Course Schedule and Catalog

Long Title: INTRODUCTION TO AFRICAN RELIGIONS

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Analyzing Diversity: Yes

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Introduction to the structures of African religions through readings. Topics include community, cosmology, ritual, ethical values, magic, witchcraft, spirit possession, contribution to nationalism, social change, religion and art, and transplantation of African Religions in the Americas. Cross-list: RELI 111.

Long Title: RELIGION AND HIP HOP CULTURE IN AMERICA

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Hip Hop culture has changed how life is discussed and conducted. However, one of the under-explored dimensions of Hip Hop culture involves its religious sensibilities. Using lectures, discussions, films, and video presentations, this course explores Hip Hop culture's religious dimensions through its musical language-rap music. Cross-list: RELI 157, Equivalency: RELI 157, RELI 311. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for AAAS 157 if student has credit for RELI 311.

Long Title: KNOWING BLACKNESS: INTRODUCTION TO AFRICAN AND AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: An exploration of the origins and development of African Studies and African American Studies. Through a focus on the articulation and resolution of field-changing debates, the course introduces students to methodologies and practices that have led to and that continue to lead to knowing Africa and African-descendent people with earnest regard for the complexity and subtlety that the subjects require.

Long Title: INTRODUCTION TO BLACK ART IN AMERICA: 1900S TO TODAY

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This class examines the history of Black art in America since the early 1900s. What is Black Art? Who are the artists, curators, scholars, and theorists who have asked and answered this question over the decades? Is a Black aesthetic inherently revolutionary and interested in the political lives of black people and their liberation? Or is a Black aesthetic best exemplified by the manipulation of materials, visual composition, and saturation? Or both? We will engage theories of black art and aesthetics that emerged in the 1920s through today to take seriously the question: how does the visual life of blackness matter? In this class we will break through the traditional rhetoric of diversity and representation and discuss how artists over the decades have insisted instead on redistributions of power, radical and speculative material practices, and structural change. It is my priority to make this course on black aesthetics joyous, safe, and accessible to students of all genders, sexualities, and disabilities. Cross-list: HART 204.

Long Title: INTRODUCTION TO AFRICAN RELIGIONS

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Analyzing Diversity: Yes

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Introduction to the structures of African religions through readings. Topics include community, cosmology, ritual, ethical values, magic, witchcraft, spirit possession, contribution to nationalism, social change, religion and art, and transplantation of African Religions in the Americas.

Long Title: RELIGION AND BLACK LIVES MATTER

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Analyzing Diversity: Yes

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course explores the intersections of religion, politics, and social justice during the period of history marked by the emergence and activities of the Black Lives Matter Movement. Cross-list: RELI 216.

Long Title: FREEDOM AND STRUGGLE IN MODERN AFRICA

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Analyzing Diversity: Yes

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course explores how slavery, anti-colonial, anti-imperial, anti-racism, and anti-capitalist struggles had a profound impact on Africa and the world. These seismic conflicts resulted in significant psychological, spiritual, and physical traumas that are still keenly felt in Africa today. In this course, students will get a sample of some of these traumas that Africans encountered and the ideological painkillers they concocted to address them. Thus, students will become familiar with systems, ideologies, and terms such as slavery, apartheid, socialism and communism in Africa, Pan-Africanism, Black Consciousness, female suicide bombers, neo-colonialism, and the psychological encounter between the colonized and colonizer. Cross-list: HIST 223.

Long Title: DYNAMICS OF EMPIRE: PORTUGUESE, AFRICAN, AND BRAZILIAN INTERCONNECTIONS

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The arrival of the Portuguese in Africa in the 15th century marked the beginning of European oceanic expansion, a movement that profoundly shaped the modern world. This expansion introduced dichotomous dynamics of center and periphery, along with new global relations rooted in racial hierarchies, often resulting in violent consequences for African peoples. Despite these oppressive systems, resistant voices have emerged and continue to grow as African people strive to redefine Blackness. This seminar covers key topics such as the Transatlantic Slave Trade, the development of African diasporic communities, colonialism in Africa, and Afro-Atlantic intellectual and ideological exchanges. We will also explore contemporary representations and mobilizations of Black culture and identity. Through critical readings and engaging discussions of prose, poetry, film, and music, we will analyze imperialism's history and enduring legacies.

Long Title: SPECIAL TOPICS

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Independent Study, Internship/Practicum, Laboratory, Lecture, Lecture/Laboratory, Seminar

Credit Hours: 1 TO 4

Description: Topics and credit hours may vary each semester. Contact department for current semester’s topic(s). Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: RACE, RESISTANCE, AND REVOLUTION: BLACKS AND BLACKNESS IN THE MAKING OF LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBB

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Broadly, this course is at once a colonial history of Latin America and the Caribbean that concerns itself with the role of Africans and the making of Blackness across the region. The course treats Africa, Iberia, and the Americas in dialogue, running from the early fifteenth century through the Haitian Revolution. This CAAAS course addresses slavery, freedom and the question of Black life vis-a-vis indigeneity in the early Americas as a central theme and point of departure. Cross-list: HIST 245.

Long Title: GRAPHIC NOVELS IN THE AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERARY TRADITION

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course considers the impact and development of graphic novels in the African American literary tradition. It traces the origin story of the genre, examines its evolving relationship to African American biography, history, and fiction, and considers its popularity in contemporary media. Cross-list: ENGL 266.

Long Title: INTRODUCTION TO AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Analyzing Diversity: Yes

Credit Hours: 3

Description: An introduction to the history and traditions of African American literature. Course will examine the poetry, essays, and fiction by people of African descent from the 18th to the 21st centuries. Cross-list: ENGL 267.

Long Title: INTRODUCTION TO THE BLACK CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Much of what has historically taken place within Black communities has been shaped by Black Christian churches. These churches are resources for those interested in understanding religious expression and activism within the Black community. This course provides an introduction into the history, thought, and worship of the major Black denominations. Cross-list: RELI 270.

Long Title: BLACK SCI-FI & SPECULATIVE FICTIONS

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Analyzing Diversity: Yes

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course examines how black science and speculative fiction worries the division between reality and fantasy; challenges the fictions embedded in our national histories; and underscores the social, economic, and political inequities short-circuiting the lives of brown and black peoples around the world. Focusing on works from Octavia Butler to Victor Levalle, from George Schuyler to Mat Johnson, from John Williams to Colson Whitehead among others, the course engages the ways in which these authors represent the monstrous and grotesque; pandemics, environmental and technological degradation and catastrophe; urbanization, gentrification, and immigration; and (biological/technological) warfare, in order to recalibrate our understanding of the central role race plays in determining both access to, and allocation of, necessary resources. We will track the histories and afterlives of slavery and colonialism that continue to transfigure our society, while also studying varied blueprints for, and critiques of, alternative, more egalitarian societies imagined by these artists. Cross-list: ENGL 279.

Long Title: CONTEMPORARY BLACK FICTION

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: In this course, students will be reading, reflecting, and dissecting short stories, novels, television scripts, and other works of fiction crafted by artists across the Black diaspora. Students will thoroughly discuss process and intent, with an extensive focus on craft.

Long Title: WHAT ARTISTS CITE: CORE TEACHINGS IN BLACK STUDIES

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course asks “who and what are black contemporary artists citing and why does it matter?” This class will tackle key readings in the field of black studies through investigating the theoretical attentions of contemporary artists. Why are the readings of Zora Neale Hurston, Frantz Fanon, Hortense Spillers, W.E.B. Du Bois, Toni Morrison, Saidiya Hartman, Claudia Rankine, and Fred Moten, to name a few, necessary for the critical analysis of black visual and performance art? This art history course will expose students to the interdisciplinary field of black studies, feminist studies, visual culture, queer theory, disabilities studies, and performance studies. The course ends with the creative development of an analytical essay on an art object of the student’s choice. This assignment is methodically organized over the semester to encourage each student to develop an argument that arises from their own close reading, application of theory, and lived experiences. It is priority to make this course on black aesthetics joyous, safe, and accessible to students of all genders, sexualities, and disabilities.

Long Title: BLACK VISUAL CULTURE: FROM "LEMONADE" TO "THEY NOT LIKE US"

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: From Beyoncè’s "Lemonade" to Kendrick Lamar’s “They Not Like Us,” black visual and sonic culture have defined and shaped the American cultural landscape. But how do we read and interrogate the visuals that have accompanied these sonic revolutions? From music videos to performance art, “Black Visual Culture: From Lemonade to They Not Like Us” examines the Black visual culture of the 2000s, placing contemporary modes of visual representation in dialogue with sculpture, painting and other “fine arts.” It is our priority to make this course joyous, safe, and accessible to students of all genders, sexualities, and disabilities. Cross-list: HART 308.

Long Title: REPRESENTATIONS OF DISABILITY

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: How has disability been represented in different realms of our social lives? What do these representations say about our “ideal” or desired future? How are representations of disabilities shaping and are shaped by the concept of futurity? How are race, sexuality, gender, and disability intertwined in these visions of the future and its representations? Drawing upon artistic, mediatic, and medical representations of disability we will examine the ways disability, in its intersections with blackness, queerness and transness, are crucial for thinking about human difference and to disturbing normative arrangements. Students will be encouraged to think critically through an interdisciplinary approach that relies on the contributions of different fields, including Disability Studies, Crip Studies, Black Studies, Medical Anthropology, and Queer and Trans Studies. Cross-list: HART 311.

Long Title: BEAUTY AND THE BEAST(S): SEX, VIOLENCE, AND FOLKTALES IN THE AFRICAN DIASPORA

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Analyzing Diversity: Yes

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course examines the carnal violence and brutality associated with sex and gender in folktales and fairytales from the African diaspora to the Americas. In so doing, this course will also put European and African folklore in conversation with the New World’s oral traditions. Taught in English. Cross-list: FREN 308.

Long Title: RACE, MEDICINE, AND MASS INCARCERATION IN THE UNITED STATES

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: There are some two million people locked up in local jails, state prisons, and federal prisons across the United States. Toward the beginning of this multi-disciplinary course, we will examine the historical development of this mass incarceration, as well as racial inequities in America’s criminal justice system. We will then explore some of the medical issues in historical and contemporary U.S. carceral settings, including: medical experimentation on prisoner populations, mental health and suicide, substance abuse, HIV and sexual health, pregnancy and labor conditions, foodborne illnesses, chronic disease, temperature-related medical emergencies, and aging in prisons. Please be advised that some readings for this seminar will refer to instances of violence, sexual assault, and medical trauma. Cross-list: MDHM 315.

Long Title: JOURNEY TOWARDS JUSTICE: BLACK LIBERATION AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group II

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Journey Towards Justice: Black Liberation & the Civil Rights Movement is an immersive course that explores the historical and contemporary struggles for racial justice in the U.S. Focused on the Civil Rights and Black Liberation Movements, students will examine key social, political, and cultural aspects of the fight for equality. The course includes a five-day trip to Alabama, visiting pivotal sites in Birmingham, Montgomery, and Selma, where students will engage with the legacies of the movements and their ongoing impact on today's criminal justice system and society. Through interdisciplinary approaches, the course connects past and present struggles for justice. Instructor Permission Required.Cross-list: SOCI 318.

Long Title: HISTORY OF ATLANTIC AFRICA

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Provides students with a deeper understanding of the history of Atlantic Africa by researching key topics based on primary and secondary sources. Cross-list: HIST 323.

Long Title: CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM IN AFRICA

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will focus upon the history and conflict of Christianity and Islam in Africa, with emphasis placed upon indigenous African developments, cultural and artistic themes, and conversion narratives as well as exploring the co-existence and conflict of the two major faiths of the continent. Cross-list: RELI 348.

Long Title: BLACK LIFE BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 sparked an exodus in Ukraine. However, Black and Asian students seeking refuge onto exiting trains or buses were denied entry or kicked off. Many were shocked to learn that Black people lived in Ukraine. However, Black people have made Central and Eastern European societies their home for centuries. For instance, Alexander Pushkin, one of the most celebrated figures in Russian literature, has African roots. This course explores the experiences and lives of Black people behind what was known as the “Iron Curtain”—representing the present-day countries of Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, East Germany, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. We will learn about why Black people migrated to this part of the world, their intellectual, economic, and cultural contributions to those spaces, what they learned and encountered during their time there, and how we might redefine and reconceptualize our understandings of Black life, black political and economic thought, blackness, gender, and race through engaging with those experiences. Cross-list: HIST 349.

Long Title: VOICES OF HAITI

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: In this course, students will explore the history, literature, art, and cinema of Haiti. Students will learn to evaluate the Haitian experience in a variety of geographical and cultural settings and go beyond media’s stereotypical portrayal of the island. Cross-list: FREN 354.

Long Title: RADICAL BLACK THOUGHT IN THE STUDIO: ARTISTS CITING BLACK STUDIES

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Citations can be a radical form of collective activism and liberation. Who we cite builds archives and informs the way we tell histories. In this class, we will look at moments when radical Black thought slip into an artist’s studio space and informs their work. In this class, students will have the opportunity to interact with visual and performance artists. We will take field trips into the studio spaces of Houston-based artists in order to ask questions about who they cite and why. Additionally, we will discuss how those citations of radical Black thought are visible within their art-making. Over the course of the semester, we will pair black contemporary artists with core readings in black studies and underline citational practices between the fields of Black studies and art history. Through this unique case-study-based pairing, students will learn about the methods, materials, and theoretical throughlines within the work of formative visual and performance artists while also becoming familiar with different concepts within the interdisciplinary field of black studies.

Long Title: RACE ON TRIAL FROM THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION TO GEORGE FLOYD

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Citizenship in the United States has been, since the founding, confounded by racial difference. Courts have often served as the sites where the racialized meanings of American citizenship have been forged. This class explores this process through a series of racially charged trials, stretching from 1800 to 2020. Cross-list: HIST 396.

Long Title: SLAVERY IN 20TH AND 21ST CENTURY FILM AND FICTION

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course studies how twentieth and twenty-first century reconstructions of slavery in American literature and film engage contemporary anxieties regarding race, gender, sexuality, and national identity. These neo-slave narratives often critique modernity; challenge how we think about history, evidence, memory, and trauma; and trouble narrative conventions. Cross-list: ENGL 398.

Long Title: BLACK VENUS/VÉNUS NOIRE: REPRESENTATIONS OF BLACK WOMEN IN THE LONG 19TH CENTURY

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction:Taught in French

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course explores the mythology of the black woman’s body in the French/Francophone imaginary, namely in the literary rewriting of the "primitive" in the long 19th century. Students will examine how this eroticized body bears traces of its social, political and cultural codification and symbolizes anxieties born out of the colonial encounter. Effective May 15, 2019, this course does not carry D1 credit. Taught in French. Cross-list: FREN 413. Recommended Prerequisite(s): Completion of one 300-level course or permission of instructor.

Long Title: SEX AND RACE IN THE FRENCH ATLANTIC

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction:Taught in French

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course examines the carnal violence and brutality associated with sex, gender, and race in folktales and fairy tales in French from the Americas. In so doing, this course will also put European and African folklore in conversation with the New World’s oral traditions. Effective May 15, 2021, this course does not carry D1 credit. Taught in French. Cross-list: FREN 414. Recommended Prerequisite(s): Completion of one 300-level course or permission of instructor.

Long Title: RELIGION AND LITERATURE IN AFRICA

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Analysis of the religious imagination and gender issues in postcolonial literature in Africa focusing on Islam, Christianity, indigenous religions and African Initiated Churches. Religious and gender issues addressed include identity crises, power, clash of cultures, modernity, cosmology, community, and socio-religious conflicts in a postcolonial world. Cross-list: RELI 426.

Long Title: INTRODUCTION TO AFRICAN AND AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This is the core course for the Certificate in African and African American Studies. It will provide an introduction to cross- and multi-disciplinary approaches to the histories, cultures and experiences of African and African Diasporic people, while also introducing students to the work of Rice faculty working in the field.

Long Title: COMPARATIVE HISTORIES OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM IN THE ERA OF RACIAL SLAVERY

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This graduate seminar considers the history and historiography of slavery comparatively in the era of Atlantic-racial enslavement. Considering slavery through the lens of sovereignty and political claims, this course traces slavery in Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Americas across time and space. It seeks to engage slavery's political history while analyzing key African and African American Studies theoretical interventions in relationship to the material histories of racial slavery. This study questions the extent to which scholars have engaged the archive of slavery sufficiently in their theorizations of Blackness and Black Study. Cross-list: HIST 524.

Long Title: BLACK ARCHIVES IN THEORY AND PRACTICE

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course historicizes Black archive studies and its theoretical development across literary studies. Inspired by Schomburg’s call “to dig up our past,” it explores how black writers, collectors, and librarians across the twentieth-century resisted long-standing efforts to bury, silence, and overwrite black experience and their contributions. Cross-list: ENGL 572.

Long Title: AFRICAN AND AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES COLLOQUIUM

Department: African & African Amer Studies

Grade Mode: Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory

Language of Instruction: Taught in English

Course Type: Research

Credit Hours: 0

Description: Through readings and discussions the colloquium highlights key issues related to African and African American studies for graduate students preparing to conduct research in the field. Repeatable for Credit.