AIH276 - African American History From Slavery to Black Lives Matter

Year:

2023 unit information
Enrolment modes: Trimester 1: Burwood (Melbourne), Waurn Ponds (Geelong), Online
Credit point(s): 1
EFTSL value: 0.125
Prerequisite:

Nil
Corequisite:

Nil
Incompatible with:

Nil
Study commitment

Students will on average spend 150-hours over the teaching period undertaking the teaching, learning and assessment activities for this unit.
Scheduled learning activities - campus

1 x 1-hour class per week, 1 x 1-hour seminar per week
Scheduled learning activities - online

1 x 1-hour class (recordings provided), 1 x 1-hour online seminar per week

Content

Students in this unit will learn about the history and culture of African Americans, a significant minority group in the world’s superpower.

Throughout the unit, we will address two related questions:

1. how is it that in a nation based on the world’s first and most expansive assertion of democracy and rights there is such glaring inequality based on race?

2. How have African Americans shaped their own experiences given these circumstances?

Topics will include:

  • the Atlantic slave trade and the experience of slave transportation
  • labour, religion, family, and community from the colonial era to the “antebellum” period
  • the role of free black people and slaves in the American Civil War
  • the meanings of freedom and the early roots of the civil rights movement
  • mobility and violence during the era of Jim Crow segregation
  • leadership and grassroots organising in the Civil Rights movement
  • Black Power and Black Feminism and
  • “post-racial” America up to Black Lives Matter.

The primary and secondary materials, including in assessments, will enable students to follow interests in black culture, eg music and fiction, and/or politics including issues such as mass incarceration and police brutality.

Unit Fee Information

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