African & African American Studies Major
Program Requirements
- Total Units Required: 31
- Grade Requirement: The minimum grade required for coursework to count toward the major is a C- or better.
Required Courses (7 Credits)
| Code | Title | Units |
|---|---|---|
| AFAS 1002 | Foundations in African & African-American Studies | 1 |
| AFAS 2550 | Introduction to Africana Studies | 3 |
| AFAS 4997 | Senior Seminar | 3 |
| Total Units | 7 | |
Elective Courses (21 Credits)
Students must complete 21 elective credits. Of these elective credits, the following are required:
- 18 credits must be at the 3000 level or above; of these 18 credits, at least 6 credits must be at the 4000 level.
- Only 3 credits at the 1000 or 2000 level can count toward the 21 elective credits.
- No more than 3 credits of independent study can count toward the major; this includes internships, research assistantships, undergraduate teaching assistant positions, and directed research.
Students must take at least one course from each of the four focus areas around which the major is organized:
- Language, Aesthetics, and Expressive Cultures
- Social and Historical Formations
- Gender, Sexuality, and the Body
- Engaging Africa and non-U.S. Diaspora Currents
Language Requirement (3 Credits)
Students must also take at least one semester (3 credits) of a foreign language. Wolof and Swahili are strongly encouraged, but other languages will be considered if taken in consultation with the director of undergraduate studies.
AFAS Focus Areas Course List
| Code | Title | Units |
|---|---|---|
| Language, Aesthetics, and Expressive Cultures | ||
| AFAS 1107 | First Year Seminar: Self & Identity in African American Literature | 3 |
| AFAS 1108 | Introduction to African Literature | 3 |
| AFAS 1240 | Beats, Rhymes & Life: A Cultural History of Hip-Hop | 3 |
| AFAS 2045 | Writer as Witness: Mourning and Memory in the African Novel | 3 |
| AFAS 2090 | African Studies: Mapping Urban Languages and Resistance in Africa | 3 |
| AFAS 2153 | Afro-Latin America on Camera | 3 |
| AFAS 2450 | Bones, Burials and Black Worlds: Mortuary Archaeology and Critical Heritage Studies of African and African American Funerary Practices | 3 |
| AFAS 3003 | From Shaft to Django: The History of Blaxploitation Film | 3 |
| AFAS 3030 | Coming of Age: Coming to Consciousness in Black American Literature, Film, and Music | 3 |
| AFAS 3031 | Music of the African Diaspora | 3 |
| AFAS 3040 | A History of African-American Theater | 3 |
| AFAS 3254 | African Americans and Children’s Literature | 3 |
| AFAS 3300 | Culture and Identity: The Race for Criticism: African American Culture and its Critics | 3 |
| AFAS 3301 | Beats, Rhymes & Life: A Cultural History of Hip-Hop | 3 |
| AFAS 3380 | Re)writing Slavery | 3 |
| AFAS 3422 | James Baldwin: Life, Letters & Legacy | 3 |
| AFAS 3430 | West African Music & Dance in Context | 3 |
| AFAS 3447 | Visualizing Blackness: Histories of the African Diaspora Through Film | 3 |
| AFAS 3451 | Black American Writers in the Age of Lynching & Resistance (Black American Writers in the Age of Lynching & Resistance) | 3 |
| AFAS 3460 | African American Literature: African American Writers Since the Harlem Renaissance | 3 |
| AFAS 3550 | Undoing Empire: Introduction to Postcolonial Writing and Art | 3 |
| AFAS 3651 | Black Women Writers | 3 |
| AFAS 4041 | Beginning Graduate Level Swahili I | 3 |
| AFAS 4042 | Beginning Graduate Level Swahili II | 3 |
| AFAS 4043 | Beginning Graduate Level Swahili III | 3 |
| AFAS 4044 | Beginning Graduate Level Swahili IV | 3 |
| AFAS 4210 | Topics in African American Literature: Stars of the Canon | 3 |
| AFAS 4215 | Mediated Blackness | 3 |
| AFAS 4270 | What Is Africanfuturism? 21st Century African Speculative Fiction | 3 |
| AFAS 4610 | Readings in Swahili Literature | 3 |
| Code | Title | Units |
|---|---|---|
| Social and Historical Formations | ||
| AFAS 1020 | Black Lives Matter and Educational Justice for Black Youth | 3 |
| AFAS 1100 | First-Year Seminar: Gender, Sexuality and Power in 19th and 20th Century | 3 |
| AFAS 1103 | First-Year Seminar: Monumental Anti-Racism | 3 |
| AFAS 1104 | First-Year Seminar: Contextualizing Problems in Contemporary Africa | 3 |
| AFAS 1111 | First-Year Seminar: Travel Noire: Consumption and the Gaze in the Black Travel Movement | 3 |
| AFAS 1130 | Introduction to Race | 3 |
| AFAS 2140 | Juvenile Justice in the Black Experience | 3 |
| AFAS 2151 | St. Louis African American History | 3 |
| AFAS 2160 | Free the Land: Black Histories of Environmental Racism | 3 |
| AFAS 2674 | Sophomore Seminar: Slavery and Memory in American Popular Culture | 3 |
| AFAS 3070 | Topics On Africa: African Urban Futures | 3 |
| AFAS 3120 | African Immigration to the United States of America | 3 |
| AFAS 3160 | African History to 1800 | 3 |
| AFAS 3260 | Zambaje: Afroindigenous Relations in Latin America | 3 |
| AFAS 3312 | Playing Through Black History: The Ethics of Public History Pedagogy | 3 |
| AFAS 3313 | Culture, Politics, and Society in Francophone Africa | 3 |
| AFAS 3405 | For Freedom’s Sake: The Civil Rights Movement in America | 3 |
| AFAS 3410 | Mapping the World of Black Criminality | 3 |
| AFAS 3655 | Black Conservatives and Their Discontent: African Americans and Conservatism in America | 3 |
| AFAS 3880 | Terror & Violence in the Black Atlantic | 3 |
| AFAS 4008 | Slavery and Public History | 3 |
| AFAS 4104 | Black Decolonial Thought: Conceptualizing Epistemic Violence from Frantz Fanon to Achille Mbembe | 3 |
| AFAS 4134 | The AIDS Epidemic: Inequalities, Ethnography, and Ethics | 3 |
| AFAS 4160 | Engineering Authority: Design, Architecture, and Power in Africa | 3 |
| AFAS 4213 | Sufism & Islamic Brotherhoods in Africa | 3 |
| AFAS 4215 | Mediated Blackness | 3 |
| AFAS 4250 | Construction and Experience of Black Adolescence | 3 |
| AFAS 4337 | Performing Ghosts: Blackness, Performance, and Archival Erasure | 3 |
| AFAS 4465 | Black Life and the Law | 3 |
| AFAS 4601 | Historical Racial Violence: Legacies & Reckonings | 3 |
| AFAS 4890 | Catholicism and Slavery | 3 |
| AFAS 4930 | Advanced Seminar: Slavery in America: The Politics of Knowledge Production | 3 |
| Code | Title | Units |
|---|---|---|
| Gender, Sexuality, & the Body | ||
| AFAS 2070 | Native Sons and Daughters Gender & Sexuality of African American | 3 |
| AFAS 2232 | Gender and Sexuality in the African Diaspora | 3 |
| AFAS 2250 | First Year Seminar: African-American Women’s History: Sexuality, Violence & the Love of Hip-Hop | 3 |
| AFAS 3002 | Feminist Fire: Radical Black Women in the 20th Century | 3 |
| AFAS 3255 | Black Masculinities | 3 |
| AFAS 3651 | Black Women Writers | 3 |
| AFAS 3644 | Look Here, Karen: The Politics of Black Digital Resistance to White Femininity | 3 |
| AFAS 4040 | Gender, Sexuality, & Change in Africa | 3 |
| AFAS 4401 | Intersectionality | 3 |
| Code | Title | Units |
|---|---|---|
| Engaging Africa and Non-U.S. Diaspora Currents | ||
| AFAS 1104 | First-Year Seminar: Contextualizing Problems in Contemporary Africa | 3 |
| AFAS 1105 | First-Year Seminar: Imagining and Creating Africa: Youth, Culture, and Change | 3 |
| AFAS 1108 | Introduction to African Literature | 3 |
| AFAS 2045 | Writer as Witness: Mourning and Memory in the African Novel | 3 |
| AFAS 2060 | Blackness and the Politics of Recognition in Latin America | 3 |
| AFAS 2090 | African Studies: Mapping Urban Languages and Resistance in Africa | 3 |
| AFAS 2153 | Afro-Latin America on Camera | 3 |
| AFAS 3062 | Islam, Culture & Society in West Africa | 3 |
| AFAS 3070 | Topics On Africa: African Urban Futures | 3 |
| AFAS 3113 | Culture, Politics, and Society in Francophone Africa | 3 |
| AFAS 3120 | African Immigration to the United States of America | 3 |
| AFAS 3160 | African Immigration to 1800 | 3 |
| AFAS 3385 | Emerging Africa: Language, Identity, and Social Change | 3 |
| AFAS 3390 | Senegal: History, Politics & Culture | 3 |
| AFAS 3430 | West African Music & Dance in Context | 3 |
| AFAS 3550 | Undoing Empire: Introduction to Postcolonial Writing and Art | 3 |
| AFAS 4040 | Gender, Sexuality, and Change in Africa | 3 |
| AFAS 4041 | Beginning Graduate Level Swahili I | 3 |
| AFAS 4042 | Beginning Graduate Level Swahili II | 3 |
| AFAS 4043 | Beginning Graduate Level Swahili III | 3 |
| AFAS 4044 | Beginning Graduate Level Swahili IV | 3 |
| AFAS 4104 | Black Decolonial Thought: Conceptualizing Epistemic Violence from Frantz Fanon to Achille Mbembe | 3 |
| AFAS 4110 | The Black South Atlantic | 3 |
| AFAS 4160 | Engineering Authority: Design, Architecture, and Power in Africa | 3 |
| AFAS 4213 | Sufism & Islamic Brotherhoods in Africa | 3 |
| AFAS 4270 | What Is Africanfuturism? 21st Century African Speculative Fiction | 3 |
| AFAS 4290 | Advanced African History Seminar | 3 |
| AFAS 4610 | Readings in Swahili Literature | 3 |
Additional Information
Co-Curricular Opportunities for Majors
AFAS regularly sponsors lectures and events such as keynote speakers, panels, field trips, plays, the Annual African Film Festival, and exhibits that focus on contemporary or perennial topics of interest in all areas of the Black experience. Guest lecturers and artists often visit classes and interact directly with students. These department-sponsored events are designed to foster a vibrant social and intellectual community within the program and to give our students a sense of identity and of what it means to be part of the African & African American Studies community.
Study Abroad and Transfer Credit
Students may apply a maximum of 6 credits to their major that are earned through study abroad and/or transfer credits.
Senior Honors
If a student maintains an overall grade point average of at least 3.65 and a major GPA of 3.50 by the second semester of their junior year, they may be eligible to complete a Latin honors thesis with a core faculty member in the program in African & African American Studies and typically two readers. Completed application forms for Latin honors should be submitted to the honors program director as early as possible, preferably before June 1 of the junior year and no later than August 1.
Contact Info
| Website: | https://afas.wustl.edu/ |