Undergraduate Program

This course invites you to learn about Black history, life, and experience through the field of Black Studies. During the 1960s, a wave of student activism — amid a period marked by broader social activism, Black freedom struggle, and decolonial movements — echoed across the United States. Legacies of chattel slavery, colonialism, and racial capitalism were being challenged in all edges of American society. Through sit-ins, strikes, and protests, activists along with community members and organizers sought to compel colleges and universities to recognize the importance of studying Black life, history, and culture. This grassroots movement laid the foundation which led to the formation of Black Studies as a field across campuses.

This course will begin by first establishing a shared understanding of Black Studies, including its historical origins and key theories, concepts, methods, and debates. We then draw on insights that span the humanities and social sciences, including literature, popular culture, music and engagement with cultural studies, history, political theory, and ethnography. Ultimately, we will bridge the historical and contemporary, exploring how insights from Black Studies are essential for addressing present-day challenges and struggles for justice. 

Location

(TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM)

This introductory course examines 1) a variety of diseases and illness—such as sickle cell anemia, Type II diabetes, hypertension and heart disease, and triple-negative breast cancer— that disproportionately impact people of African descent throughout the U.S., Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa in addition to 2) the sociological, biological, and political factors that shape these disparities. This course is organized into modules centered around topical foci such as sexual health and reproduction; food, weight, and the metabolic body; and epigenetics and the inheritance of disease. Students will develop a comprehensive understanding of racialized diseases and critical perspectives on disease etiology through in-depth engagement with course readings, documentaries such as Mossville: When Great Trees Fall, in-class mock “parliamentary” debates and mini-presentations, ethnographic reflection memos, and class discussions.

Location

(TR 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

Location

(MW 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

This course will examine the relationship between the religious and theological beliefs of African American musicians and their musical artistry. We will journey through various African American music genres of the 20th centuryblues, jazz, gospel, soul, funk, hip hop, etcand will study how religion has influenced performance style, lyrical content, vocality, melodic and harmonic contour, among a host of other factors.

Location

(MW 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

This introductory survey examines the history of African Americans from 1860 to the present. We will examine African Americans’ pursuit of freedom and justice as defined during different periods. Topics of study include the Reconstruction era; formation of Jim Crow segregation; Black migrations; the Civil Rights and Black Power movements; and the contemporary “color line” in the United States. Students will explore the impact of Black activism and cultural expression on national and international politics. By the end of the semester, students will understand key concepts and events that shaped post-emancipation Black history.

Location

(MW 10:25AM - 11:40AM)

This course surveys African American literature of a variety of genres—primarily fiction, poetry, and non-fiction essays—from the early 20th century to the present. The course interprets this tradition not only as the creative expression of American writers of African descent, but also as a set works displaying formal characteristics associated with black cultural traditions. Discussion topics will include the meanings of race, the construction of black identity, and intra-racial differences of class, gender, and sexuality, as well as how experimentation, 1960s black radicalism, and the contemporary Movement for Black Lives have shaped black literature. Our readings will traverse a range of influential writers, such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Nella Larsen, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Octavia Butler, Claudia Rankine, and Danez Smith.

Location

(TR 9:40AM - 10:55AM)

The Eastman Mbira Ensemble provides a hands-on introduction to the ancient and sophisticated musical tradition of the Shona mbira of Zimbabwe. Visiting Zimbabwean guest artists will also offer students the opportunity to delve more deeply into traditional musical practices and their cultural and spiritual context. Songs are taught aurally so no musical experience or training is required. May be repeated for credit.

Location

(M 6:30PM - 8:00PM)

Led by Master Drummer Fana Bangoura, the West African Drumming Ensemble is dedicated to the dynamic percussive traditions of Guinea. The ensemble combines the iconic djembe hand drum with a trio of drums played with sticks, known as dunun, sangban, and kenkeni. The powerful, multi-part relationships established by this trio of drums provide a rhythmic foundation for the ensemble, enabling djembe players to develop technique in executing both accompaniment and solo parts. Drawing upon his experience as a soloist with the internationally acclaimed groups Les Percussions de Guinée and Les Ballets Africains, Fana engages ensemble players with a wide repertory of music from various regions of Guinea, including the rhythms of the Susu, Malinke, and Baga language groups.

Location

(MW 7:30PM - 8:45PM)

How does a country with five percent of the world's population, a country that nominally values freedom above all else, come to have nearly a quarter of the world's incarcerated people? In this survey course we investigate the history of imprisonment in the United States--as theorized and as practiced--from the founding of the republic to the present day. Special attention is paid to the politics, economics, race politics, and religious logics of contemporary mass incarceration, and to the efforts afoot to end mass incarceration.

Location

(MWF 10:25AM - 11:15AM)

Sansifanyi is an ensemble that provides various performance opportunities both on and off-campus for intermediate and advanced students of African dance & drumming. Instructor Kerfala Bangoura trains ensemble members in a performance style that integrates dance, drumming, vocal song, and narrative elements. Dancers who enroll in Sansifanyi will learn choreographic techniques for West African dance and gain experience dancing as soloists. Dancers will also learn focus on rhythmic timing and on drumming while dancing. Drummers enrolled in Sansifanyi will learn extended percussion arrangements and techniques for accompanying choreography. They will also learn how to play the breaks required of lead drummers.
Prerequisites: Audition on First day of class OR for Drummers one of the following: MUSC168A, MUSC168B, MUSC146. For Dancers of the following: DAN181&182, DAN 283, DAN 253, DAN 285. Email kerfala.bangoura@rochester.edu with questions.

Location

(TR 6:45PM - 8:15PM)

 In 1903 when Du Bois wrote that the “problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line,” early cinema and photography were already well-established technologies shaping discourses of race and the boundaries between black and white. In this course we will examine the relationship between visual culture and race, particularly blackness. We will ask the following questions: What is the relationship between visuality and modern understandings of race? How does visual culture shape perceptions of race and racialized bodies? After establishing the historical context, we will consider how contemporary artists from the African diaspora imagine blackness otherwise by playing with, challenging, and subverting overdetermined stereotypes of blackness. We will explore this subject matter by examining the visual and performance art practices of black filmmakers, photographers, curators, fine artists, etc. Potential artists include Spike Lee, Kara Walker, Kehinde Whiley, Mary Sibande, Athi-Patra Ruga, Wangechi Mutu, Grace Jones, Josephine Baker, Cheryl Dunye, Isaac Julien, Beyoncé, and Rihanna. This course will introduce students to a range of historical and contemporary debates that inform the theory and practice of Black Visual Culture.

Location

(MW 10:25AM - 11:40AM)

As hip-hop just celebrated its 50th Anniversary, this course wishes to explore one of the most genius art forms produced across the black diaspora. Taking notes from graffiti artists, beat-makers, DJ Cool Herc, LL Cool J to Queen Latifah, Lil Kim to Lil Nas X, Kendrick Lamar to Drake, Young Thug to Post Malone, Nicki Minaj to Meghan Thee Stallion, Sexyy Redd and many more—we will engage the message, music, and movement of this global phenomenon. Notably, in this exciting version of the course, we will host guests who will complement our readings and help us examine hip-hop music and culture— as it is performed, produced, and communicated in varying visual, sonic, and textual forms. The complex representation of Black people in the context of hip-hop requires much conversation, especially as it reflects, and speaks to, critical issues within our society. What is produced in mainstream performances of hip-hop? What are the stakes for Black women and Black men, as the circulation of their likenesses in social media and the global world? What do we miss when the beat or the rhyme is prioritized? Where is Hip-Hop going and what is it teaching us about the possibilities for our future?

Location

(TR 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

Addressing the devastating effects of HIV/AIDS in the United States, United Kingdom, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Haiti, and elsewhere, this uniquely interdisciplinary course will incorporate insights from the fields of public health, medical anthropology, and ethnomusicology. Studying the HIV/AIDS epidemic through the lens of musical expression, we will ask how individuals and communities affected by HIV/AIDS have mobilized musical sound in response to the disease. Topics addressed within the class will include musical representations of HIV/AIDS within queer communities; the use of music in public health campaigns to raise awareness about the disease; and the mobilization of musical performance within grassroots support groups for individuals affected by HIV/AIDS.

Location

(TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM)

Experience dancing African styles from traditional cultures of Guinea, West Africa, as well as studying cultural history and context from which and in which they are practiced and performed. Technical emphasis will focus on musicality and complex choreographic arrangement. Students will practice dances and drum songs. Required outside work includes performance attendance, video viewing, text and article analysis, research and written work.

Location

(TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

Experience dancing African styles from traditional cultures of Guinea, West Africa, as well as studying cultural history and context from which and in which they are practiced and performed. Technical emphasis will focus on musicality and complex choreographic arrangement. Students will practice dances and drum songs. Required outside work includes performance attendance, video viewing, text and article analysis, research and written work.

Location

(F 11:00AM - 12:15PM)

While peoples of African descent have existed in Latin America since Europeans arrived in this hemisphere, their recognition has been uneven, contingent, and contested across the region. Now that the United Nations Decade for People of African Descent (2015-2024) has ended, it is worthwhile to reflect on the symbolic and material differences Afro-Latin Americans have experienced based on this concerted effort to recognize them. How does the state see them? What does it mean to be seen? In this course, we will contextualize and analyze contemporary efforts to see and be seen as Afro-Latin Americans. In the process we will grapple with questions like: Is “Black” in Latin America a race or an ethnicity? What’s the difference? How do you create, maintain, and demand collective identity and rights? In a region where racial mixture has occurred for centuries and is part of its nation-building, who counts as Afro-descendant? In this course, we will grapple with these questions and more as we contextualize and analyze contemporary efforts toward the political recognition of Afro-Latin Americans.

Location

(MW 11:50AM - 1:05PM)

This class center African American religiosity—examining African religious retentions in America from the 17th century to the present.  We will examine religious traditions of African Americans that include Voodoo, Black Hebrew Israelites, Moorish Movement, Five Percent Nation, Christianity, Rastafarianism and the Nation of Islam.  Themes of liberation, humanity, nationhood, love, language, identity, and culture will be explored throughout the semester.  Students will learn about religious plurality and how cultural experience shapes religious interpretation.

Location

(MW 11:50AM - 1:05PM)

“Mutilated Bodies, Mutilated Discourse”invites students to challenge assumptions as they relate to critical issues of agency, race, class, and representation of the body. The course is a critical investigation of the representation of female genital cutting in both African and Western discourses. The controversy over this practice already begins with the act of its naming. Genital cutting, female circumcision, female genital surgery are the names used to designate what some considered as legitimate ritualized practices while others see them as outdated misogynistic rituals. The course provides an understanding of the contexts in which a fragmented transnational sisterhood allows for a proliferation of mutilation discourses on poor and defenseless bodies.

Location

(MW 10:25AM - 11:40AM)

How do Black and trans Caribbean subjects create powerful forms of resistance through beauty rituals, spiritual ceremonies, and everyday survival strategies? This interdisciplinary course examines how colonial plantation legacies continue to shape contemporary experiences across the Caribbean and broader Americas, while centering the innovative ways marginalized communities transform structural violence into creative possibilities for liberation. We will dive into ethnographic and cultural literature excerpts on Caribbean queer life, such as the work of Jacqui Alexander, Omise'eke Natasha Tinsley, Rosamond King, Lyndon Gill, Jafari Allen, Ana Lara, and Nikoli Attai, amongst others. Students will engage with diverse materials—from the music of Tokisha, Villano Antillano, and the writings of Rita Indiana to performance art by Johan Mijail and La Negra Aton, alongside films like Mala Mala, Sugar Island, and short documentaries on Caribbean ballroom scenes.

Drawing from Black feminist, transfeminist, and queer of color critique, we'll explore how embodied practices function as resistance that challenges Western academic frameworks. We'll examine queer people’s use of strategic visibility politics, how Afro-Caribbean spiritual practices create spaces for gender fluidity, and how diasporic communities maintain connections to ancestral knowledge. Through collaborative projects that bridge academic study with community accountability—including engagement with advocacy platforms like Caribbean Equality Project and LGBTQ Caribbean—students will develop critical thinking skills that honor the embodied and experiential knowledge traditions of Caribbean sexuality studies.

Location

(TR 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

“Black Arts and Cultures” explores topics which include but are not limited to: performance studies; media studies; literary studies; film studies; visual culture studies; music and sound studies; and design studies.

Location

(MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

“Black Social Worlds” explores topics which include but are not limited to: gender and sexuality studies; politics, society, and everyday experience; social, digital, and built environments; health outcomes and disparities; and religion and spirituality.

Location

(T 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

“Black Social Worlds” explores topics which include but are not limited to: gender and sexuality studies; politics, society, and everyday experience; social, digital, and built environments; health outcomes and disparities; and religion and spirituality.

Location

(MW 9:00AM - 10:15AM)

“Global Black Studies” explores topics which include but are not limited to: diasporic cultures and transnational experience; indigeneity and indigenous cosmologies; migration and displacement; sociolinguistics and interculturality; colonialism, anticolonialism, and decoloniality.

Location

(TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

This seminar explores two key texts of American democracy – W.E.B. Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction (1935) and Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (1835, 1840). During the semester, we will consider and compare Du Bois’s and Tocqueville’s analyses of the nature of democracy and of its promises, challenges, and contradictions. Issues and questions we address will include: the meanings of equality; the relationship of social to political democracy; the threat of democratic despotism and tyranny; and the ways that race, empire, and emancipation reshape the theory and practice of democracy. We will also explore these works as texts of political philosophy; specifically, we will attend to their intellectual contexts, historical and sociological methodologies, literary and political strategies, and normative and philosophical ambitions. This discussion-based seminar will culminate in a 15-page research paper.

Location

(MW 4:50PM - 6:05PM)

This course examines Black comedic expression in the 21st century as a vital form of cultural critique and social commentary. We will study the work of high-profile comedians such as Dave Chappelle, Wanda Sykes, and Issa Rae, alongside emerging voices like Sam Jay, Evelyn From the Internets, and Black TikTok creators. Drawing on platforms ranging from Netflix, HBO, and Comedy Central to YouTube, TikTok, and Black Twitter, the course explores how Black comedians articulate issues related to race, gender, class, sexuality, and power. Comedy becomes both a mirror and a weapon—interrogating injustice, mocking oppression, and reclaiming narratives across mainstream stages and grassroots spaces alike.

Location

(TR 9:40AM - 10:55AM)

Taught by a long-time member of Les Ballets Africains, the national ballet of Guinea, instructor Fana Bangoura will introduce students in this course to dynamic dance traditions of West Africa and will join with them the power of percussion. Students will also become familiar with the origins and cultural significance of each dance, and the songs that accompany them. By breaking down the drum parts alongside the traditional dance movements, students experience dancing and drumming in perfect unison. This opportunity is geared for both drummers and dancers and is highly recommended for all skill levels.

Location

(MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

Monsters in popular culture represent and reinforce the changing thoughts and emotions toward what it means to be human and fit for society. When it comes to race, gender, and sexuality, popular culture has often used monsters to destroy or discipline individuals who live outside societal norms. This is called the making of black monstrosity. This course takes this historical trend seriously, diving into the ways monsters have been used to harm Black people, but also how notions of the black monster has been deployed as tool of revolt against unjust society. Turning to case studies, primarily within the twenty-first century--from visual black monstrosity in cinema, animation, digital art, and comics—we will explore how a certain monster-imaginary contributes to the discourse and perception of race and racialized bodies in America.

Location

(MW 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

Sansifanyi is an ensemble that combines academic study and performance for intermediate and advanced students of African drumming and dance. This course requires a high degree of student commitment. Dancers who enroll in Sansifanyi will learn choreographic techniques for West African dance and gain experience dancing as soloists, and developing their own solo material. They will also focus on rhythmic timing, and on advanced skills such as how to combine movement with drumming. In addition to the time students spend in class, dancers will have weekly assignments researching, reading, writing, viewing videos, text and article analysis, practicing, and choreographing various rhythms, songs, movements, and sequences. Dancers must also be available for performances both on and off campus throughout the semester.  All levels are welcome to enroll.

Location

(TR 6:45PM - 8:15PM)

How do Black women make sense of their lives? How do Black women organize, survive, and thrive? How do Black women resist? How do Black women nourish their knowledge and create community? Black feminist criticism and theory-making has been how some have addressed these questions. This course is an introduction to the study, practice, and politics of Black feminist theory. In this class, we will explore historical, popular, and artistic expressions of this school of thought from the nineteenth century to the present. To achieve this, we will engage a wide variety of critical, cultural, and creative texts including but not limited to journal articles and essays, speeches, literature, performance, music, film, and so on. Some of the thinkers, activists, and artists we will discuss include but are not limited to bell hooks, Angela Y. Davis, Janet Mock, Tourmaline, Carrie Mae Weems, and more. We will additionally incorporate a variety of intersectional perspectives on Black feminist theory with regards to race, gender, sexuality, (dis)ability, class, nation, etc. In so doing, the class aims to examine the relationship between theory and praxis in the development and ongoing evolution of the history, politics, activism, and art of Black feminisms.

Location

(MW 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

This course offers undergraduate students a structured, credit-bearing opportunity to gain experience in supervised teaching within a college-level classroom setting. Under the mentorship of a faculty member, students assist in course delivery, lead discussions, support instructional design, and participate in pedagogical reflection. Responsibilities and expectations vary by course and department.

Location

( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)

This course provides undergraduate students the opportunity to pursue in-depth, independent exploration of a topic not regularly offered in the curriculum, under the supervision of a faculty member in the form of independent study, practicum, internship or research. The objectives and content are determined in consultation between students and full-time members of the teaching faculty. Responsibilities and expectations vary by course and department.  Registration for Independent Study courses needs to be completed through the Independent Study Registration form (https://secure1.rochester.edu/registrar/forms/independent-study-form.php)​

Location

( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)