POLS 017. Black Political Thought

This class is designed to offer an introduction to the richness of black political thought (bpt), beginning with an explanation of what is meant by “black,” “political,” and “thought,” to first chart the uniqueness of bpt as a mode of theory and as a response to black life. We will then turn to how African women and men made sense of the efforts of others to turn them into racialized slaves, to how recently freed black people gave meaning to the fact of their enslavement, and to the variety of creative political responses developed by their descendants in the face of the ongoing failures to make a clean break with the legacies of the plantation in the Americas. While we will read the thought of Caribbean and African writers, the primary focus is on the black U.S. Also, while we look at what these scholars are doing, a critical part of this course is that we will be constantly engaged in the project of asking ourselves what are we doing?
Spring 2017. Melonas.
Catalog chapter: Political Science
Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/political-science

Access the class schedule to search for sections.

POLS 017.&nbsp;Black Political Thought

POLS 017. Black Political Thought