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In this course we explore African and African-derived folk traditions and examine how they have been transmitted from Africa to the Americas and the Caribbean. We will see how Africans and people of African descent have created and transformed their various oral, customary and material lore, including folk-tales, folk-art, music and dance, into mechanisms for cultural and physical survival. We will compare and contrast some African folktales with related stories from the Caribbean, North and South America. We will also explore the traditions expressed in music, food, celebrations and other expressions of folk culture.

In this course we explore African and African-derived folk traditions and examine how they have been transmitted from Africa to the Americas and the Caribbean. We will see how Africans and people of African descent have created and transformed their various oral, customary and material lore, including folk-tales, folk-art, music and dance, into mechanisms for cultural and physical survival. We will compare and contrast some African folktales with related stories from the Caribbean, North and South America. We will also explore the traditions expressed in music, food, celebrations and other expressions of folk culture.

African Cultural retentions in the Americas is presented this semester as a reading and writing-intensive course focused on the continuities, transformations, adaptations and re¬inventions of African culture found within the African diaspora in the Americas since the era of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Some of the research and writing conducted by historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, art historians, and musicologists pertinent to our subject matter will be studied. Lectures, readings, classroom discussions and writings will explore cultural developments in the Caribbean, Central and South America, and the United States. In addition to our readings, a number of documentary films will be shown and reviewed. In the Americas, Africans encountered Native Americans and Europeans; therefore, a major focus of this course is to explore and to understand the new cultural contexts which emerged, and Africa’s contributions to those contexts.

African Cultural retentions in the Americas is presented this semester as a reading and writing-intensive course focused on the continuities, transformations, adaptations and re¬inventions of African culture found within the African diaspora in the Americas since the era of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Some of the research and writing conducted by historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, art historians, and musicologists pertinent to our subject matter will be studied. Lectures, readings, classroom discussions and writings will explore cultural developments in the Caribbean, Central and South America, and the United States. In addition to our readings, a number of documentary films will be shown and reviewed. In the Americas, Africans encountered Native Americans and Europeans; therefore, a major focus of this course is to explore and to understand the new cultural contexts which emerged, and Africa’s contributions to those contexts.