WMST 229 African American Women's History

This course provides an overview of African American women’s history from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century with particular attention to women’s creative choices in navigating an oppressive gender system. Focus will be on the applicability of the standard periodization of American History to the lives of African American women, as they experienced the intersectionality of race, class, gender, and sexuality as they responded with innovative strategies for living lives of meaning. This course allows students an opportunity for scholarly analysis of the lived political, economic, and social experiences of African American women.

Credits

3

Prerequisite

Eligible to enroll in ENGL 121

Hours Weekly

3

Course Objectives

1. Identify the responses of African American women to an oppressive gender system and organize understanding around the creative strategies they invented to navigate systems of race, social class, gender, and sexuality, while pursuing meaningful lives for themselves, their families, and communities.
2. Consider the applicability of the standard periodization of American History to the marginalization of the experiences of African American women within the historical canon and explore alternative ways of analyzing and evaluating opportunities for African American women as they creatively sought meaningful work and found innovative ways to participate in the larger society, especially through the clubwomen’s movements, and the emergence of social activism in the Civil Rights Era.
3. Apply ideas to an analysis of visual, print, and film representations of African American women, including fictional portrayals; compare these portrayals with what we know about the lives of actual African American women.

Course Objectives

1. Identify the responses of African American women to an oppressive gender system and organize understanding around the creative strategies they invented to navigate systems of race, social class, gender, and sexuality, while pursuing meaningful lives for themselves, their families, and communities.

   Learning Activity Artifact

   • Other (please fill out box below)
   • Research assignment

   Procedure for Assessing Student Learning

   • Critical and Creative Thinking Rubric

   Critical Thinking

   • CT1
2. Consider the applicability of the standard periodization of American History to the marginalization of the experiences of African American women within the historical canon and explore alternative ways of analyzing and evaluating opportunities for African American women as they creatively sought meaningful work and found innovative ways to participate in the larger society, especially through the clubwomen’s movements, and the emergence of social activism in the Civil Rights Era.

   Learning Activity Artifact

   • Other (please fill out box below)
   • Online discussions/quizzes

   Procedure for Assessing Student Learning

   • Critical and Creative Thinking Rubric

   Critical Thinking

   • CT2
   • CT3
3. Apply ideas to an analysis of visual, print, and film representations of African American women, including fictional portrayals; compare these portrayals with what we know about the lives of actual African American women.

   Learning Activity Artifact

   • Other (please fill out box below)
   • Online discussions

   Procedure for Assessing Student Learning

   • Critical and Creative Thinking Rubric

   Critical Thinking

   • CT4