BLST 010. FYS: Blackness in the Crosshairs: Living (and dying) in an Anti-Black World

(Cross-listed as SOCI 005C)
Blackness: identity, concept, or ideology? This first-year seminar provides students with an in-depth exploration of Blackness as all three. We will analyze how Blackness has been, and is, depicted in media, art, philosophy, and literature, and how these representations have shaped our understanding of the Black experience. In the Black Studies tradition, we take an interdisciplinary approach drawing from primary sources, academic texts, and social media to investigate how blackness is defined, contested, and transformed. The bulk of the course focuses on the now-contemporary topics spanning from “diaspora wars”, to digital Black face, to food deserts, Black Twitter, Black Lives Matter, and importantly, Black Joy.
Fall 2024. Veras.
Fall 2025. Veras.

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