Course Descriptions

Term:

Locating Africas: (Nation, Culture and Diaspora)

Fall Quarter (F18)

Dept/Description Course No., Title  Instructor
HISTORY (F18)134A  AFRICA SOC&CULTURESMITCHELL, L.
Emphasis/Category: Locating Africas

Overview
This course explores the complexity of African societies and historical events. It is an introduction to the variety of cultures, political organizations, social structures, and artistic expressions created by Africans over a broad time span, beginning with human origins in Africa and ending at the turn of the eighteenth century. This course does not seek to be comprehensive or to construct a complete chronology of events across an entire continent. Instead we will explore a series of issues that highlight themes and processes important for understanding the History of Africa. This course assumes no prior knowledge of Africa and has no prerequisites.

Objectives
1. To introduce students to the great time depth and complexity of human history in Africa .
2. To give students a holistic understanding of the historical processes in Africa .
3. To introduce various approaches to analyzing and interpreting past events.
This quarter we will pay particular attention to the differences between “popular” and “scholarly” knowledge, and the conduits for distributing that information.
4. To encourage students to engage with the fundamentals of history as a discipline.
5. To enhance critical reading and thinking skills, as well as to acquire new skills for analysis and interpretation.

Major Themes
1. What constitutes society? Culture? Does it change over time or across space?
2. What are distinguishing features of Africa societies and cultures?
3. What role do environmental and geographical factors play in society?
4. What connects various regions of the continent? What factors make various regions distinct?
5. Consider the interaction of race, class, gender and generation in social, economic, and political relationships.
Days: MO WE  01:00-01:50 PM

HISTORY (F18)21A  WORLD:INNOVATIONSDARYAEE, T.
Emphasis/Category: Hispanic, US Latino/a and Luso-Brazilian Cultures, Locating Europes and European Colonies, Pacific Rim, Inter-Area Studies, Locating Asias (Nation, Culture, and Diaspora), Atlantic Rim, Locating Africas, Global Middle East

How does the legacy of human evolution affect our world today?  How have technological innovations shaped human societies?  How have human societies explained the natural world and their place in it?  Given the abundance of religious beliefs in the world, how have three evangelical faiths spread far beyond their original homelands?
This class follows the major themes of world historical development through the sixteenth century to consider how developments in technology, social organization, and religion—from the origins of farming to the rise of Christianity—shaped the world we live in today.
(Satisfies Pre-1800 Requirement)
(IV, VIII)
Days: TU TH  11:00-12:20 PM

ENGLISH (F18)105  CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN LITERATURETHIONG'O, N
Emphasis/Category: Locating Africas

The course examines themes in African Writing in English and translations into English: drama, poetry and fiction. It is both an introduction to the field and an in-depth look at the issues animating the African imagination. The relationship between language, literature, aesthetics, ethics, and power in society is the connecting thread. The course introduces some key literary movements, such as negritude, as well as writers of the new generation and looks at new trends such as crime fiction.
Days:   12:00-12:00 AM

COM LIT (F18)105  CONTEMP AFRICAN LITTHIONG'O, N.
Emphasis/Category: Locating Africas

The course examines themes in African Writing in English and translations into English: drama, poetry and fiction. It is both an introduction to the field and an in-depth look at the issues animating the African imagination. The relationship between language, literature, aesthetics, ethics, and power in society is the connecting thread. The course introduces some key literary movements, such as negritude, as well as writers of the new generation and looks at new trends such as crime fiction. 
Days: TU TH  02:00-03:20 PM

ART HIS (F18)164D  AFAM WOMEN IN ARTCOOKS CUMBO, B.
Emphasis/Category: Locating Africas

Examines depictions of and by African American women in art and popular culture through in a variety of media including textiles, painting, sculpture, photography, and installation. Focuses on African American women’s experiences, perspectives, and strategies for contemporary representation.
Days: TU TH  02:00-03:20 PM

AFAM (F18)113  BLACK CINEMADAULATZAI, S.
Emphasis/Category: Locating Africas

Using history and theory, cinema and documentary, commercial and independent film, this course seeks to explore the brilliant complexity that constitutes the contours of Blackness as a site for collective identity, political empowerment, and radical consciousness. With Black visual representation and Black creative impulses from throughout the diaspora as our guide, this course will explore how cinema became a vehicle for situating a multiplicity of Black identities within a broad social, political and cultural field. This course is cross listed with Film and Media 130.
Days: MO WE  10:30-11:50 AM

Courses Offered by Global Cultures or other Schools at UCI

Locating Africas: (Nation, Culture and Diaspora)

Fall Quarter (F18)

Dept Course No., Title   Instructor
GLBLCLT (F18)103A  CULTR,MONY&GLOBLZTNLE VINE, M.

Emphasis/Category: Hispanic, US Latino/a and Luso-Brazilian Cultures, Locating Europes and European Colonies, Pacific Rim, Inter-Area Studies, Locating Asias (Nation, Culture, and Diaspora), Atlantic Rim, Locating Africas, Global Middle East
This course examines the fundamental dynamics of cultural production and consumption under conditions of globalization. Rather than focus on jargony post-modern scholarly analyses of culture (although we'll read some of that too), we will attempt whenever possible to examine the sources ourselves--particularly music, film, literature and architecture--and develop our own hypotheses about how crucial issues, such as identity (race, gender, ethnicity, religion) power, politics and economics are inflected by and impact the production and consumption of culture during the last two decades.
Days: TU TH  12:30-01:50 PM