ASRC 6903 - Africana Studies Graduate Seminar

Spring. 4 credits.

R. Richardson.

This course, which will be conducted as a seminar, is designed for first-year ASRC graduate students. It will cover basic research design, methodology and means of gathering and organizing data and will also address specific issues related to research and theoretical discourse in African, Caribbean, and African American humanities and social sciences. The course will be coordinated and supervised by one professor (the Director of Graduate Studies or by rotation) but team-taught by three or four faculty per semester. Each participating faculty will be responsible for a topical segment of the course related to her/his areas of specialization or an area of interest pertaining to theory and methodology of Africana Studies. Readings will be assigned and distributed in advance before each faculty presentation, to allow students to prepare for discussion. This course will allow first- year graduate students wider exposure to faculty and to the field of Africana Studies early in their tenure in the program, and thus help them make an informed decision regarding faculty adviser and topic for their thesis. Each student will be required to produce a bibliographic essay related to his/her thesis topic, and a fully developed thesis proposal as an end product of the course. For all graduate students.