The following is a condensed version of the syllabus for From Haiti to Ferguson: The Global Black Freedom Struggle since Slavery. For a complete version, including assignments and class policies see Blackboard or email the professor, Dr. Jessica Ann Levy (jalevy@princeton.edu)
COURSE SCHEDULE
WEEK 1 A Black World? Re-Conceptualizing African American History in a Global Perspective
Monday, Feb. 4 Introduction
Wednesday, Feb. 6
Reading: Tiffany Ruby Patterson and Robin D.G. Kelley, “Unfinished Migrations: Reflections on the African Diaspora and the Making of the Modern World,” African Studies Review 43, no. 1 (2000): 11-45
WEEK 2 Haiti — The Revolution Felt Around the World
Monday, Feb. 11
Reading: Michael O. West and William G. Martin, “The Haitian Revolution and the Forging of the Black International,” in From Toussaint to Tupac: The Black International Since the Age of Revolution, eds. Michael West, William Martin, and Fanon Che Wilkins (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009): 72-106.
Wednesday, Feb. 13
Reading: Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), 1-69.
History-in-Action #1 (Un-Silencing the Past—Blog Post)
WEEK 3 Ships at Sea — Between Slavery and Citizenship
Monday, Feb. 18
Reading: Rebecca J. Scott and Jean M. Hébrard, Freedom Papers: An Atlantic Odyssey in the Age of Emancipation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014), 6-48.
Wednesday, Feb. 20
Reading: Rebecca J. Scott and Jean M. Hébrard, Freedom Papers: An Atlantic Odyssey in the Age of Emancipation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014), 49-99.
WEEK 4 (E)migrating Towards Freedom
Monday, Feb. 25
Reading: Robert S. Levine, ed. Martin R. Delany: A Documentary Reader (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 181-186, 240-244, 315- 324, 325-357.
Wednesday, Feb. 27
Reading: Lara Putnam, “Nothing Matters but Color: Transnational Circuits, the Interwar Caribbean, and the Black International,” in From Toussaint to Tupac: The Black International Since the Age of Revolution, eds. Michael West, William Martin, and Fanon Che Wilkins (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 107-129.
History-in-Action #2 (Op-Ed: Stay or Leave?—Emigration in The Era of Trump)
WEEK 5 Sensing Bodies, Recovering Diaspora
Monday, March 4
Reading: Jenifer L. Barclay, “‘The Greatest Degree of Perfection’: Disability and the Construction of Race in American Slave Law,” South Carolina Review, 46, no. 2 (Spring 2014): 28-43.
Wednesday, March 6
Reading: Tina Campt, “The Motion of Stillness: Diaspora, Stasis, and Black Vernacular Photography” in Remapping Black Germany, edited by Sara Lennox (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2016), 149-170.
History-in-Action #3 DUE (Accessing Struggle)
WEEK 6 A Nation is Born
Monday, March 11
Readings: Keisha N. Blain, Set the World on Fire: Black Nationalist Women and the Global Struggle for Freedom (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018).
W.E.B. Du Bois, “To the Nations of the World” (1900)
_________________, “Pan-Africanism: A Mission in My Life,” United Asia (April 1955)
Wednesday, March 9
NO READING
“Imagineering the Black World” Essay Due
WEEK 7 No Classes — SPRING BREAK
WEEK 8 Fighting for Freedom
Monday, March 25
Readings: Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1941 State of the Union Address “The Four Freedoms,” January 6, 1941.
Noelle Trent, “Easter 1942, A Reflection on the Double Victory Campaign,” Black Perspectives, April 4, 2015, https://www.aaihs.org/easter-1942-a-reflection-on-the-double-victory-campaign/
Wednesday, March 27
Reading: Michael Cullen Green, Black Yanks in the Pacific: Race in the Making of American Military Empire after World War II (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010), 1-29.
Accessing Freedom Concept Paper DUE
WEEK 9 Global Solidarity or Cold War Diplomacy?
Monday, April 1
Readings: Nico Slate, Colored Cosmopolitanism: The Shared Struggle for Freedom in the United States and India (Cambridge: Harvard University Press), 202-242.
“Randolph to Adopt Gandhi Technique,” The Chicago Defender, January 9, 1943: 4.
“Citizens Repudiate Non-Violence Program: Feel Gandhi’s Way Is Not Comparable to U.S. Situation,” The Pittsburgh Courier, The Pittsburgh Courier, April 24, 1943.
Wednesday, April 3
Reading: Penny Von Eschen, “The Goodwill Ambassador: Duke Ellington’s State Department Tours,” in Casey Blake ed., The Arts of American Democracy: Art, Public Culture, and the State (Washington D.C./Philadelphia: Woodrow Wilson Center Press/University of Pennsylvania, 2007), 151-170.
In-Class: Watch Clips from Black Panther
History-in-Action #4 (Review of Wakanda)
WEEK 10 Black Power Reconsidered in Global Perspective
Monday, April 8
Reading: Nikhl Singh, “The Black Panthers and the ‘Underdeveloped Country,’ of the Left,” in Charles E. Jones, ed., The Black Panther Party Reconsidered: Reflections and Scholarship (Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1998), 57-105.
Wednesday, April 10
Reading: Anne-Marie Angelo, “The Black Panthers in London, 1967-1972: A Diasporic Struggle Navigates the Black Atlantic,” Radical History Review, Vol. 2009, NO. 103 (Winter 2009): 17-35.
WEEK 11 From Anti-Apartheid to Hip-Hop
Monday, April 15
Reading: Francis Njubi Nesbitt, Race for Sanctions: African-Americans against apartheid, 1946-1994 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), 1-26, 97-122.
Wednesday, April 17
Reading: Marc D. Perry, “Hip Hop’s Diasporic Landscapes of Blackness,” in From Toussaint to Tupac: The Black International Since the Age of Revolution, eds. Michael West, William Martin, and Fanon Che Wilkins (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 232-258.
WEEK 12 THE PAST IS PRESENT–21st CENTURY STRUGGLES
Monday, April 22
Reading: Juliet E. K. Walker, “Neocolonialism in the African Diaspora?: Black American Business Competition in South Africa,” in Alusine Jalloh and Toyin Falola, eds., Black Business and Economic Power (University of Rochester Press, 2002): 539-571.
Wednesday, April 24
Readings:
Julianne Hing, “‘Black Lives Matter’ Goes International,” Color Lines, January 30, 2015, http://www.colorlines.com/articles/black-lives-matter-goes-international.
Amien Essif, In These Times, “How Black Lives Matter Has Spread Into a Global Movement to End Racist Policing,” June 29, 2015, http://inthesetimes.com/article/18042/black-lives-matter-in-europe-too.
“27 Stunning Photos of #BlackLivesMatter Protests From Around the Globe,” World Mic, December 7, 2014, http://mic.com/articles/105882/27-stunning-photos-of-black-lives-matter-protests-from-around-the-globe.
History-in-Action #5 (Archiving the Present)
WEEK 13 Accessing Freedom Presentations
Monday, April 29
Presentations
Wednesday, May 1
Presentations
Final Accessing Freedom Projects Due: Friday, May 10, 2019.
