Resources

Resources


CAE Library

All our books about Africa and the African diaspora are in alphabetical order.

To borrow a book, visit the CAE Library at Grace Dodge Hall 368.

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African-Focused Courses: Fall 2021

Course Information

School: SIPA

Course Number: INAF U850

Professor: Elisabeth Lindenmayer 

Meeting Time:  W 11:00am - 12:50pm

 

Course Description

This course, which will be taught by a practitioner, will focus on United Nations peacekeeping operations as one of the main conflict management tools of the Security Council (SC) in Africa. Through an extensive series of case studies (Somalia, Rwanda, South Sudan, Libya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, the Central African Republic and Cote d'Ivoire), It will closely examine the tool of peace keeping, the context in which it operates, the evolution of its doctrine, the lessons learned, and the challenges ahead. Drawing on the recent report of the High-level Independent Panel on peace operations (HIPPO), and the cases studies above, it will elaborate on the many issues in peacekeeping today,in particular the limits of the use of force, the protection of civilians, the nexus peacekeeping/peacebuilding, and the increased partnership with regional and subregional organizations.

Credits: 3

Call number: 16626

Course Information

School: SIPA

Course Number: REGN U6405

Professor: Yuan Wang

Meeting Time: 

T 2:10pm - 4:00pm

 

Course Description

Since the 2000s, China-Africa diplomatic and economic relations have accelerated rapidly; however, links between them are not new. Since pre-colonial times, there have been flows of people, goods, and ideas; at times more intense than others. In recent years, China and Africa have renewed their relations at many different levels. From political engagement to increased trade and economic relations, and perhaps more importantly, to increased contact between ordinary Africans and Chinese. What are the implications of contemporary Sino-African engagements? Is China’s economic activities in Africa representing a ‘new scramble for Africa’ and China’s ‘neo-imperialism?’ What are the differences between Chinese and Western approach in Africa? How to understand African agency in the continent’s asymmetric relationship with global powers? Is China a development model for Africa? Are Chinese people racist? How much soft power does China have in Africa? This course explores both historical and contemporary linkages between Africa and China in political and macro-economic realm, as well as socio-cultural aspects. This course invites students to see how various interests impact the ways in which ‘China-Africa’ is framed; and to explore these engagements by sector, by individual African country, and vis-à-vis concerns about racism, labour issues, and China’s increasing environmental footprint in Africa. This course aims for students to develop and understanding of not only China’s impact on Africa, but also how African actors actively shape their relations with China as well as with other global powers.

Credits: 3

Call number: 17410

Course Information

School: TC

Course Number: ITSF 4160

Professor: S Russell

Meeting Time: R 03:00 pm-04:40 pm

 

Course Description

Students examine the historical conditions that give rise to human rights violations and the efforts to protect rights through policy and education. They explore different approaches to human rights education, apply them to case studies of specific African countries, and develop human rights education curricula.

Credits: 3

Call number: 38437

Course Information

School: CU

Course Number: GR8497

Professor: Uchenna Itam

Meeting Time: M 10:10am-12:00pm

 

Course Description

This course examines the politics of identity in visual art of the United States from the 1990s to the present alongside the development of sensory studies. We will consider the rise and fall in multicultural initiatives and the subsequent emergence of post-identity discourse in the arts that marks this period. Our focus is on artistic practices that challenge the visual rhetoric of race, gender, class, sexuality, and ethnicity. Students will read texts that fall under the rubrics of feminism, performance studies, musicology, African American and African Diaspora studies, and critical race theory among others. At the same time, literature on the history and social construction of the senses will provide a framework for us to explore how smell, sound, taste, and touch affect our experience of works of art as well as how we engage with one another. Key developments and exhibitions—such as the significant entry of practitioners from the African diaspora into the international art world, advancements in technology, the 1993 Whitney Biennial, and “Freestyle” (2001) at the Studio Museum in Harlem-—will anchor our discussion.

Credits: 3

Call number: 18856

Course Information

School: CU

Course Number: W3965

Professor: Shana Redmond

Meeting Time: W 12:10pm-2:00pm

 

Course Description

Visual, sonic, literary, and bodily arts have mobilized the passions and uprisings of African descended peoples with rebellious grace for untold centuries. Barred access to or made peripheral in the colonial political structures of white supremacist modernity, Black people around the world used their unique positions and talents as speech with which to represent themselves and their futures. Though some argue that Black culture has been overdetermined by its relationship to resistance efforts, this proximity remains a resource in exposing the motivations that underlie its production, the methods used in its composition, and the consequences that spring from it. The slash here between the two (“Black Culture” and “Black Protest”) highlights their proximity while also noting that they are distinct formations. Our work will be to understand their separate constitutions as well as the ways in which they collide in order to better conceive of and contextualize this history, all while collectively imagining new strategies for and alternatives to our present. 

Credits: 3

Call number: 18418

Course Information

School: CU

Course Number: BC3770

Professor: Abosede A George

Meeting Time: Spring 2022 

 

Course Description

This class explores the history of voluntary migrations from Africa to the United States over the course of the 20th century. This course is designed as a historical research seminar that is open to students with prior coursework in African Studies, Africana Studies, Race and Ethnic Studies, or History. Thematically the course dwells at a point of intersection between African history, Black History, and Immigration History.  As part of the Barnard Engages curriculum, this class is collaboratively designed with the Harlem-based non-profit organization, African Communities Together.  The aim of this course is to support the mission of ACT by producing a historically grounded digital advocacy project. The mission of ACT is to empower immigrants from Africa and their families to integrate socially, advance economically, and engage civically.  To advance this mission, ACT must confront the reality that in the current political moment new legal, political, and social barriers are being erected to the integration, advancement, and engagement of African immigrants on a daily basis. As immigrants, as Black people, as Africans, and often as women, low-income people, LGBT+ people, and Muslims, African immigrants experience multiple intersecting forms of marginalization. Now more than ever, it is critical that African immigrants be empowered to tell their own stories—not just of persecution and suffering, but of resilience and resistance.

Credits: 3

Call number: 00119

Course Information

School: CU

Course Number: UN3928

Professor: Claudio Lomnitz

Meeting Time: M 10:10am-12:00pm

 

Course Description

** Undergradute** Prerequisites: Open to CSER majors/concentrators only. Others may be allowed to register with the instructors permission. This course explores the centrality of colonialism in the making of the modern world, emphasizing cross-cultural and social contact, exchange, and relations of power; dynamics of conquest and resistance; and discourses of civilization, empire, freedom, nationalism, and human rights, from 1500 to 2000. Topics include pre-modern empires; European exploration, contact, and conquest in the new world; Atlantic-world slavery and emancipation; and European and Japanese colonialism in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. The course ends with a section on decolonization and post-colonialism in the period after World War II. Intensive reading and discussion of primary documents.

Credits: 3

Call number: 11808

Course Information

School: TC

Course Number: ITSF 5043

Professor: R Cortina

Meeting Time: M 03:00 pm-04:40 pm

 

Course Description

In this graduate seminar, we will explore the application of Decolonial Theories to advance new perspectives and knowledge in comparative education. We will read the work of Walter Mignolo, Arturo Escobar, Catherine Walsh and Boaventura de Sousa Santos, among others.. We will frame the discussion within relevant theories and contexts , such as Internal Colonialism and Indigenous ways of knowing. Among the issues to be discussed are the rights of Indigenous peoples to education and the preservation of cultural and linguistic diversity of people across the world. Topics include the right to education, the nature of citizenship, intercultural and bilingual education, transnational networks in support of Indigenous movements, Indigenous resistance, and decolonizing methodologies. An overarching theme is national policies to improve access, teacher training, and intercultural understanding at all levels of education.

Credits: 3

Call number: 38654

Course Information

School: CU

Course Number: UN1001

Professor: Josef Sorett

Meeting Time: MW 10:10am-11:25am 

 

Course Description

**Undergraduate** Prerequisites: Students need to register for a section of AFAS UN1010, the required discussion section for this course. From the arrival of enslaved Africans to the recent election of President Barack Obama, black people have been central to the story of the United States, and the Americas, more broadly. African Americans have been both contributors to, and victims of, this “New World” democratic experiment. To capture the complexities of this ongoing saga, this course offers an inter-disciplinary exploration of the development of African-American cultural and political life in the U.S. but also in relationship to the different African diasporic outposts of the Atlantic world. The course will be organized both chronologically and thematically, moving from the “middle passage” to the present so-called “post-racial” moment—drawing on a range of classical texts, primary sources, and more recent secondary literature—to grapple with key questions, concerns, and problems (i.e. agency, resistance, culture, etc.) that have preoccupied scholars of African-American history, culture, and politics. Students will be introduced to a range of disciplinary methods and theoretical approaches (spanning the humanities and social sciences), while also attending to the critical tension between intellectual work and everyday life, which are central to the formation of African-American Studies as an academic field. This course will engage specific social formations (i.e. migration, urbanization, globalization, etc.), significant cultural/political developments (i.e. uplift ideologies, nationalism, feminism, Pan-Africanism, religion/spirituality, etc.), and hallmark moments/movements (i.e. Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights movement, etc.). By the end of the semester, students will be expected to possess a working knowledge of major themes/figures/traditions, alongside a range of cultural/political practices and institutional arrangements, in African-American Studies.

Credits: 4

Call number: 13587

Course Information

School: CU

Course Number: GU4214

Professor: Mohamed Ait Amer Meziane

Meeting Time: MW 2:10pm-4:00pm

 

Course Description

What is African philosophy? Is a theory African simply because it is rooted in the political present of the continent? Is it African because it corresponds to an African cultural singularity or simply because his authors and inventors come from or live in Africa? This class will examine a) how religious traditions shape African theory b) how the influence of colonial anthropology on concepts of African culture and tradition can be challenged c) how African theory relates to African politics of decolonization, in North and ‘‘subsaharan’’ Africa. The major dialectical problem we will examine during the class is the ongoing contradiction between claims of authenticity and demands of liberation, traditionalism and modernity, religion and secularism, culturalism and Marxism.

Credits: 3

Call number: 12747 

Course Information

School: CU

Course Number: UN3030

Professor: Kevin Fellezs

Meeting Time: MW 11:40am-12:55pm

 

Course Description

**Undergraduate** This course focuses on a central question: how do we define “African-American music”? In attempting to answer this question, we will be thinking through concepts such as authenticity, representation, recognition, cultural ownership, appropriation, and origin(s). These concepts have structured the ways in which critics, musicians and audiences have addressed the various social, political and aesthetic contexts in which African-American music has been composed (produced), performed (re-produced) and heard (consumed).

Credits: 3

Call number:13588

Course Information

School: CU

Course Number: UN3930

Professor: C. Daniel Dawson

Meeting Time: T 4:10pm-6:00pm

 

Course Description

**Undergraduate** Please refer to Institute for Research in African American Studies for section course descriptions: http://iraas.columbia.edu/

Credits: 4

Call number: 13589

Course Information

School: CU

Course Number: UN1020

Professor: Elleni Zeleke

Meeting Time: TR 10:10am-12:00pm

 

Course Description

**Undergraduate** This course provides a general introduction to some of the key intellectual debates in Africa by Africans through primary sources, including scholarly works, political tracts, fiction, art, and film. Beginning with an exploration of African notions of spiritual and philosophical uniqueness and ending with contemporary debates on the meaning and historical viability of an African Renaissance, this course explores the meanings of ‘Africa and ‘being African. Field(s): AFR*. NO FIRST YEAR STUDENTS PERMITTED.

Credits: 4

Call number: 11649

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