Black Queer History (Johns Hopkins UNIVERSITY)

This course explores the history of black queer cultures in America. In continuous dialogues with mainstream black and LGBT cultures, black queer discourses have unceasingly redefined the boundaries of sexuality, class, color and gender through history. Starting from slavery time, this course will explore black queer struggles, desires, imaginations and victories to understand present-day discourses on race and sexuality. Topics explored include: cross-gender behaviors in slavery, same-sex sexualities in slave narratives, homoerotic sadism and lynching, sexological categories and scientific racism, intimate friendships, Drag Balls, The Harlem Renaissance, rent parties, black-and-tan clubs, Jazz, black queer religious leaders, black queer DC, black nationalists and sexuality, Disco, House music, HIV/AIDS, trans identities and TV black queer characters.

The Black Politics of Michael jackson (Johns Hopkins UNIVERSITY)

Michael Jackson was a global superstar who reached crossover appeal in the late 20th century. More than a mainstream pop performer, Michael Jackson was musician, singer, dancer and visual artist who transformed his artistic heritage, deeply grounded in the African American tradition, to reach a broad audience, in the United States and globally. This course aims at reframing Michael Jackson’s cultural and social origins to reveal his anchor in the African American musical, philosophical and political traditions. This course will explore the African American historical context of the 1960s, Black vernacular practices, the Chitlin Circuit, the Great Migration, Black Minstrelsy, the intersection of Blackness, Sexuality and Gender in pop culture, Black Globalism, and 1980s Black Hyper-visibility. In this course, students will closely examine Michael Jackson’s music, videos, writing and performances, Jackson’s meta-narratives, in addition to theoretical texts on critical race theory, American History, gender studies, performance studies and African American Studies.

Critical Theory (Johns Hopkins UNIVERSITY)

This course introduces critical theory in the context of struggles for social justice. From Plato to Judith Jack Halberstam, we will trace the history of Critical Theory by analyzing perspectives from psychoanalysis, Marxism, the Frankfurt School, postcolonial theory, poststructuralism, deconstruction, feminism, critical race theory, and queer theory. We will pay particular attention to how critical theory has been intimately and contentiously linked with politics and social justice. Among the authors studied are: Plato, Aristotle, Edmund Burke, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Ferdinand De Saussure, Walter Benjamin, Claude Levi-Strauss, Jacques Lacan, Roland Barthes, Frantz Fanon, Michel Foucault, Monique Wittig, Helene Cixous, Eve Sedgwick, bell hooks, Paul Gilroy, Judith Jack Halberstam.

INTERDISCIPLINARY GRADUATE RESEARCH METHODS (Johns Hopkins UNIVERSITY)

This seminar will introduce you to current trends in interdisciplinary research in the liberal arts. It is recommended for any you who plan to complete a thesis as their Capstone Graduate Project. This course will lead you through the process of designing original scholarly research for the MLA Program: from developing a research question to identifying primary sources and defining current debates concerning their chosen topic. In each session, in addition to weekly discussions, you will be guided through a writing exercise or a new step in the research process. In this course, you will learn how to critically examine sources, define a theoretical framework, use standards of logical demonstration, and develop a comprehensive thesis project proposal.

WHAT IS HISTORY? (Johns Hopkins UNIVERSITY)

What is history? What makes history, as a field of scholarship and a way of knowing, different from any other discipline? This course will introduce students to a vibrant and evolving field of study, and to the tensions, diversity, debates and controversies that shape it. Themes explored will include an examination of the parameters of the field (such as the relationship between popular and academic history; the tension between description and interpretation; the evaluation of sources; the role of the historian as a public intellectual; the craft of historical writing; and digital history as a new field of study) as well as an analysis of the topics and approaches undertaken by contemporary historians (such as the reframing of dominant narratives; the emergence of dominated voices and of new thematic fields such as sexuality, globalism and popular culture; and ongoing critiques of previously established narratives and theoretical frameworks). Students will read historical scholarship in a wide variety of fields, as well as critical theory, popular literature and documentaries.