BLST 015. Introduction to Black Studies

In this course, students will be introduced to Black Studies and how it came to be an academic field of study. Through engagement with the field’s activist and creative histories we will explore how Black Studies can remain a vital source for engaging Black life and challenging the brutal systems that contest its flourishing. Together, we will make a number of creative projects that will make the work of Black Studies accessible to the broader Swarthmore Community. The class will work as a rigorous Reading and Art Club, engaging with foundational Black Studies texts and making them relevant to our contemporary moment. These works remix methods drawn from the Humanities and Social Sciences in order to present the complexity of blackness and refuse the violence of slavery, colonialism, heteropatriarchy, and other forms of domination. We will leave class better prepared to utilize creative methods from the field of Black Studies, making research projects that are up to the task of studying, facing, and refusing the current assault on Black life.
Non-distribution.
1 credit.
Eligible for BLST, ESCH
Fall 2025. Batts.
Catalog chapter: Black Studies
Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/black-studies-program

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