AFROAM 597/Afro-Caribbean Histories: A View from Santiago de Cuba
A course taught by Dr. Amilcar Shabazz  ¬ Syllabus for Summer 2012 ¬

Office: 330 New Africa House       E-mail: shabazz@afroam.umass.edu
Phone: 545-5019, or call my assistant, Ms. Tricia Loveland at 413-545-2751

Course Description: Designed for advanced undergraduates and graduate students, this course explores the rich histories of Afro-descendant peoples in the Caribbean. Students will spend two weeks of the summer session in Cuba and will take this class along with Dr. Agustin Lao-Montes’ Afro-Cuban Studies class for a combined six credits.

OVERVIEW

“Afro-Caribbean Histories” is an interdisciplinary investigation of the complexities of the African experience in the Caribbean with an emphasis on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It explores important comparative questions about Afro-Caribbean experiences in the Anglophone (e.g., The Bahamas, Barbados, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago), Francophone (e.g., Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, Dominica, Saint Lucia, Haiti), and Hispanophone (i.e., Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico) islands and coastal nations of the region. The main objective of the course is to analyze how Africans in the Caribbean negotiated, disrupted, and transformed the oppressive political economies and ideological state apparatuses that made them into distinct peoples. Students are expected to come to a thorough understanding of Afro-Caribbean cultural and historical life.

The course will utilize a variety of curricular approaches and materials from historical monographs, to oral histories and memoirs, to film and fictional texts.  In Cuba students will have special guest lectures from leading Caribbean scholars as well as visits to important sites and participation in the annual Fire Festival (also known as the Fiesta del Fuego), a Caribbean fiesta that has a number of conferences, academic workshops and discussion panels that take place during the course of the one-week of the festival. The special focus for 2012 is on Martinique. The final term paper will exhibit your learning from the required reading, directed research, and from the information delivered in the study abroad experience, class conversations, discussions, and lectures.

 http://www.casadelcaribe.cult.cu/

REQUIRED TEXTS

Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon
Caribbean Discourse: Selected Essays by Edouard Glissant
The Caribbean: A History… edited by Stephan Palmie and Francisco A. Scarano
An Intellectual History of the Caribbean by Silvio Torres-Saillant
Three Ancient Colonies: Caribbean Themes & Variations [Hardcover] by Sidney W. Mintz

Documentaries/Films

Adelante Cubanos (ca. 1959) http://www.archive.org/details/Adelante1959 (En Español)

I Am Cuba (1964) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058604/

The Harder They Come (1972) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070155/

Roots Rock Reggae (1977) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Txwk5LE1sN0&feature=player_embedded

Land of Look Behind (1982) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9EontNcmmA&feature=player_embedded

Sugar Cane Alley (1983) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QW0_AKVlSkk

Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask (1996) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HYPWiEr7-I

The Eyes of the Rainbow: Assata Shakur and Oya (1997) http://www.handsoffassata.net/

Buena Vista Social Club (1999 )http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x130d5_buena-vista-social-club

Life and Debt (2001) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=db-tBG_F64E &http://www.lifeanddebt.org/

Yank Tanks: Carros Classicos De Cuba (2002) http://legacy.snagfilms.com/films/watch/yank_tanks

Thunder in Guyana (2003) http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/thunderinguyana/film.html

From Mambo to Hiphop (2006) http://vimeo.com/6105838

Ghosts of Cité Soleil (2006) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8Ow-Uh0ZtI&feature=player_embedded

Dub Echoes (2008) http://vimeo.com/brunonatal/dubechoes

Holding Onto Jah (2009) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvpvLVWE3yM&feature=player_embedded

Mas Man (2010) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MATTFC8cVs&feature=player_embedded

W.A.R. Stories: Walter Anthony Rodney (2010)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JIBML8cU4Q

Reggae Britannia (2011) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdfvUohzY3g&feature=player_embedded

* Each student will write a one-page paper that will facilitate discussion on the day that the film above is viewed/assigned; online students will turn in a brief reaction paper over each film or film excerpt unless the film is unavailable to them.

Supplemental/Optional Books

Rasta and Resistance: From Marcus Garvey to Walter Rodney by Horace Campbell

Haiti: The Aftershocks of History by Laurent Dubois

Caliban’s Reason: Introducing Afro-Caribbean Philosophy by Paget Henry

C. L. R. James’s Caribbean edited by Paget Henry and Paul Buhle

In the Castle of My Skin by George Lamming

Caribbean Reasonings by Brian Meeks and Norman Girvan

The Chosen Place, The Timeless People by Paule Marshall

Eric Williams and the Making of the Modern Caribbean by Colin A. Palmer
NOTE:  Excerpts of Race, Discourse, and the Origin of the Americas: A New World View [Hardcover] edited by Vera Lawrence Hyatt and Rex Nettleford,and other books or articles will be made available online or put on reserve at the Du Bois Library.  All books are available at Food for Thought Book Collective (feel free to try other providers).

 ASSESSMENTS & ACCOUNTABILITY

Your final grade for the 3 credit course will be based on the following:

30%            Fulfillment of responsibilities in Cuba, plus class participation/presentation
30%            Journal
40%            Final paper

Policies
Attendance and Participation: This course will be run as a seminar and its success is dependent upon your level of commitment and preparedness. Therefore, you are required to attend each seminar meeting and come prepared to analytically discuss the readings and relate them to your experiences in Cuba.

Discussion Leading: Each class, one or more class members will help lead class discussion by preparing discussion questions for the group as well as facilitating the class discussion. For more details on my expectations, see the “Guidelines for Discussion Leading” page. A sign up sheet will be passed around during our first class meeting. You will be graded on your presentation, the outline that you hand in, materials that you hand out to the class, and your meeting with me at least two days before you are the discussion leader.

Journals: One of the central requirements of the seminar is that you keep a reading and teaching journal. You should make entries as often as you can, but at a minimum, twice a week. Each week you should have two types of entries. First, you should thoughtfully reflect on each of the assigned readings for the week. Second, you should reflect on what is happening in your work at the school. For more details on my expectations, see the “Guidelines for Journal Writing” page.

Final Paper: The assignment for your final paper will be discussed in detail in class. The paper is due on July 13th. You may either write a traditional academic essay or an essay of informed reflection, in which you draw both on the required texts and on your experiences in Cuba. The paper is a major essay and should be approximately 10-15 typed, double-spaced pages in length.

Summer 2012 Calendar of Key Dates & Assignments for AFROAM 597

Monday, June 11: First day of class – We will meet in Amherst or by Skype and establish a reading and discussion schedule before departure to Cuba

Introduction to the Program and Course, meets jointly with Afro-Cuban Culture & Politics class

PART I: THE CARRIBEAN IN CONTEXT
Tuesday, June 12: An Intellectual History of the Caribbean by Silvio Torres-Saillant

Read “Introduction: Caribbean Unity in Nature, History, and Prospects,” p. 11-50

View: The Harder They Come (1972)

PART A: The Cultures of the Caribbean Basin
Wednesday, June 13:  Three Ancient Colonies by Sidney W. Mintz * Chapter 1-Caribbean Anthropology & History; 2-Jamaica; 3-Haiti; 4-Puerto Rico; 5-Creolization, Culture, & Social Institutions [Each student to prepare a facilitation paper on one of the above chapters]. Key concept: Creolization – not a passive mixing of cultures, but an effort to create new hybrid institutions and cultural meanings to replace those that had been demolished by enslavement. Each student will present a discussion ofcreolization in the context of an Afro-descendant in one of the countries that Mintz discusses. Describe in a detailed and nuanced way one example of an Afro-Caribbean creolization a la Mintz’z discussion. Reflect on the continuities and differences between Afro-Caribbean cultures in Jamaica, Haiti, and Puerto Rico. Supplemental: See Part 1 on the Creole concept of the nexus of race/social structure/culture from Caribbean Reasonings.

PART B: The Caribbean: Historical Overview
Thursday, June 14: The Caribbean by Palmie & Scarano, Part 1
View: Sugar Cane Alley / Rue Cases-Nègres (1983)

Friday, June 15: The Caribbean by Palmie & Scarano, Part 2
View: W.A.R. Stories: Walter Anthony Rodney (2010)

PART C: The Politics of Religion, Race and Gender
Monday, June 18: An Intellectual History of the Caribbean, Part 2

View: The Eyes of the Rainbow: Assata Shakur and Oya, Holding Onto Jah,

PART II: THEORIZING IDENTITIES IN THE CARIBBEAN

Tuesday, June 19: Black Skin, White Masks; Hall, Stuart. 1994. “Cultural Identity and Diaspora.” In Colonial Discourse & Post-Colonial Theory, ed. Patrick Williams & Laura Chrisman. Pp., 392-403; Featherstone, Mike. 1990. “Global Culture: An Introduction.” Pp., 1-13.

View: Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask

PART A: Cultural Theory
Wednesday, June 20: Caribbean Discourse by Edouard Glissant, C. L. R. James’s Caribbean

The Chosen Place, The Timeless People by Marshall, In the Castle of My Skinby Lamming

View: Adelante Cubanos, I Am Cuba, Buena Vista Social Club, Yank Tanks, Mas Man

PART B: Intersections of Race, Culture and Class
Thursday, June 21: Eric Williams & the Making of the Modern Caribbean,Rasta & Resistance

View: Roots Rock Reggae, Land of Look Behind, Dub Echoes, Reggae Britannia

Discuss the following project: http://americasmediainitiative.org/closing-distance-program

PART C: Race, Identity, Nation in a Late Capitalist World

Friday, June 22: Excerpts of Race, Discourse, & the Origin of the Americasby  Hyatt &c
View: Life and Debt, Ghosts of Cité Soleil, Thunder in Guyana, From Mambo to Hiphop Supplemental: Caliban’s Reason: Introducing Afro-Caribbean Philosophy by Paget Henry

PART III: ENCOUNTERING THE CARIBBEAN IN CUBA

June 24/25  —  Flights into Miami, student to arrange

6/25 MIA/HAV 5K-252 1:00P/2:00P -check in 9:00A

June 25 to July 10: See Cuba Schedule

7/10 HAV/MIA 5K-253 3:00P/4:00P -check in 12:30P

Friday              July 13              Final papers and journals due

*************************

Other COURSE POLICIES

GRADING SYSTEM FOR FINAL GRADES
98-100 A+  97-92 A 91-90 A- 89-88 B+  87-82 B  81-80 B- 79-78 C+  77-72 C 71-70 C-69-68 D+  67-62 D 61-60 D-  Below 60 is an F or non-passing grade.

Disability Accommodation Statement
We should discuss accommodations and other special needs, especially as concerns the time that we will spend in Cuba as soon as possible. Please contact Disability Services to request disability accommodations.

Diversity Statement
“A university is a place where the universality of the human experience manifests itself.” In keeping with Albert Einstein’s viewpoint, We must commit ourselves to providing an atmosphere of learning that is representative and embracing of a variety of cultural and intellectual perspectives. In this class, students are expected not only to be tolerant of different perspectives, but also interested in examining them openly in the process of decision-making.

__________________________________________________________