Course Descriptions

BLST 100 – Introduction to Black Studies

• CRN: 44078; discussion CRNs: 44081, 44082, 44083, 44084
• Day/Time: MW 1-1:50pm (lectures); Friday 10-10:50a, 11-11:50a, 12-12:50p, 1-1:50p (discussions)
• Location: Burnham Hall 208
• Instructor: Natasha Barnes nbbarnes@uic.edu
• This course is an introduction to the field of African American studies. We will examine the main debates in African American history, culture, sociology and politics that have animated the discipline and where possible include diasporic contexts for comparison and analysis.  The course is interdisciplinary, and readings cover a number of academic fields from history, literature, religion, anthropology, sociology, linguistics and cultural and gender studies. How African American studies is practiced in different disciplines will be a focus of our work as well as how African American studies transforms “traditional” disciplinary knowledges.  Students will be encouraged to think of African American studies as a practice, as a way of looking critically at the world, in the words of W.E.B. Du Bois, with the “gift of second sight.”  In this way African American studies is not simply an accumulation of “facts” about peoples of African descent in the United States, but its ethical demands and modes of inquiry are transferable to the study of many marginalized communities. Students must enroll in the lecture and one discussion section.

BLST 101 – Introduction to Black Diaspora Studies

• CRN: 44085
• Day/Time: MW 3-4:15p
• Location: Taft Hall 204
• Instructor: Lynette Jackson lajackso@uic.edu
• Course description coming soon!

BLST 104 – Race, Place, and Schooling: Black Americans and Education

• CRN: 47220, 33410
• Day/Time: TR 11a-12:15p
• Location: Lincoln Hall 201
• Instructor: Dave Stovall dostoval@uic.edu
• This course seeks to examine the social, political, cultural, and economic contexts that have influenced the education of Black people in the United States in the 20th and during the first quarter of 21st century.  Paying specific attention to urban areas (most notably Chicago), the course seeks to place the education of Black people in the context of race and place (i.e. cities).  Additionally, the study of educational initiatives in urban areas with Black youth can provide a broader understanding of national and global approaches to education that can be shared with other racialized/marginalized groups. To give “teeth” to the education of Black youth in urban areas, the course seeks to give participants the opportunity to engage current educational and social movements throughout the city. In short, the aim is to use the tools that Black people have used to educate themselves to develop new approaches to address pressing issues and concerns in education. This course is cross listed with Educational Policy Studies.

BLST 111 – Introduction to African American Literature Since 1910

• CRN: 44364, 14588
• Day/Time: MW 9:30-10:45a
• Location: Addams Hall 310
• Instructor: Helen Jun junhelen@uic.edu
• This introductory course takes students through the most crucial movements in the contemporary production of Black literature and the arts: the Harlem Renaissance, Urban Realism, the Black Arts Movement, Black Feminist Literature, and Afrofuturism.   A sample of readings include the poetry of Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sonia Sanchez, and eve ewing.  There will be essays and short stories by WEB DuBois, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison, as well as the autobiography of Black Power activist, Assata Shakur.   Students do not write papers in this introductory course.  Instead, there is a midterm exam and final exam covering key concepts and historical material (study guides provided) as well as some quizzes throughout the semester. This course is cross listed with English.

BLST 125 – Global Black Spirituality: Lessons of Love, Justice, and Liberation

• CRN: 44365, 36877
• Day/Time: TR 9:30-10:45a
• Location: Lincoln Hall 207
• Instructor: Johari Jabir jjabir@uic.edu
• Spirituality is one of the most popular topics in today’s culture. From science and medicine to self-help literature and yoga, the subject of spirituality is a main feature of the zeitgeist. The notion that spirituality could dissolve binary categories and enable one to de-compartmentalize are aspects of Afro-Black spirituality that the rest of the world is only now catching up to. The term spirituality simply means the reality of spirit or life-force. Studying the history of Black spirituality stands to teach us about the problems we face of political violence, social alienation, and indifference. This course explores the history of Black spirituality and religion through a lens that encompasses the African diaspora and the globe. Black spirituality is embedded in systems of spirituality such as Islam, Vodou, Christianity, and Santeria, and is compatible with Buddhism, Judaism, and others. We will read a variety of texts such as novels and film. The course does not expect you to believe anything to enroll. This course is cross listed with Religious Studies.

BLST 225 – Racial and Ethnic Groups

• CRN: 44433, 27602, 28934
• Day/Time: TR 2-3:15p
• Location: Burnham Hall 208
• Instructor: Patrick Washington (primary), Victoria Isaac, Monse Rodriguez Rico
• Course description coming soon! This course is cross listed with Sociology and Latin American and Latino Studies.

BLST 258 – Race and Urban Life

• CRN: 44087, 34698
• Day/Time: TR 2-3:15p
• Location: Lincoln Hall 103
• Instructor: Cedric Johnson cedjohns@uic.edu
• This course explores racial and class dynamics in contemporary U.S. cities. We will examine various explanations for contemporary urban inequalities and think through different solutions to our current urban predicament. In the first half of the course, we will discuss the major structural/ economic, political and social changes that have shaped American urbanism over the past half-century, e.g., deindustrialization, demographic shifts, neoliberal restructuring and globalization, and gentrification. The remainder of the course examines various special topics concerning urban life and inequality, such as uneven development, housing, gender and sexuality, labor and immigration, and carceral power, as well as various political alternatives to these problems. Although some readings are Chicago-centric, we will also explore case studies from other national and international cities. This course is cross listed with Sociology.

BLST 261 – Reading Black Women Writing

• CRN: 44366, 38023, 38024
• Day/Time: TR 12:30-1:45p
• Location: Lecture Center A003
• Instructor: Beth Richie brichie@uic.edu
• This course will closely examine some representative texts of the Black women’s literary tradition, focusing particularly on “coming of age” stories about Black girls and non-binary people.  The class will be oriented towards an intersectional feminist analysis of how racial and gender identity impacts experience of growing up, as seen through the lens of Black women writers.   The assigned material will include novels, films, poetry, and short non-fiction pieces; all of which will be framed by discussions of the sociopolitical and psychological issues associated with adolescent identity development.  Discussion topics will include health and sexuality, politics and economics, love and friendships, education and work, and structural oppression and resistance. This course is cross listed with English and Gender and Women’s Studies.

BLST 356 – Constitutional Law: Women, Gender, and Privacy

• CRN: 44219, 24451, 28466
• Day/Time: TR 9:30-10:45a
• Location: Taft Hall 100
• Instructor: Kevin Lyles lyles@uic.edu
• This course provides a survey of the legal history of women in the United States and their continuing struggle for equal rights and protections under the yoke of a constitution that rationalized both slavery and patriarchy. We explore the extent to which women in the United States have used the federal courts to secure fundamental freedoms, including “freedom from inferior constitutional or juridical status,” “freedom from fertility and family discrimination,” and “freedom from fear.” In short, we will survey the extent to which women in the United States have achieved “emancipation” through law. “Emancipation,” paraphrasing Joan Hoff, means equitable treatment that is not grounded in dominant male values and does not violate women’s sense of community, commonality, and/or culture by demanding assimilation or acceptance of stereotypic “feminine” roles as the price for full participation in U.S. society and equal protection under the law. This course is cross listed with Political Science and Gender and Women’s Studies. For a full course description, please visit Dr. Lyles’ online syllabus page here.

BLST 358 – Constitutional Law: African-American Legal History

• CRN: 44220, 31101
• Day/Time: TR 11a-12:15p
• Location: Taft Hall 100
• Instructor: Kevin Lyles lyles@uic.edu
• This class provides a survey analysis of African-American political-legal history through the lens of significant legal doctrines and court decisions starting in the late 1600s to the present day. History shows these are pivotal decisions that have forged new tests and doctrines that reflect or portend major shifts and changes in law as it relates to the African-American quest for freedom, equality, and full citizenship. Significant decisions are defined as not only those cases that suggest new doctrines, major shifts, or new directions in the law; but, additionally these are cases that contribute to a deeper understanding of the enduring hardship of the African-American quest for freedom and equality in both a historic and systemic perspective. The richness and broad range of cases includes, for example, landmark decisions involving slavery, Jim Crow segregation, access to housing and public accommodations, interracial marriage and miscegenation, school segregation, voting rights, assembly and speech, interstate and intrastate travel, protest politics, the death penalty and other rights of persons accused of crimes, affirmative action, etc. This course is cross listed with Political Science. For a full course description, please visit Dr. Lyles’ online syllabus page here.

BLST 401 – Senior Seminar in Black Studies

• CRN: 44089
• Day/Time: TR 3:30-4:45p
• Location: Lincoln Hall 214
• Instructor: Joseph Jewell jjewell3@uic.edu
• This newly redesigned course offers students the opportunity to develop research skills as an intern for a community-based organization here in Chicago. Students will be paired with a community partner organization and produce research that will assist the organization in meeting its goals of reaching the public. This course has two aims: (1) to guide students in designing and implementing interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary research in Black Studies and (2) to offer “hands-on” experience working with a public-facing organization. Through our weekly discussions and check-ins on the progress of student research, we will build a supportive and dynamic learning community. This course is designed for BLST majors and minors, and coordinates with SOCI’s capstone course.

BLST 410 – Race, Gender, and Representation: Black Bodies in Media and Mass Culture

• CRN: 47967, 47968, 47969, 47971, 47972, 47973
• Day/Time: T 3:30-6pm
• Location: BSB 161
• Instructor: Manoucheka Celeste manouche@uic.edu
• What is at stake? This course begins and ends with this question as we explore scholarship and public conversations around Black representation and Black media production.  These include defining Black popular culture, which notions of taste and authenticity, as well as its socio-political relevance to an emancipatory project. With readings covering music, film, television, and social media, students will gain insight into Black cultural criticism from multiple geographic locations. Implicit in Black cultural criticism is an analysis of power. As such, students will be exposed to scholarly works that exemplify an intersectional approach, which places notions of race, ethnicity, nation, sexuality, gender, and class in conversation with one another. This course is also interdisciplinary as we draw from Black Cultural Studies alongside gender and women’s studies, communication, history, literature, and sociology.  More broadly, this course examines the relationship between media and culture. With an emphasis on media literacy, students also further develop skills to think and engage critically with a range of media forms. The work of this course is threefold: to explore theories about media and media industries; to analyze media texts; and to investigate questions of representation, belonging, democracy, oppression, and liberation. This course is cross listed with Communications and Gender and Women’s Studies.

BLST 494 – Black Ethnographies

• CRN: 44097, 44098, + ANTH sections
• Day/Time: TR 2-3:15p
• Location: BSB 315
• Instructor: Mario LaMothe lamothem@uic.edu
• How do researchers, artists, and activists use interviews, oral histories, observations, and participant observations to enable critical conversations on Black body politics in the hemispheric Americas? Graduate and advanced undergraduate students of this course will examine ethnographies written by Black authors from various fields and practices to evaluate their work’s contribution to knowledge production. Their approaches will also guide our exploration of their efforts to decolonize ethnography. Through a mix of genres like auto-ethnographies, oral histories, travelogues, and artistic works, the course will explore the diverse witnessing stories, artistic practices, spiritual beliefs, everyday ways of knowing that originate from Africa and persist in the Americas and globally. In class presentations, students will take turns responding to the required content based on their own knowledge of society, various bodily practices, and modes, styles and/or genres of Black creative strategies. Drawing from the learning content, short writing assignments and final papers will feature students’ research and/or creative interests. This course is cross listed with Anthropology.

BLST 501 – Interdisciplinary Seminar in Black Studies

• CRN: 44099
• Day/Time: T 10a-12:50p
• Location: BSB 135
• Instructor: Cedric Johnson cedjohns@uic.edu
• Black studies is an interdisciplinary field of inquiry born out of sixties black movements, and earlier intellectual and archival work of black schoolteachers, college professors, bibliophiles, activists and public intellectuals.  This course introduces students to the history, theories, key debates and methods of the field.   We will explore how the activist origins of Black Studies has shaped the research foci, audiences and questions asked by the field’s departments, faculty and students.  Likewise, we will consider how the political backlash against affirmative action and DEI programs, the corporatization of the university, and the increasingly precarious professoriate have affected the fate of the discipline.  Throughout the course, we will engage foundational texts, empirical research and new scholarship, and consider diverse perspectives such as Afrocentrism, Black Feminist and Queer theory, Afropessimism, historical materialism among others.  At times, our discussions will shift from historical analysis to contemporary affairs, and from U.S. domestic to diasporic concerns. This course is only open to graduate students.
• Selected Readings: Karen Fields and Barbara Fields, Racecraft; Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mothers Gardens; Joshua Myers, On Black Study; Paul Gilroy, Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack; Harold Cruse, Crisis of the Negro Intellectual; Joy James Transcending the Talented Tenth.