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Fall 2021
Mar 28,2024
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AFST 100 - IS-AFRICANA STUDIES

0.000 TO 4.000 Credit hours
0.000 TO 4.000 Lecture hours

Levels: Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Hybrid, Independent Study, Online Course

Africana Studies Department

AFST 188 - AFRICAN-LATIN AMER CLTR
This 15-week video lecture series features noted leader, scholars and professionals of Latin and African descent speaking about the concerns of people of color in the Americas. Documentary films on the arts and sciences influencing people of color will also be reviewed. Video lecturers include: Henry Louis Gates, Cornell West, Rosalind Jeffries, Molefi Asante, Marcus Garvey Jr., Paul Robeson, Samuel Betantes, Julia Hare, and others.
0.000 TO 4.000 Credit hours
0.000 TO 4.000 Lecture hours

Levels: Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Hybrid, Lecture, Online Course

Africana Studies Department

Course Attributes:
MJ-Africana Studies, MN-Africana Studies

AFST 200 - IS-AFRICANA STUDIES

0.000 TO 4.000 Credit hours
0.000 TO 4.000 Lecture hours

Levels: Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Hybrid, Independent Study, Online Course

Africana Studies Department

AFST 202 - INTRODUCTION TO AFRICAN STUDIES
This course gives a general overview of sub-Saharan African cultures, societies, and entities before the modern colonial period. The course covers Africa from the early Common Era (200 AD Rise of Ancient Ghana, Ancient Aksum & the decline of Ancient Meroe), to the second half of the l9th century (I880 AD The West scramble for Africa). Students will be introduced to medieval civilizations, such as Mali, Ethiopia, and Great Zimbabwe, but sub-Saharan Africa is diverse and thus the focus on a particular region will depend on the expertise of the instructor. Finally, this course will make the essential cultural and physical connections with black Africa and its African Diaspora to the Americas, Caribbean, and Middle East. (4 credits) There is at least one outside field trip. Students will be expected to cover the cost of the field trip.
0.000 TO 4.000 Credit hours
0.000 TO 4.000 Lecture hours

Levels: Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Hybrid, Lecture, Online Course

Africana Studies Department

Course Attributes:
MN-Africana Studies, Gen Ed 18-Global Awareness, OLD GE-INTERNATIONAL ISSUES, WRITING INTENSIVE

AFST 208 - AFRICAN AMERICAN SOCIAL & POLITICAL THOUGHT
This course is designed to examine the theories, thoughts and deeds of influential African-American public figures in the 19"‘, 20"‘ , & 21“ Centuries. Those thinkers include Booker T. Washington, David Walker, W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells, Marcus Garvey, Maria W. Stewart. Bell Hooks, Martin Luther King, Jr., and others. We will study their intellectual histories and thoughts in their attempt to advance democracy through their correspondences, essays, poems, memoirs, articles and speeches as well as through selected biographies about them. The social and political conditions and conflicts that gave rise to these leaders along with their adversaries will be explored as well. An emphasis in this course will be placed upon relevant class discussion, the ability to analyze large amounts of reading & visual material, utilization of technology, writing ability, and subject mastery that will be demonstrated through examinations and class participation. This course meets the General Education requirement category for Values and Ethics. It also meets the requirements for the Africana Studies Major and Minor. Course Learning Outcomes are: I) To help students understand the social conditions that led to the development of African American Political Thought in the United States from the middle of the 19'“ century to the current times; 2) To learn the differences between Integrationists thought and Nationalists thought ; 3) To learn the historical politics behind institutional racism and inequality; 4) To understand the internal politics among African Americans based on class, skin-color, and education; 5) To learn the protest tradition of the black community and its institutions that challenged racism.
0.000 TO 4.000 Credit hours
0.000 TO 4.000 Lecture hours

Levels: Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Hybrid, Lecture, Lecture/Online, Online Course

Africana Studies Department

Course Attributes:
Gen Ed 18-Values and Ethics

AFST 215 - AFRICAN AMERICANS IN FILM
This course will examine the images of African-Americans portrayed in popular film from 1915 to the present. Films viewed will contrast those produced by major Hollywood studios and by independent directors such as Oscar Micheaux, Charles Burnett, Isaac Julien, Michael Schultz, Reginald Hudlin, Dee Rees, Julie Dash, Haile Gerima, KIasi Lemmons, Tyler Perry, Leslie Harris, Mario Van Peebles, John Singleton, George Tillman Jr., Allen and Albert Hughes, and Spike Lee. Particular attention will focus on each film's relationship to the historical time period and cultural milieu in which it was produced. Readings will include works of fiction, film criticism, interviews with film directors, and historical, sociological, and literary monographs. Writing will be integrated into the life of this course. You will receive comments, direction, and support as you work on strengthening your writing skills. Your writing will be evaluated and returned in a timely fashion, allowing you to incorporate these comments into your future work. For help outside the classroom, please contact the professor during office hours and/or work with a writing tutor in the Center for Reading and Writing.
0.000 TO 4.000 Credit hours
0.000 TO 4.000 Lecture hours

Levels: Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Hybrid, Lecture, Online Course

Africana Studies Department

Course Attributes:
MN-AFR AMR STD-Hum & Culture, MJ-Africana Studies, MN-Africana Studies, MJ-AMER-African-Amer Stds., MJ-Amer-Artistic Expression, MJ-AMER- African-Amer Studies, Gen Ed 18-Culture & Creativity, OLD GE-INTERCULT NORTH AMERICA, SS-Sch Core-Consc & Society, WRITING INTENSIVE

AFST 220 - HIP HOP AND SOCIETY
In this course, students will examine the grassroots artistic and cultural movement known as Hip Hop. Students will examine the origins of Hip Hop in Working-class African-American and Caribbean communities in the South Bronx in the 1970s. Students will explore the various artistic elements of Hip Hop and its expansion to communities around the country and world. Students will pay close attention to the relationship between Black Power, immigration, and urban decline and the early development of Hip Hop. Students will also seek to understand why and how Hip Hop became a big business with global reach and popularity by the 1990s. Students will pay close attention to the relationship between Hip Hop and globalization and its social, cultural, political, and economic impact on the United States and around the world. Students will seek to understand how the commercialization and globalization of Hip Hop destabilized and reconfigured racial, gender, ethnic, and sexual identities, and fueled social and political movements in the U.S. and around the world.
0.000 TO 4.000 Credit hours
0.000 TO 4.000 Lecture hours

Levels: Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Hybrid, Lecture, Online Course

Africana Studies Department

Course Attributes:
MJ-Africana Studies, MN-Africana Studies, MN-AFR AMER STD-Social Science, MJ-AMER-African-Amer Stds., Gen Ed 18-Culture & Creativity, OLD GE-INTERCULT NORTH AMERICA

AFST 239 - DEVELOPMENT IN ETHIOPIA
The program will focus on globalization and development issues in Ethiopia. Students will explore the historical, political, economic, and cultural dynamics of Ethiopian society and the specific development issues affecting Ethiopia, including public health, economic development, land and food politics, environment, and education. The instructors will be academics from Addis Ababa University as well as guest community organizers, politicians, diplomats, and NGO administrators. Class lectures will be supplemented with relevant reading and with field trips to historical sites, archeological sites, anthropological and ecological zones, interactions with local population of various ethno cultural communities, observations of families and children in rural communities, service activities, and visits to various NGOs and regional states.
0.000 TO 4.000 Credit hours
0.000 TO 4.000 Lecture hours

Levels: Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Hybrid, Lecture, Online Course

Africana Studies Department

Course Attributes:
MN-AFR AMR STD-Hist & Pol Tht, MJ-Africana Studies, MN-Africana Studies, OLD GE-INTERNATIONAL ISSUES

AFST 300 - IS-AFRICANA STUDIES

0.000 TO 4.000 Credit hours
0.000 TO 4.000 Lecture hours

Levels: Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Hybrid, Independent Study, Online Course

Africana Studies Department

AFST 310 - AFRICANS IN CONTEMPORARY LATIN AMERICA
This course is an in-depth study of the ethnic relationships, social status and attitudes among citizens of African and non-African descent in Contemporary Latin American Nations. The cosmology of being black in Latin America and the Caribbean includes the nature of speech, talk, discourse, writing, all other systems of human communication and behaviors, custom, food, music, aspirations, goals, religion, gender and social class. Focus will be placed on how blackness transcents the boundaries imposed for more than five centuries of cultural transformation since the African Diaspora to Latin America.
0.000 TO 4.000 Credit hours
0.000 TO 4.000 Lecture hours

Levels: Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Hybrid, Lecture, Online Course

Africana Studies Department

Course Attributes:
MN-AFR AMR STD-Hist & Pol Tht, MJ-Africana Studies, MN-Africana Studies, OLD GE-INTERNATIONAL ISSUES

AFST 330 - VODOUN AND AFRICAN RELIGION AND THE NEW WORLD
This course focuses on African religions and their transformation in the New World. West Africans who were brought to Cuba and the other lands of the New World were forced to disguise their ancestral religions and to embrace the church of their captors. This course studies this tradition of Yoruba religion from Africa to Latin America, and the Caribbean, and from the Caribbean to the USA. The embodiment of Holy Voodoo, Santeria, Palo Mayombe, Candomble, Dugu, etc. are living expressions of the African heritage brought from Latin America and the Caribbean to the USA.
0.000 TO 4.000 Credit hours
0.000 TO 4.000 Lecture hours

Levels: Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Hybrid, Lecture, Online Course

Africana Studies Department

Course Attributes:
MN-AFR AMR STD-Hum & Culture, MJ-Africana Studies, MN-Africana Studies, OLD GE-INTERCULT NORTH AMERICA

AFST 331 - ITALIAN COLONIAL CULTURE IN AFRICA
This course will explore Italian colonial and postcolonial culture from the preunification period to the present in the light of the new theoretical perspectives. The texts, films and opera will provide a panorama of Italian colonial culture and will illuminate the wealth of material that still needs to be addressed and debated. Specifically, the course will address the Italian campaigns in Africa and it will provide a valuable, full account of the political exchanges to date between the spiritual value to the Ethiopian people. This course will also examine the failures and shortcomings of Italy's postcolonial history and alternative subjects of investigation including women's history, oral history and postcolonial writing of Eurocentric viewpoints. This course will revisit the Orientalist discourse within the Egyptian work of Giuseppe Ungaretti and Edward Said's interpretation of "Aida". It will address national identity and imperialism through the emergence of cinema of both the 1920s and 1930s, thus bringing Italian colonialism into the space of today's most important debates regarding colonialism and multiculturalism.
0.000 TO 4.000 Credit hours
0.000 TO 4.000 Lecture hours

Levels: Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Hybrid, Lecture, Online Course

Africana Studies Department

Course Attributes:
MN-AFR AMR STD-Hist & Pol Tht, MJ-Africana Studies, MN-Africana Studies, OLD GE-INTERNATIONAL ISSUES

AFST 352 - POLITICAL LEGACY OF MALCOLM X
Malcolm X (1925-1965) in his brief lifetime was one of the most gifted leaders of the 20th century who not only continues to influence the culture, life and thinking of countless African Americans but other thinkers in America and intellectuals internationally. This interdisciplinary course uses Malcolm X's life as a prism through which to view Black popular culture, politics and the moral practices of American society. Malcolm's life is also used to understand the influence of an indigenous Islamic movement that exists in many African American and urban communities. Students will understand this crucial Era in America by examining the values, aesthetics and leadership of Malcolm X through his autobiography, speeches and interviews as well as through selected biographies, monographs, editorials and essays. Guest speakers and video presentations will be utilized to stress his challenges to his Era's global white supremacy and the misuse of Western wealth and power to exploit Africa and African Diasporic people worldwide.
0.000 TO 4.000 Credit hours
0.000 TO 4.000 Lecture hours

Levels: Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Hybrid, Lecture, Online Course

Africana Studies Department

Course Attributes:
MN-AFR AMR STD-Hist & Pol Tht, MJ-Africana Studies, MJ-AMER-African-Amer Stds., OLD GE-INTERCULT NORTH AMERICA

AFST 400 - IS-AFRICANA STUDIES

0.000 TO 4.000 Credit hours
0.000 TO 4.000 Lecture hours

Levels: Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Hybrid, Independent Study, Online Course

Africana Studies Department

AFST 403 - TELLING LIVES: AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY VIA AUTOBIOGRAPHY
FORMERLY: SOSC 403. This course draws on African American Studies, women's studies, history, literature, and cultural studies. We will be examining African American autobiographies from 1890-1960 through the lenses of history and of literary analysis and cultural studies. There will be a common set of texts (autobiographies and historical texts). Each student, in addition, will lead a class discussion around either one of the assigned texts or a supplemental text drawing on relevant background material (including biographies, criticism, and historical material and developing a packet of additional readings for the class.) The class presentation will be accompanied by a substantial 15-20 page analytical research paper.
0.000 TO 4.000 Credit hours
0.000 TO 4.000 Lecture hours

Levels: Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Hybrid, Lecture, Online Course

Africana Studies Department

Course Attributes:
MN-AFR AMR STD-Hum & Culture, MJ-Africana Studies, MN-Africana Studies, OLD GE-INTERCULT NORTH AMERICA, SS-Sch Core-Consc & Society, WRITING INTENSIVE

AFST 490 - TOPICS:
The descriptions and topics of this course vary from semester-to-semester as well as from instructor-to-instructor. Prerequisites: varies with the topic offered. AFST 490 WORDS, SOUNDS, AND PICTURES: The Lives and Works of Pioneering African-American Writers, Jazz Musicians, and Visual Artists. The course will look at the lives and works of pioneering 20th century African-American artists in three areas: literature, jazz, and painting. A focus, particularly with literature, will be on challenges the artists faced and the way those challenges surface in their work. Students will read and discuss short texts (stories, essays, poems, book chapters) by writers. The course will also have a multimedia component, with students listening to and comparing jazz recordings and examining and discussing paintings and sculpture. We will compare and discuss the styles of the various artists, both within and between genres, and will examine common themes that emerge across genres. Those whose works will be studied include the writers Langston Hughes, Rudolph Fisher, Jessie Redmon Fauset, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, and James Baldwin; the jazz musicians Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, and Charlie Parker; and the visual artists Jacob Lawrence, William H. Johnson, Aaron Douglas, Archibald J. Motley Jr., and Augusta Savage. The African American Relations with Ghana-Travel Program is a component of the Topics course entitled African American Relations with Ghana: Service, Culture, & Society (AFST 490) 4.0 credits. To participate in the Ghana Travel program students must be enrolled in the Topics course - African American Relations with Ghana: Service, Culture, & Society (AFST 490) for the Spring semester. Students enrolled in the course will participate in classroom based learning at Ramapo College over the course of the Spring semester and travel to Ghana during Spring Break 2018. The course will provide students with unique opportunities to travel and explore the vibrant and diverse country of Ghana, often recognized as the most stable democracy in Africa. Participants will witness some of the primary sites of the country. In partnership with the Aba House in Accra and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi, students will engage in cultural and service learning activities. Students will work to achieve the following goals: The goal of the African American Relations with Ghana: Service, Culture, & Society (AFST 490) course is designed to provide an opportunity for Ramapo College students to learn the service, culture and society of Ghana by engaging in classroom discussions and by participating in an impactful international community service. The course offered provides a balance of academic research, community service, and cultural exchange..
0.000 TO 4.000 Credit hours
0.000 TO 4.000 Lecture hours

Levels: Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Hybrid, Lecture, Online Course

Africana Studies Department

Course Attributes:
MN-AFR AMR STD-Hist & Pol Tht, MJ-Africana Studies, MN-Africana Studies


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