Fall 2025 Courses

 

SUB-TERM	COURSE	INSTRUCTOR
Fall 2025	AFEN BC3516 Water Worlds in Literary Imagination  4.00 points Th 2:10pm - 4:00pm 113 Milstein Center	Yvette Christianse
Fall 2025	AFEN BC3815 Shange ＆ Digital Storytelling 4.00 points W 4:10pm - 6:00pm Online Only	Kim F Hall
Fall 2025	AFRS BC2004 Introduction To African Studies 3.00 points M W 11:40am - 12:55pm 223 Milbank Hall	Abosede George
Fall 2025	AFRS BC3010 Black Fashion and Dress Cultures 4.00 points Tues 10:10am - 12:00pm 308 Diana Center	Monica Miller
Fall 2025	AFRS BC3021 Queer Caribbean Critique 4.00 points Tues 10:10am - 12:00pm 318 Milbank Hall	Maja Horn
Fall 2025	AFRS BC3110 The Africana Colloquium 4.00 points W 4:10pm - 6:00pm 308 Diana Center	Celia Naylor
Fall 2025	AFRS BC3145 Black Women’s Histories in the United States 4.00 points W 12:10pm - 2:00pm 111 Milstein Center	Celia Naylor
Fall 2025	AFRS BC3160 Fanon’s Psychology of the Oppressed 4.00 points W 2:10pm - 4:00pm 308 Diana Center	Colin Leach
Fall 2025	AFRS BC3516 Environmental Humanities in the Global South 4.00 points Tues 2:10pm - 4:00pm 113 Milstein Center	Yvette Christianse
Fall 2025	AFRS BC3550 Gay Harlem 4.00 points W 4:10pm - 6:00pm 501 Diana Center	Maleda Belilgne
Fall 2025	AFRS BC3998 Senior Seminar 4.00 points Tues 4:10pm - 6:00pm 613 Milstein Center	Monica Miller

 

 

The Department of Africana Studies offers a major and a minor:

Major

The Africana Studies major requires ten courses, to be distributed as follows:

I. Introductory Courses:

Each student will take 2 (of the 3) introductory Africana Studies courses. We strongly suggest students take Introduction to African Studies (AFRS 2004) AND either Caribbean Cultures and Societies (AFRS 2005) OR Introduction to the African Diaspora (AFRS 2006)

AFRS BC 2004x Introduction to African Studies: An interdisciplinary and thematic approach to the study of Africa, moving from pre-colonial through colonial and post-colonial periods to contemporary Africa. Focus will be on its history, societal relations, politics and the arts. The objective is to provide a critical survey of the history as well as the continuing debates in African studies.
  - 3 points.

AFRS BC2005 Caribbean Culture and Societies. Multidisciplinary exploration of the Anglophone, Hispanic, and Francophone Caribbean.  Discusses theories about the development and character of Caribbean societies; profiles representative islands; and explores enduring and contemporary issues in Caribbean Studies (race, color and class; politics and governance; political economy; the struggles for liberation; cultural identity and migration.) BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Cultures in Comparison (CUL).
- 3 points.

AFRS BC 2006y Introduction to the African Diaspora: An interdisciplinary and thematic approach to the African diaspora in the Americas: its motivations, dimensions, consequences, and the importance and stakes of its study. Beginning with the contacts between Africans and the Portuguese in the 15th century, this class will open up diverse paths of inquiry as students attempt to answer questions, clear up misconceptions, and challenge assumptions about the presence of Africans in the New World.
  - 3 points.

II. Language:

The college distributional requirement for languages (i.e., Foundations) stipulates that each student must complete two (2) courses in a single language.  For Africana majors the language studied must be of Africa or its diasporas (including Arabic, Dutch, English, French, Hausa, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swahili).

III. Harlem:

Each student will take a course on Harlem, chosen in consultation with her advisor, from among the offerings at Barnard or Columbia.

IV. Electives:

Each student will, with the approval of her advisor, select five electives. Of these five, one must be on Africa and one must concern issues of gender.

V. One Semester Colloquium in Africana Studies

AFRS BC3110 (Section 1)  - Africana Colloquium: Critical Race Theory  or

AFRS BC3110 (Section 2) - Africana Colloquium: Diasporas of the Indian Ocean

VI. Senior Seminar:

Students will complete a one-semester program of interdisciplinary research in preparation of a senior essay.
 

Minor

Although the college requires students to declare the minor formally after they have completed course work for the minor, the Africana Studies Program strongly encourages students to meet with the Africana Studies Chair (or the minor advisor) to plan a course of study and fill out an "intent to minor" form.

The Africana minor consists of five courses to be distributed as follows: Choose any two from the introduction courses.

1.    AFRS BC 2004x Introduction to African Studies

2.    AFRS BC 2005 Caribbean Culture and Societies

3.    AFRS BC 2006y Introduction to the African Diaspora

4.    One course on Harlem to be chosen from electives offered at Barnard/Columbia

4-5. Two electives chosen by the students in consultation with the Director/minor advisor. 

Courses Recommended for First-Years

AFRS BC2004 Introduction to African Studies

AFRS BC2005 Caribbean Culture  and Societies

AFRS BC2006 Introduction to the African Diaspora

 

AFEN BC3516 WATER WORLDS IN LITERARY IMAGINATION. 4.00 points.

This interdisciplinary course surveys literary, cinematic, historical and other archival text representations of time and change in and around waterways in the Global South—oceanic, riverine, at the littoral and in hinterlands. It is animated by questions of how people live with water as horizon, resource, life-giving source, as ancestral boundaries and threat. We do so now in a time when climate change refocuses our dependencies upon, and vulnerabilities to, water. Our themes are shaped by water’s influence on the rhythms of lives, and how these rhythms have been changed and are changing—deliberately, as in dam building and its aftermaths in lives, and through climate change

Fall 2025: AFEN BC3516

Meeting times and classroom: Th 2:10pm - 4:00pm, 113 Milstein Center

Instructor: Yvette Christianse   

 

AFEN BC3815 SHANGE ＆ DIGITAL STORYTELLING. 4.00 points.

Prerequisites: Enrollment limited to 12 students. Permission of the instructor required. Interested students should complete the application at: http://bit.ly/ShangeWorlds. Students should have taken a course beyond the intro level from ONE of the following areas: American Literature (through the English Department), Africana Studies, American Studies, Theatre or Women's Studies. Please note that this is a yearlong course; students who are accepted into this course will need to take its second half, AFEN BC3816, in the spring semester.
Prerequisites: Enrollment limited to 12 students. Permission of the instructor required. Interested students should complete the application at: https://bit.ly/AFEN3815. A poet, performance artist, playwright and novelist, Shange’s stylistic innovations in drama, poetry and fiction and attention to the untold lives of black women have made her an influential figure throughout American arts and in feminist history. We will examine Shange’s works through the dual lenses of “embodied knowledge” and historical context. In conjunction with our multidisciplinary analysis of primary texts, students will be introduced to archival research in Ntozake Shange’s personal archive at Barnard College. Thus the seminar provides an in-depth exploration of Shange's work and milieu as well as an introduction to digital tools, public research and archival practice. Students should have taken a course beyond the intro level from ONE of the following areas: American Literature (through the English Department), Africana Studies, American Studies, Theatre or Women's Studies. You can find more information and apply for the course at https://bit.ly/AFEN3815

Fall 2025: AFEN BC3815

Meeting times and classroom: W 4:10pm - 6:00pm, Online Only

Instructor: Kim F Hall   

 

AFRS BC2004 INTRODUCTION TO AFRICAN STUDIES. 3.00 points.

Interdisciplinary and thematic approach to the study of Africa, moving from pre-colonial through colonial and post-colonial periods to contemporary Africa. Focus will be on its history, societal relations, politics and the arts. The objective is to provide a critical survey of the history as well as the continuing debates in African Studies

Fall 2025: AFRS BC2004

Meeting times and classroom: M W 11:40am - 12:55pm, 223 Milbank Hall

Instructor:  Abosede George

 

AFRS BC3010 Black Fashion and Dress Cultures. 4.00 points.

This class is a cultural history of Black fashion and dress through the lens of the current Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute’s exhibition Superfine: Tailoring Black Style. Superfine presents a cultural and historical examination of Black dandyism, from Enlightenment England to contemporary incarnations in the cosmopolitan art and fashion worlds of Paris, London, and New York. Historical manifestations of dandyism range from absolute precision in dress and tailoring to flamboyance and fabulousness in self-presentation. The Superfine exhibition uses dandyism to chronicle the ways in which Black people have used dress and fashion to transform the identities they were given and to propose new ways of embodying political and social possibilities. Interpreting Black dandyism as both an aesthetics and a politics, this class emphasizes the importance of sartorial style to Black identity formation in the Atlantic diaspora

Fall 2025: AFRS BC3010

Meeting times and classroom: T 10:10am - 12:00pm, 308 Diana Center

Instructor: Monica Miller

 

AFRS BC3021 Queer Caribbean Critique. 4.00 points.

This seminar analyzes the different critical approaches to studying same-sex desire in the Caribbean region. The region’s long history of indigenous genocide, colonialism, imperialism, and neo-liberalism, have made questions about “indigenous” and properly “local” forms of sexuality more complicated than in many other regions. In response, critics have worked to recover and account for local forms of same-sex sexuality and articulated their differences in critical and theoretical terms outside the language of “coming out” and LGBT identity politics. On the other hand, critics have emphasized how outside forces of colonialism, imperialism, and the globalization of LGBT politics have impacted and reshaped Caribbean same-sex desires and subjectivities. This course studies these various critical tendencies in the different contexts of the Anglophone, Francophone, Hispanophone, and Dutch Caribbean

Fall 2025: AFRS BC3021

Meeting times and classroom:  T 10:10am - 12:00pm, 318 Milbank Hall

Instructor: Maja Horn

 

AFRS BC3110 THE AFRICANA COLLOQUIUM. 4.00 points.

This course is concerned with two interrelated topics: 1) the long, complicated history of voyages to Latin America; and 2) the myriad and evolving ways voyagers to the region have portrayed its landscapes, people, food, festivals, and more. The course will move chronologically from the 15th century to the present, with each week devoted to grappling with a type of voyage characteristic of a given era, including: conquest voyages undertaken by figures such as Christopher Columbus and Hernán Cortés settler-colonial voyages undertaken by Iberians seeking new lives in the New World captive voyages undertaken by Africans destined for enslavement in households, cities, and rural environs freedom voyages undertaken by African Americans escaping from slavery sex-tourism voyages undertaken by North Americans and Europeans We will view these topics through a combination of different forms of media (such as letters, travel accounts, features, and films) and traditional scholarly sources that will help contextualize them

Fall 2025: AFRS BC3110

Meeting times and classroom: W 4:10pm - 6:00pm, 308 Diana Center

Instructor:  Celia Naylor

 

AFRS BC3145 Black Women’s Histories in the United States. 4.00 points.

In this course you will be examining paper tracings and other sources related to the lived experiences of Black women. You will be required to review and interrogate materials on triggering subjects; some of these items include violent descriptions, images, and acts. In order to join in our collective engagement with the history of Black women, within the context of the U.S., you will critically analyze items that have not been sanitized for popular consumption. Thus, we will not be “erasing history” in this course by avoiding the deployment of white supremacy and its vast, related violence(s) against Black women’s bodies and lives, as well as the various manifestations of resistance of Black women throughout the history of the United States

Fall 2025: AFRS BC3145

Meeting times and classroom: W 12:10pm - 2:00pm, 111 Milstein Center

Instructor:  Celia Naylor

 

AFRS BC3160 Fanon’s Psychology of the Oppressed. 4.00 points.

Frantz Fanon’s ideas have been influential for decades among theorists, practitioners, and activists alike. This seminar is focused on understanding Fanon’s particular perspective on the psychology of the oppressed and its relevance for examining the experience of past and present racialized inequality and its effects in society. The course is divided into four sections, which build cumulatively. I). An introductory section introduces Fanon’s central ideas (e.g., dialecticism, existentialism, post-colonialism) in their intellectual and socio-historical context (e.g., the Algerian revolution, African decolonization, South African Apartheid, the US civil rights and women’s rights movements). II). A second section locates Fanon in psychological theory and therapeutic theory and practice. The cultural and political (Eurocentric?) roots of psychological theory and practice are examined as are notions of oppression causing psychological and physical violence as well as psychopathology / psychological disorder. III). A third section examines Fanon and others psychological approaches to identity with particular attention to the presumed “inferiority complex” of oppressed peoples, nationalist and other reconstructions of identity in opposition to oppression, sociological psychological conceptualizations of stigma, and Dubois’s influential ideas regarding double consciousness. IV). A fourth and final section focuses on resistance and rebellion. The focus here is on the psycho-moral implications of (violent, peaceful, non-disruptive) action against oppression with reference to the distinct perspectives of Fanon in comparison to influential figures like Gandhi and M.L.K Jr. These issues are linked to a post-Fanon approach to the psychology of the oppressed called Liberation Psychology

Fall 2025: AFRS BC3160

Meeting times and classroom: W 2:10pm - 4:00pm, 308 Diana Center

Instructor:  Colin Leach

 

AFRS BC3516 Environmental Humanities in the Global South. 4.00 points.

"This interdisciplinary course studies how individuals and communities in the Global South attempt to make sense of the ‘sense of an ending’ that underlines all warnings about environmental crisis and climate change. Our interdisciplinary course has a doubled foundation out of which our readings and discussions will grow: communal understanding and knowledge about local environments, on one hand, and the relation between such knowledge and the data and information gathered by scientists." "We therefore begin with a simple question: what is the relation between the Humanities and the work of scientists? Scientists undertake painstaking, necessary research to provide communities and their governments with vital, necessary information. Individuals and communities interpret and translate this information, often affectively. An organization of scientists studying carbon levels across Africa can list the progressive increase in temperatures across Africa over a period of years and calculate anticipated increases. An image based on this data may visualize the projected rise:" "A glance reveals something dire based on the way we associate red with danger. Our course is oriented towards who lives beneath the surfaces of data and images that ‘draw a picture’ for us. We read for how communities and individuals explain and communicate their relation to the historical and changing environments. In other words, we attend to narration, in different forms—fiction, poetry, song, travelogue—to grasp how experiences are rendered comprehensible. There is a broad ‘where’ as well, and a fluid ‘when.’ ‘Where’ takes us into the portmanteau category of ‘The Global South.’ We bracket the scope of this category to focus upon specific places in the Indian Ocean, sub-Saharan Africa and diasporic African communities. ‘When’ permits us to think of time, the time of the world, the times of change and the times of aftermaths. Go into an archive, open a history book, a sacred text and you will encounter ‘endings.’ We enter British colonial archives to see how signs of ‘When’ also allows us to face an underlying dread that might be called a ‘sense of an ending’ and to see just how many such ‘endings’ have come to pass. This is how we enter the diasporic histories of environmental change related to colonialism and the enslavement and transportation of whose descendants live in the broader ‘Global South’ Africans

Fall 2025: AFRS BC3516

Meeting times and classroom: T 2:10pm - 4:00pm, 113 Milstein Center

Instructor:  Yvette Christianse

 

AFRS BC3550 GAY HARLEM. 4.00 points.

This course explores representations of queer Harlem in African American literature, sonic culture, and performance. We will consider the history and making of Harlem, key figures of the Harlem Renaissance, and the aesthetic innovations of writers and artists who defied the racial, sexual, and gendered conventions of their time. We will be guided by an intersectional approach to the study of race, gender, and sexuality and the methods of Black queer studies, African American and African diaspora literary studies, as well as sound and performance scholarship. We will ask when, where, and what was/is gay Harlem; how we might excavate its histories; map its borders; and speculate on its material and imagined futures

Fall 2025: AFRS BC3550

Meeting times and classroom: W 4:10pm - 6:00pm, 501 Diana Center

Instructor:  Maleda Belilgne

 

AFRS BC3998 SENIOR SEMINAR. 4.00 points.

A program of interdisciplinary research leading to the writing of the senior essay. All Africana majors must complete the one-semester Africana Studies Senior Seminar in the fall and submit a senior essay as one of the requirements for this course. A student who has successfully completed the Africana Studies Senior Seminar, has demonstrated the ability to complete a senior thesis, and has obtained approval from the faculty member teaching the Senior Seminar may take an Independent Study with a Barnard or Columbia faculty member or a second thesis seminar in another department in order to complete a senior thesis in Africana Studies in the spring semester

Fall 2025: AFRS BC3998

Meeting times and classroom: T 4:10pm - 6:00pm, 613 Milstein Center

Instructor:  Monica Miller