Black Studies

Beginning, intermediate, or advanced group lessons on the 5-string banjo in the claw-hammer/frailing style. Students will learn to play using simple song sheets with chords, tablature, and standard notation. Using chord theory and scale work, personal music-making skills will be enhanced. History of the African origins of banjo and its introduction to the western world will

How do prisons shape society? What socialities do carceral systems produce? What is revealed about societies through their practices of incarceration? Through key works in Black Studies, Anthropology, and Geography, we will explore these questions and more, considering the light that incarceration sheds on the study of society. In

In this course, films are used as textbooks to learn the French language and explore the French-speaking world. In order to hone their language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing), students will listen to selected film dialogues to improve their listening comprehension, read and analyze excerpts from scenarios and reviews to strengthen their understanding of

In this course, we will rehearse and perform a play: The Comeuppance by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. 

Synopsis: When a group of old classmates meet to pregame their 20th high school reunion, everyone is nervous for the night ahead. As alcohol and pot help the self-declared “Multi-Ethnic Reject Group” let their guards down, they begin to

This course is designed for anyone interested in interdisciplinary artistic practices with a focus on dance creation, and improving the French language. Through the study and practical exploration of works by African choreographers and dancers, students will engage in both the analysis and creation of movement, developing skills in composition, improvisation, and

This course provides its students with a deep and expansive exploration of the field of psychology. As a diverse field of study, psychology is broadly defined as the study of human behavior. Psychology has numerous sub-areas of study that take different research approaches to examine biological, social, and cultural factors and how they influence behavior, mental processes,

Vive l’Afrance! This film title (Gomis, 2001) summarizes the goal of this course: an exploration of the rich variety of shared and conflicting francophone identities. Constructed within or outside of France, the texts studied in this course will encompass West African, French, and/or Caribbean spaces. The discussion of notions such as « créolisation » will allow students to

This course is an introduction to Sabar (traditional dance, drum, and ceremony) from Sénégal and Gambia and Traditional West African Mandingo dance and music forms. We will build an improvisation practice that explores the dynamics between the musicians and dancers as well as how movement and live music can be experienced as a singular, integrated entity. We will also

Qualitative inquiry seeks to discover and describe in narrative reporting what particular people do in their everyday lives and what the actions mean to them. The course is intended for students at all standpoints of their individual projects who wish to gain experience and expertise in engaging with qualitative research methods. As a 2000-level reading and writing intensive

This course is writing-intensive course intended for seniors across methodologies who are in the final stages of their senior work. With Black studies serving as the overarching body of knowledge, this course provides its students with a deep and expansive exploration of the Black

Photography was used scientific purposes and a tool of imperial during the early years of its invention. These two things have helped shaped its historical representation of the body as well as its descriptive language. Marginal groups of individuals when they were represented in photography were often presented in a

In this course, we will be uncovering, re-positioning, and affirming historical legacies and traditions that stand the risk of being lost forever, and explore how to use them to fight discrimination, racism and hate today. We will do so using Sankofa, a quest for knowledge through critical examination, patient investigation,

Speculative fiction is storytelling that starts with something real, some phenomenon observable in the present or recent past, and asks “What if?” - extrapolating into the future or alternate realities. Critical fabulation, as coined by Saidiya Hartman in the essay “Venus in Two Acts,” is a method for recovering unwritten histories. By

Through an analysis of Hip-Hop elements (DJing, House, Rap), we will decode how survival tactics show up through black music, dance, and literary revolutions.

Glitch and dissolve will be used as entryways to a further understanding of how time and time travel play a role in art making. Practices of “sampling the ancestor” and sound layering will help inform ideas of

This course references ten years of research led by Jasmine Hearn who traveled throughout the United States to interview a constellation of organizers, community leaders, nurses, care-givers, artists, land stewards, chefs, and educators. Students will be guided in a series embodiment practices that braid interdisciplinary methodologies of rooting, listening, responding,

We will study and perform from the string band traditions of rural America. Nova Scotia, Quebecois, Irish, New England, Scandinavian, African-American dance and ballad traditions. In addition, these will be experienced with listening, practice (weekly group rehearsals outside of class), and performing components. Emphasis on ensemble intuition, playing by ear, and lifetime