Course Information
See also:
Learning Situations
Lectures:
- Monday 2-4 pm, Pharmacy Lecture Theatre
Tutorials:
One tutorial each week beginning in Week Two:
- Monday 10-11, Teachers College 437 (Clare)
- Monday 11-12, Teachers College 437 (Daniel)
- Wednesday 10-11, Teachers College 440 (Daniel)
- Wednesday 11-12, Teachers College 437 (Ivan)
- Wednesday 1-2, Education 508 (Daniel)
- Wednesday 1-2, Teachers College 436 (Ivan)
- Wednesday 3-4, Teachers College 440 (Ivan)
- Wednesday 4-5, Teachers College 440 (Ivan)
Learner Preparation
Prerequisite:
12 credit points of Junior History, Ancient History,
Economic History or Asian History and Culture.
Readings:
You should purchase a copy of the Course Reading Pack,
which contains most of the essential tutorial readings, from the University
Copy Centre. A copy of the readings will also be available in Fisher
Library Special Reserve. These will form the basis for all your tutorial
work. In addition you would be well advised to read the recommended
readings for each week.
For a good, broad overview see:
Robin D. G. Kelley and Earl Lewis, To Make Our World Anew: A
History of African Americans
Darlene Clark Hine et al, African American Odyssey
Recommended reading:
Lawrence W. Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American
Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom
Robin D. G. Kelley, Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the
Black Working Class
What You Will Learn
Knowledge:
By the end of this course you will acquire a broad
understanding of African American history from the seventeenth century
to today. This knowledge will come from examination of both
primary materials and historiographical debates about African American
culture. You can expect that the expansion of your knowledge
about American history will continue beyond the time of the course
as you will also become familiar with the practical resources for
learning such as the library and internet.
Themes:
• the uses and limits of social and cultural
history to understand the past
• how cultures are formed, maintained, and change.
o What is African-American culture? How has it
changed over time? What is the relationship between culture
and resistance?
- the mechanics of social change
- the history of the idea of race, and the history of racism
Skills:
analytical skills:
-
in reading primary documents including autobiographies,
court records, interviews, images, film, advertisements, travel
narratives, diaries and novels. You will learn to consider what
these sources tell us about the past and how to read them as
different types of evidence, assessing their strengths, weaknesses
and generic characteristics;
-
in reading and assessing historians’ interpretations
of the past. You will improve your ability to understand
what historians are arguing. You will also learn to assess the
strengths and weaknessses of historians’ arguments by
examining the evidence (primary sources) on which those arguments
are based.
skills in verbal and written communication:
-
tutorials give you the opportunity to develop
your spoken and listening skills and encourage you to learn
to participate in scholarly debate;
-
the tutorial presentation challenges you to present
a very short summary of the set readings and to ask questions
that provoke discussion; it also often requires that you work
with other students;
-
the essay synopsis enables you to develop skills
in organization as you are required early in the semester to
present a brief summary of the sources you will use and the
historiographical debates with which you will engage;
-
the essay of 2500 words enables you to learn
to analyze a body of primary sources in the wider context of
African American history. You will develop your writing
skills and learn to sustain an argument at length;
-
the take home examination allows you to reflect
on the themes of the course and to demonstrate your understanding
of the course as a whole.
skills in organization:
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