BLKS 5502      Conceptual and Theoretical Foundations in African American Studies
This course will provide an in-depth examination of the theoretical and conceptual parameters of African American studies. We will study the evolution of the field, key scholars and creative intellectuals, and seminal categories of thought. Offered: On demand.
Credits: 3 hours
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BLKS 5503      Writing for Afican American Studies
This course instructs students in how to produce advanced knowledge in the field of African American studies. It provides training in the construction of quality research papers for graduate, scholarly, and professional work and exposes students to a wide array of scholarly journals, databases, and authoritative resources in African American studies. Each time the course in taught, students will develop their research around a specific topic defined by the instructor. Offered: On demand.
Credits: 3 hours
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BLKS 5504      Research Seminar
This course introduces the logic, theory, and techniques of empirical research and applies them to African American Studies. It exposes students to a variety of research approaches in order to examine their utility for producing knowledge within the field. Offered: On demand.
Credits: 3 hours
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BLKS 5520      Critical Health Issues in Black Communities
Beginning with the African context and the imposition of chattel slavery, this course examines social, cultural, and historical factors affecting the health status of African Americans to the present era. It explores a variety of health-related issues including the interplay between environment, biology, and culture; folk and popular health practices; structured inequality and oppression; lifestyle, beliefs, and values; and the organization and delivery of health care.Moreover, this course moves well beyond the idea that medical care- its presence, absence, or quality- is the singular or most critical factor determining the health of a people, community, or society. It reveals the importance of social phenomena in disease resistance and health promotion. Historical shifts from the prominence of infectious to chronic diseases; the implications to health of chattel slavery, sharecropping, segregation, poverty, and structures inequality; the relationship between psychosocial factors and disease, i.e. destabilized social settings that compromise resistance to disease; environmental racism; and the health status of African Americans as it relates to the organization of work, family structure and function, religious beliefs, the organization of medical care, lifestyle, consumer manipulation, and post-industrial society are major issues addressed by the course.
Credits: 3 hours
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BLKS 5521      The Black Family & Male-Female Relationships
The course examines the historical evolution and current status of the African American family in the e United States. Utilizing the African experience as its stating point, the course conveys a broad understanding of the role of the family in human survival and progress. We investigate such issues as male-female relationships, sexual practices, dating, marriage, single parenting, the education issues, including institutionalized inequality, that affects the viability of today's African American family.
Credits: 3 hours
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BLKS 5525      African American Business Development
This course investigates the various challenges to African American business development and entrepreneurship in the United States. We study the lives of successful, pioneering African American businesswomen and men in order to assess how they managed to transcend the barriers of racism and structured inequality. We explore why certain kinds of enterprises emerged among African Americans and why others did not, and we scrutinize the traditional business problems for African Americans of capitalization, distribution, market penetration, and wealth creation. Offered on demand.
Credits: 3 hours
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BLKS 5534      From Field Shout to Hip Hop: African American
This course examines the development of African American poetry from its early forms as field shouts, ballads, and blues to present forms including spoken word and hip hop. Includes authors such as Phillis Wheatley, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Tupac Shakur, and Jessica Care Moore. Offered on demand.
Credits: 3 hours
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BLKS 5535      Stages toward Freedom: African American
This course explores the development of African American dramatic traditions from the eighteenth century through the Harlem Renaissance, Black Arts Movement, to current postmodernism. Includes authors such as W.W. Brown, Zora N. Hurston, Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, August Wilson, Suzan-Lori Parks. Offered on demand.
Credits: 3 hours
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BLKS 5537      The Civil Rights Movement in African American Literature
This course examines how African American literature shaped ideas about freedom, rights, citizenship and race in the civil rights movement. It draws on a variety of literary forms-speeches, essays, autobiographies, fiction, drama, poetry and film-to explore the movement's impact on communities and cultures as well as its various debates and competing visions. Offered on demand.
Credits: 3 hours
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BLKS 5580      Special Topics/Seminar
In-depth exploration of special topics in Black Studies. When available, topics will be announced prior to registration. Offered: On demand.
Credits: 1-3 hours
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BLKS 5590      Directed Study/Research
Individual research and learning projects supervised by a faculty member. Offered: On Demand.
Credits: 1-6 hours
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BLKS 5599      Research Thesis
Individually directed research leading to preparation and completion of a thesis. Offered: On demand.
Credits: 1-6 hours
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BLKS 5699      Research and Dissertation
Individually directed research leading to preparation and completion of a doctoral dissertation. Offered: On demand.
Credits: 1-12 hours
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BLKS 5899      Required Graduate Enrollment
Enrollment required during the completion of a thesis/dissertation. Offered: On demand.
Credits: 1 hours
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