Africana Ethics and Social Justice

less than 15

Small-group seminar

Private four-year institution, primarily undergraduate

This is a mid-level course with few prerequisites (either AAS 100, History 111 or 112). It will become a required course in the African American studies curriculum beginning Fall 2017. Typical enrollment comes from cross-registered Spelman, visiting and few Morehouse College students.

African American Studies 262, Global African Identity: An Exploration of Ethical Texts Across the Diaspora, is an interdisciplinary examination of the relationship between Black identity and ethics in various societies across the globe and how those societies contextualize those identities. We are interested in how Africans got to these disparate locations only to the extent that those sets of experiences help us understand the historically evolving social contract of the nations in question. We will examine Blackness in four geographic locations: 1) Nile-Niger-Congo complex, 2) Indus-Ganges-Deccan complex, 3) Levant region, and 4) African American Diasporic region) through close readings of cultural, historical, literary and sociological texts that speak to ethics. The major goal of the course is to examine how Afro-Kemetic, Hindu and Judeo-Christian ethical traditions influenced
the philosophies of the major leaders of the anti-colonial struggles in Africa and its Diaspora with a particular focus on Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, El Hajj Malik El Shabazz. These identities will be explored as they are revealed in relevant primary source texts from within and without the Black world. The African historical and cultural experience is the heuristic center of the course, linking historical, literary, cultural, sociological and content from other disciplines.

AAS262A: Create a Concept map showing the significance and relationship between identity, ethics and primary source texts in relation to the discipline of African American Studies;

AAS262B: Write an SEE-I paragraph defining, grouping & analyzing Carter's ethical principles (200);

AAS262C: Create a map for each civilization studied depicting 1) the movements of cultural and historical agents, 2) the absolute and relative location of major caches of ethical texts, and 3) distance from Atlanta, GA.

AAS262D Write a 200-word SEE-I paragraph evaluating the importance of a nation-wide ethical stand-
ard to the durability of Kemetic civilization.

AAS262E: Create a Venn Diagram comparing the history of ethics of race, caste and class in the Indian
Sub-continent with the history of Africans in America.

AAS262F: Chart and assess the Judeo-Christian ethos as a source of liberation philosophies for people of
African descent.

AAS262G: Create a concept map (Prezi or other multimedia app) graphically analyzing a Black leader's ethical philosophies: a) chart the Global origins of his/her core
philosophical concepts (must reference at least 3 global civilizations); b) one part must be a Venn diagram demonstrating areas of philosophical convergence and divergence; c) finally, one slide must summarize King's (one paragraph) and Malcolm's (one paragraph) Global Af-
rican ethical philosophy.

The capstone project is a digital mapping and timelining project that displays captures geographic, historical, cultural and sociopolitical developments in one spreadsheet-based digital map. Students will present their research at one of the end of the year Student research symposia.

This course developed out of a series of Social Justice-oriented faculty development seminars and symposia primarily funded by UNCF/Mellon. Three faculty members: Leah Creque (English), Cynthia Hewitt (Sociology) and Samuel Livingston (Africana Studies) developed a Social Justice Learning Community Proposal, which was short-lived, but resulted in the creation of AAS 262, African Identity and Ethics. The course was designed to be team-taught, but collaboration has been limited. The course could benefit from interdisciplinary collaboration and greater infusion of community-based input.

Assessment of student accomplishment takes place through a combination of in-class graded activities (student learning outcomes), quizzes, two exams and a capstone project.

AAS 300, African Identity, Ethics and Social Justice (Acrobat (PDF) 233kB May1 17)

- John Henrik Clarke, ed. Malcolm X: The Man and His Times. Trenton: Africa World Press, 1990 [1970].
- Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? Boston: Beacon Press, 2010
[1968].
- Gyanendra Pandey, A History of Prejudice: Race, Caste and Difference in India and the United States. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
- Wole Soyinka, Of Africa. Yale University Press, 2012.
- Other Assigned Readings on Blackboard marked with an *