Now (See HIS 443)

AAS 448 The Media and Social Issues (See JRN 448)

AAS 455 Major Author(s) (See ENG 414)

AAS 456 New Orleans at 300: Invention & Reinvention in an American City (See HIS 456)

AAS 472 Igbo and Yoruba Art (See ART 472)

AAS 474 Art and Politics in Postcolonial Africa (See ART 474)

AAS 476 Crafting Freedom: Women and Liberation in the Americas (1960s to the present) (See COM 476)

AAS 477 The Civil Rights Movement (also
HIS 477
) Not offered this year HA

This course critically examines the development of the southern Civil Rights Movement and the rise of the Black Power insurgency from the end of World War II through the end of the 1960s. We will examine historical research, oral histories, literature, documentaries and other kinds of primary and secondary documentation. AAS Subfield: AACL Instructed by: J. Guild, I. Perry