MYJOHNSHOPKINS.EDU
Undergraduate Program
Requirements for the Major
Students who choose to major in Africana Studies must complete at least forty credit hours of course work, including three core courses, one year of foreign language study, and elective courses offered by the Center and/or participating departments. Please see the Courses tab to the upper left for courses being offered in the current semester.
Core Courses
Each student will take three core courses, one in each of the sub-fields of Africana Studies—that is, African Studies, African-American Studies and African Diaspora Studies. Core courses will be offered on a regular basis—either annually or, at a minimum, once every other year. The core will include the following existing courses, plus one introductory course.
AS 362.111 Introduction to African American Studies
AS 100.120 Slavery: from Africa to the Americas
AS 100.121-122 African History
AS 362.220 Discourses in African Diaspora
Foreign Language Study
Students must demonstrate competence in an appropriate foreign language, either by examination, or by completing one year of language study at the intermediate level. If a student satisfies the language requirement by examination, s/he must take an additional eight credits of elective courses to meet the total requirement of forty credit hours for the Africana Studies major. Students may elect to study a language spoken in one or more African diasporic communities and/or on the African continent. Relevant languages include, but are not limited to, Kiswahili, Yoruba, Arabic, Spanish, French and Portuguese.
Electives
Each student must complete a minimum of twenty-four additional credit hours, comprised of elective courses offered by participating faculty. The Center staff will maintain an updated list of appropriate current course offerings, including courses offered by visiting faculty, post-doctoral fellows, Dean’s Teaching Fellows, etc., and assist students in selecting courses to construct a coherent program of study. Participating faculty will also be encouraged to develop courses specifically for Africana Studies, including interdepartmental and/or team-taught courses.
Electives should be distributed as follows:
a) At least twelve credit hours must be in courses at the 300 level or above.
b) Research seminar. Students who wish to do honors in Africana Studies are required to take a two-semester (eight credit) research seminar, in which they will prepare an honors thesis in consultation with a faculty adviser in the student’s particular area of interest and the faculty coordinator of the undergraduate research seminar. The research seminar will provide guidance on research design, methodology, and analysis and presentation of findings, and give students an opportunity to discuss one another’s projects, share experiences and receive constructive comments from their peers as well as the faculty coordinator.
In selecting research topics and collecting materials, students are encouraged to explore resources outside those immediately available on campus. With its rich collection of museums and archives, large and historic African-American communities, and growing populations of recent migrants from Africa, the Baltimore-Washington area offers many opportunities for research in Africana Studies. Students who wish to undertake research in Africa, or in African American or African diasporic communities beyond the local area, will be encouraged to take advantage of summer research grants and/or study abroad opportunities available at Hopkins. The Center will work with other departments and programs at Hopkins on behalf of students who wish to combine their research in Africana Studies with work in another field or on-going program, such as the joint Minority Health Program recently established by the School of Public Health and Morgan State University.
Undergraduate Minor Requirements
Students who wish to minor in Africana Studies must complete a minimum of 24 credits, including two core courses and electives. Three of the electives must be upper level courses. Foreign language study is not required, but up to eight credits of course work in a foreign language may be counted toward the required electives.
Africana Studies Courses
African and African Diaspora Studies
362.220, Discourses in the African Diaspora
362.222, Contemporary African and Caribbean Migration
362.302, African Visions: Understanding Art, Context, and Images of a Continent
362.360, Political Freedom in Africana Thought
Cross-listed courses in other departments
010.202, Sacred Arts of Africa
010.290, At the Very Edge: The Art of Islamic Spain as a Furtive Introduction to “Islamic Art”
010.374, Primitivism and its Discontents
070.406, Anthropology of Politics: Global, Local, and Beyond
100.157, Race and Empire
100.304, New World Slavery
100.338, Contemporary African Political Economics in Historical Perspective
100.439, Cuban Revolution and the Contemporary Caribbean
100.445, African Fiction as History
100.461, Power, Identity, and the Production of African History
100.489-490, Bondage and Culture: Slavery and Cultural Transformation in the Atlantic
130.101, Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations
130.135, Ancient Egyptian Civilization
130.322, Law, Ethics, and Wisdom in Ancient Egypt
130.323, History of Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt
130.325, Women in Ancient Egypt
130.326, Egyptian Religion and Mythology
130.327, Ancient Egyptian Painting
130.328, Ancient Egypt within Africa
130.329, Ancient Egyptian Art
130.333, Egypt in the Amarna Period
130.400, Introduction to Middle Egyptian
190.102, Introduction to Comparative Politics
190.316, Introduction to Globalization
190.409, Comparative Politics of Social Movements
191.329, Politics, History and Culture of the Maghreb
215.491, Muslim Spain
230.317, Sociology of Immigration
230.345, Historical Sociology of Africa
375.115-116, Beginning Arabic
375.215-216, Intermediate Arabic
375.301-302, Advanced Arabic Reading and Writing
375.401-402, Upper Advanced Arabic
379.151-152, Beginning Kiswahili
379.251-252, Intermediate Kiswahili
African American Studies
362.175, Freshman Seminar: Remembering the Black Power Movement
362.200, African American Poetry and Poetics
362.205, 20th Century African American History
362.375, Bebop, Modernism, and Change
262.340, Power and Racism
362.457, Richard Wright and Modernism:
Philosophy, Literature, and Politics
Courses in other departments
060.343, African American Literary Traditions
from the 19th and 20th Centuries
100.113, Making America: Race, Radicalism, and Reform in America
100.153, Making America: Immigration, Race, and Citizenship
100.159, American Civil War
100.322, History of African Americans at
The Johns Hopkins University
100.457, Abraham Lincoln, Slavery, and the American Civil War
100.486, Jim Crow in America
190.214, Introduction to Racial and Ethnic Politics
190.302, Politics of Black Cultural Production
230.112, Freshman Seminar: Race and Education in the U.S.
230.316, African-American Family
230.320, Education and Inequality:
Individual, Contextual, and Policy Perspectives
230.332, Race, Racism, and Racial Privilege
230.333, Quality and Inequality in American Education
Urban Studies
Community Health Promotion
Courses in other departments
100.343, Power of Place: Race and Community in East Baltimore
100.492, Comparative Urban History
180.252, Economics of Discrimination
190.383, Urban Society and Politics
190.384, Urban Politics and Policy
191.340, Education Politics in Urban America
195.477, Introduction to Urban Policy
195.478, Urban Policy Internship
230.313, Space, Place, Poverty, and Race:
Sociological Perspectives on Neighborhoods and Public Housing
230.334, City in Time and Space:
Historical Sociology of the Urban World
280.399, Practicum in Community Healthcare
