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The African American tradition of soul music from its origins in blues, gospel, and jazz to its influence on today's r&b, hip hop, and dance music. Style such as rhythm and blues, Motown, Southern soul, funk, Philadelphia soul, disco, Chicago house, Detroit techno, trip hop, and neo-soul. Soul's cultural influence and global reach; its interaction with politics, gender, place, technology, and the economy. Pre-/corequisite (for music majors): MUSIC 22. (WIM at 4 units only.)

The English vernacular spoken by African Americans in big city settings, and its relation to Creole English dialects spoken on the S. Carolina Sea Islands (Gullah), in the Caribbean, and in W. Africa. The history of expressive uses of African American English (in soundin' and rappin'), and its educational implications. Service Learning Course (certified by Haas Center).

This course introduces students to dance as an important cultural force in the African Diaspora. From capoeira in Brazil to dance hall in Jamaica to hip hop in the United States and Ghana, we will analyze dance as a form of resistance to slavery, colonialism, and oppression; as an integral component of community formation; and as a practice that shapes racial, gendered, and national identity. We will explore these topics through readings, film viewings, and movement workshops (no previous dance experience required). Students will have the option to do a creative performance as part of their final project.

In recent decades genes have increasingly become endowed with the cultural power to explain many aspects of human life: physical traits, diseases, behaviors, ancestral histories, and identity. In this course we will explore a deepening societal intrigue with genetic accounts of personal identity and political meaning. Students will engage with varied interdisciplinary sources that range from legal cases to scientific articles, medical ethics guidelines, films, and anthropological works (ethnographies). We will explore several case studies where the use of DNA markers (as proof of heritage, disease risk, or legal standing) has spawned cultural movements that are biosocial in nature. Throughout we will look at how new social movements are organized around gene-based definitions of personhood, health, and legal truth. Several examples include political analyses of citizenship and belonging. On this count we will discuss issues of African ancestry testing as evidence in slavery reparations cases, revisit debates on whether Black Freedman should be allowed into the Cherokee and Seminole Nations, and hear arguments on whether people with genetic links to Jewish groups should have a right of return to Israel. We will also examine the ways genetic knowledge may shape different health politics at the individual and societal level. On this count we will do close readings of how personal genomics testing companies operate, we will investigate how health disparities funding as well as orphan disease research take on new valences when re-framed in genetic terms, and we will see how new articulations of global health priorities are emerging through genetic research in places like Africa. Finally we will explore social implications of forensic uses of DNA. Here we will examine civil liberties concerns about genetic familial searching in forensic databases that disproportionately target specific minority groups as criminal suspects, and inquire into the use of DNA to generate digital mugshots of suspects that re-introduce genetic concepts of race.

(Formerly English 43/143). In his bold study, What Was African American Literature?, Kenneth Warren defines African American literature as a late nineteenth- to mid-twentieth-century response to the nation's Jim Crow segregated order. But in the aftermath of the Jim Crow era and the Civil Rights movement, can critics still speak, coherently, of "African American literature"? And how does this political conception of African American literary production compare with accounts grounded in black language and culture? Taking up Warren's intervention, this course will explore African American literature from its earliest manifestations in the spirituals and slave narratives to texts composed at the height of desegregation and decolonization struggles at mid-century and beyond.

(Same as HISTORY 147. History majors and others taking 5 units, register for 147.) Introduction, focusing particularly on the modern era. Topics include: precolonial African societies; European colonization; the impact of the mineral revolution; the evolution of African and Afrikaner nationalism; the rise and fall of the apartheid state; the politics of post-apartheid transformation; and the AIDS crisis.

Preference to sophomores. The inauguration of Nelson Mandela as president in May 1994 marked the end of an era and a way of life for South Africa. The changes have been dramatic, yet the legacies of racism and inequality persist. Focus: overlapping and sharply contested transitions. Who advocates and opposes change? Why? What are their historical and social roots and strategies? How do people reconstruct their society? Historical and current sources, including films, novels, and the Internet.

This seminar introduces students to Dance Studies by exploring the topic of improvisation, a central concept in multiple genres of dance and music. We will survey a range of improvised dance forms¿from salsa to vodun to tap dance¿through readings, video viewings, discussion, and movement exercises (no previous dance experience required). When studying each genre, we will examine how race, gender, sexuality, citizenship, and other power structures affect the practices and theorizations of improvisation. Topics include community and identity formation; questions of technique versus ¿natural¿ ability; improvisation as a spiritual practice; and the role of history in improvisers¿ quest for spontaneity. Course material will focus on improvised dance, but we will also read pertinent literature in jazz music, theatre, and the law.

Today, almost one-third of Americans identify with a racial/ethnic minority group, and more than 9 million Americans identify with multiple races. What are the implications of such diversity for American politics and culture? In this course, we approach issues of race from an interdisciplinary perspective, employing research in the social sciences and humanities to assess how race shapes perceptions of identity as well as political behavior in 21st century U.S. We will examine issues surrounding the role of multiculturalism, immigration, acculturation, racial representation and racial prejudice in American society. Topics we will explore include the political and social formation of ¿race¿; racial representation in the media, arts, and popular culture; the rise and decline of the ¿one-drop rule¿ and its effect on political and cultural attachments; the politicization of Census categories and the rise of the Multiracial Movement.