AFST-AFRICANA STUDIES
AFST 1110G. Introduction to Africana Studies
3 Credits (3)
An interdisciplinary course that introduce students to the histories, cultures, and experiences of global people of African descent. NMSU Specific Description This course presents a survey of the experiences of Blacks across the African Diaspora with particular attention given to the experience of Blacks in the United States. This course will examine the experiences of Black people across various disciplines and fields of academic inquiry. African people, and their descendants across the diaspora, have contributed to the political, cultural, economic, and social landscape of the world. This course will assist you in understanding the Black/Africana experience in the U.S. and around the world.
Learning Outcomes
- Students will carry out critical analysis and engagement with complex, interdependent global systems and legacies (natural, physical, social, cultural, economic, and political) and their implications for people’s lives and the earth's sustainability.
- Students will explore issues/objects/works through collection and analysis of evidence that result in informed conclusions/judgments, understanding and analysis of critical literacy and ethics pertaining to the dynamics of diversity, equity, inclusion and social change.
- Students will examine habits of mind characterized by the comprehensive exploration of issues, ideas,artifacts and events related to diversity, equity and inclusion before accepting or formulating an opinion or conclusion.
- Students will demonstrate the capacity to combine or synthesize existing ideas, images, or expertise in original ways.
- Students will prepare, purposeful presentations designed to increase knowledge, foster understanding, or promote change in listener’s values, beliefs, or behaviors pertaining to the dynamics of diversity, equity, inclusion and social change.
- Students will develop and express ideas in writing and learning in many genres and styles using different writing technologies, mixing texts, data and images that relate to the dynamics of diversity, equity, inclusion and social change.
- Students will show the ability to reason and solve quantitative problems from a wide array of authentic contexts and everyday life situation.
- Students will demonstrate the ability to know a need for information or visual literacy and understanding of the dynamics of historic and contemporary inequality and how they shape individual and community power, biases, structural arrangements and social justice bias.
- Students will enact behaviors and efforts and interact with others on the team to enhance the quality and quantity of contributions made to team discussions. 1
- Students will design, evaluate and implement strategies to answer open-ended questions in multiple ways. 1
- Students will work to make a difference in the civic life of communities and develop the combination of knowledge, skills and values and motivation to make a difference. 1
- Students will develop their cognitive, affective and behavioral skills and characteristics to support effective and appropriate interaction in a variety of cultures. 1
- Students will develop their ethical self-identity as they practice ethical decision making skills while learning how to describe and analyze positions on ethical issues. 1
- Students will engage in self-reflection regarding one’s own history and position in contemporary U.S. society as well as in a global context. 1
- Student learners will connect perspectives and integrate relevant experience and academic knowledge from multiple disciplines.
AFST 2110G. African American History
3 Credits (3)
This course surveys the long and turbulent journey of African-Americans, the rich culture they have cultivated, and their persistent struggle for freedom from the perspective, interests, aspirations, possibilities and envisioned destinies of African descended peoples. From African antiquity to the 21stth century, students will study: 1) The African background; 2) The Holocaust of Enslavement; 3) Black Resistance and Abolition; 4) Reconstruction; 5) The Jim Crow Era; 6) Civil Rights and Black Power, and; 7) The Post-Industrial/Post Civil Rights Era. (unique)
Learning Outcomes
- Demonstrate a full ability to analyze and interpret how enslavement and oppression shape the racial, gendered, social, economic, and political realities of African descended people in the U.S.
- Recognize and respond to ethical challenges/social justice issues that affect African American people.
- Acquire a critical understanding of the human condition.
AFST 2140G. Black Women in the African Diaspora
3 Credits (3)
This survey course reviews the contributions of Black women to the Black Diasporic Story. NMSU Specific Description This course critically surveys Black women’s history and experiences across the African Diaspora. Particular attention is given to Black women’s experiences in North America. Some of the topics covered include: Black women and the building of nation-states; Black women in the U.S. slave system; Black women in race and gender movements in the U.S. and Latin America; systemic and institutionalized violence against Black women; Black motherhood; Black Latinas and the politics of identity; representations of Black women in popular culture; radical activism and Black lesbian identity, as well as the emergence and growth of Black feminist theory and selected other topics. In addition, students will engage in an autobiographical project on a Black woman they select to study.
Learning Outcomes
- Students will gain theoretical knowledge of the field of Black feminist thought.
- Students will explore the relationship between Black feminist theory and the larger more general body of work on feminism.
- Students will study the historical, political and social experiences of Black women in the Americas.
- Students will understand the intersecting relationship between race, gender, class and sexuality.
- Students will critically analyze the representations of Black women in popular culture.
AFST 4110. Race, Culture, and Education
3 Credits (3)
This course deconstructs the history of education through the lens of culture and race. Using a intersectionality framework, the creation of public education, and the impact of historical shifts within the law concerning education will be examined. Special emphasis is placed on the role of ethnicity in the development of the United States and its education system. Includes an overview of multicultural/multilingual curricula with a special focus on culturally / linguistically responsive instruction and assessment practices. This course provides a critical examination of race and culture using multicultural theoretical frameworks to analyze the conditions of education today.
Learning Outcomes
- Analyze and interpret the historical, philosophical, economic, and sociocultural elements of education as it relates to race and culture.
- Evaluate and interpret the ways in which education policies influence and are influenced by equity issues.
- Describe multicultural education initiatives and assumptions about teaching, learning, and knowing.
- Understand how cultural groups and students' cultural identities affect language learning and education overall.
- Explain and provide examples of anti-bias teaching strategies and education practices.