Black Grief Geographies
AFAM 392
Fall 2025
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01
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This course introduces students to literature and practices centered on post-slavery and post-colonial bereavement. Employing an interdisciplinary framework of Black Geography, Feminist Geography, and Post-colonial thought, students will examine the spatial orientations of Black grief and mourning. Here students will also evaluate the connections and frictions between queries on emotional geographies and Black grief. What are the affective and material forces of Black grief and mourning and do they vary by place? How can we read Black grief and mourning beyond narratives of dispossession? What are the human and non-human assemblages that constitute Black grief and mourning? Is it possible to repair infrastructures that mark Black death? This course invites students to meditate on the above questions as well as to apply Black framings on grief to their own research by developing a 15-page visual essay or a 30-minute in-class lecture that draws on any of these questions. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA CHUM |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (African American Studies Minor)(African American Studies) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: 90% or above |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
DIONNE BRAND'S NOMENCLATURE NEW AND COLLECTED POEMS/CHRISTINA SHARPE'S IN THE WAKE, JULIET HOOKER'S BLACK GRIEF/WHITE GRIEVANCE: THE POLITICS OF LOSS/MELANIE HARRIS'S ECOWOMANISM AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN AND EARTH-HONORING FAITHS/ KATHERINE MCKITTRICK, CLYDE ADRIAN WOODS'S BLACK GEOGRAPHIES
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Examinations and Assignments:
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Weekly Source Responses: Students will share (both in class and online) an image, object, song, article that addresses themes from weekly readings. Students are asked to bring in their source with a short description (paragraph).
Midterm: 8-10 page annotated bibliography
Students have two choices for the final: a 10-page eulogy that integrates the literature and other sources from the seminar or a 10-page. |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
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| Instructor(s): Simone-Thompson,Zaira Times: .M.W... 10:50AM-12:10PM; Location: TBA |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 19 | | SR major: 4 | JR major: 4 | | |
| Seats Available: 19 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 4 | JR non-major: 4 | SO: 3 | FR: X |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 0 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 0 |
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