AFST 187 A-Z - (CC) Special Topics

Semester Hours: 1-4

Periodically

Special Topics courses deal with innovative or advanced topics and may include field projects. Students may prepare individual projects on a research theme.

Current Special Topics

AFST 187D - Spoken Word, Slam Poetry, and Performance

This class is devoted to the exploration of performance art, a genre-crossing form of aesthetic expression. We will identify and examine in detail contemporary performance practices. We will also cover the historical antecedents of performance art, including significant events and controversies. In addition to building our skills as performers and critical thinkers, we will gain a greater understanding of the impact these practices have on issues of identity, community, and culture.

Cross-listing: RHET 126

AFST 187F - South Africa and Sustainability

This interdisciplinary course explores the geography, environments, histories, cultures, and politics of South Africa from the 16th through the 21st centuries. Issues include pre-colonial civilizations, European colonialism, institutionalized racism, industrialization and its implications for labor and class, political movements, and post-colonial dynamics in an emerging economy. Special attention will be paid to the intersection of recent anthropogenic climate change and South Africa’s economy and society, and the recent entrepreneurial efforts to mitigate environmental impacts through a range of sustainability efforts.

Through various readings, films, discussions, and written assignments, students will gain the skill sets necessary for a one week-long study abroad experience in South Africa. Students will collaborate with students in the Zarb School of Business in consultant teams to learn about and assist local, emerging entrepreneurs to develop practical solutions to business programs. Students will experience the cultural context in which these entrepreneurs live and work and become acquainted with the distinct challenges that these entrepreneurs face in real time. Students will maintain a journal where they will critically reflect on their classroom experience and their observations of the entrepreneurial journey for a start-up in an emerging economy and their personal contributions to the project.

Cross-listing: SBLY 104J

AFST 187P - Gender, Sexuality, and Race in the Struggle Over the Women’s Vote

We will focus on the roles played by Black women’s literary societies and sororities, and on key figures such as Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Frances Ellen Watkins-Harper, Alice Dunbar Nelson, Fannie Lou Hamer, Pauli Murray and others who have continued the struggle for the women’s vote.

Cross-listings: LGBT 181B , RHET 189N , and WST 150B

AFST 187Q - Major Authors: Toni Morrison

This writing intensive (WI) seminar examines the life and work of one of America’s most important writers. Toni Morrison was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993, becoming the eighth woman, the first African American, and the first Black woman to win the prestigious literary prize. In this seminar, we will critically engage with Toni Morrison’s fiction. In addition to reading Morrison’s fiction, we will read Morrison’s own criticism, as well as critical essays by scholars which will assist with our understanding of her literary and cultural impact. Morrison’s success as a senior editor, critic, and novelist presented her with opportunities to express her views on a host of subjects including education, censorship, gender, leadership, friendship, ethics, morality, and spirituality. Her imaginative and cultural work has chronicled the African American experience from slavery to the twenty-first century. This course will explore the ways Morrison constructs discourses that expand and complicate historical narratives and ideologies about Black life.

Prerequisites: WSC 001 or WSC 002 . May not be taken on a Pass/D+/D/Fail basis.This course is cross listed as ENGL 151B and WST 151R .

Prerequisite(s)/Course Notes:
May be repeated for credit when topics vary. Specific titles and course descriptions for special topics courses are available in the online class schedule.

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