University of Missouri - Kansas City : Black Studies (BLKS)

Introduction to Urban Studies is a lecture and discussion course that provides the undergraduate student with an overview of the interdisciplinary field of urban studies. The student who successfully completes this course will have a broad understanding of the major issues, theories, key concepts and vocabulary, basic methods, and prominent scholars in urban studies. We will explore current events of relevance, including the opportunities and problems facing major cities in the United States, especially Kansas City and New Orleans.

3 hrs

BLKS 201 Global Systems and the Origins of Black American Culture and Institutions

This multi-disciplinary course examines global capitalism, European contact with Africa, the development of the African Diaspora, and the origins of Black American institutions and culture. Applying a Black studies perspective, the course explores such themes as cultural and gendered oppression, institutional destabilization, economic dislocation, liberation struggles, and creative impulses and aesthetics.

3 hrs

BLKS 302 Conceptual and Theoretical foundations in African American Studies

This course will provide an in-depth examination of the theoretical and conceptual parameters of African American studies. We will study the evolution of the field, key scholars and creative intellectuals, and seminal categories of thought.

3 hrs

BLKS 320 Critical Health Issues in Black Communities

Beginning with the African context and the opposition of chattel slavery, this course examines social, cultural, and historical factors affecting the health status of African Americans to the present era. It explores a variety of health-related issues including the interplay between environment, biology, and culture; folk and popular health practices; structured inequality and oppression; lifestyle, beliefs and values; and the organization and delivery of health care.Moreover, this course moves well beyond the idea that medical care-its presence, absence, or quality-is the singular or most critical factor determining the health of a people, community, or society. It reveals the importance of social phenomena in disease resistance and health promotion. Historical shifts from the prominence of infectious to chronic diseases; the implications to health of chattel slavery, sharecropping, segregation, poverty, and structured inequality; the relationship between psychosocial factors and disease, i.e. destabilized social settings that compromise resistance to disease; environmental racism; and the health status of African Americans as it relates to the organization of work, family structure and function, religious beliefs, the organization of medical care, lifestyle, consumer manipulation, and post-industrial society are major issues addressed by the course.

3 hrs

BLKS 321 The Black Family and Male-Female Relationships

This course examines the historical evolution and current status of the African American family in the United States. Utilizing the African experience as its starting point the course conveys a broad understanding of the role of the family in human survival and progress. We investigate such issues as male-female relationships, sexual practices, dating, marriage, single parenting, the education and socialization of children, and so on. We also examine an array of social and economic issues, including institutionalized inequality, that affects the viability of today's African American family.

3 hrs

BLKS 331 African American Literature I

This course provides a survey of African American literature from its beginnings to the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s. Areas of interest will include abolitionist literature (especially Slave Narratives), turn-of-the-century literature and the Harlem Renaissance. This course will examine any or all of the following literary forms: fiction, poetry, drama, autobiography and essay. It will view African American literature in its historical and cultural contexts. Cross-listed with ENGLISH 331.

3 hrs

BLKS 332 WI African American Novel

This course will examine the African American novel in the 19th and 20th centuries; the emphasis will be on the period from the 1920s to the present. The novels will be examined in their historical and cultural contexts. Cross-listed with ENGLISH 332WI.

3 hrs

BLKS 333 African American Literature II

A survey of African American literature from its beginnings to World War I. This course will cover a range of authors, several genres, and culture forms, which may include fiction, poetry, drama, autobiography, essay, oral, contrat and/or slave narratives, folklore, and songs. Cross-listed with ENGLISH 333.

3 hrs

BLKS 403 WI Writing for African American Studies

This course instructs students in how to produce advanced knowledge in the field of African American studies. It provides training in the construction of quality research papers for graduate, scholarly, and professional work and exposes students to a wide array of scholarly journals, databases, and authoritative resources in African American studies. Each time the courses taught, students will develop their research around a specific topic defined by the instructor.

3 hrs

BLKS 404 Research Seminar

This course introduces the logic, theory, and techniques of empirical research and applies them to African American Studies. It exposes students to a variety of research approaches in order to examine their utility for producing knowledge within the field.

3 hrs

BLKS 480 Special Topics/Seminar

In-depth exploration of special topics in Black Studies. When available, topics will be announced prior to registration. Course may be repeated for up to six credit hours. Offered: On Demand

1-3 hrs

BLKS 490 Directed Study/Research

Individual research and learning projects supervised by a faculty member. Course may be repeated for up to six credit hours. Offered: On Demand

1-3 hrs