2010/11 Undergraduate Module Catalogue
HIST2442 Black Politics from Emancipation to Obama
20 creditsClass Size: 28
Module manager: Dr Kate Dossett
Email: k.m.dossett@leeds.ac.uk
Taught: Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) View Timetable
Year running 2010/11
This module is approved as an Elective
Module summary
This module examines black political and cultural leadership in the United States in the 20th and 21st centuries. - What strategies did African Americans employ to negotiate and resist segregation and lynching in the South in the aftermath of the Civil War? - How did leadership emerge and develop over the course of the twentieth century and why were black leaders so concerned with cultural representations of black life? - How was the 1920s Garvey movement able to make black Americans proud to be African?- Why and how did television series like the Cosby Show and more recently The Wire become such important sites for the negotiation of black identity and political direction, and how did a black man get to the White House just 43 years after the federal government passed a Voting Rights Act enforcing African Americans right to vote? This module explores these questions by examining a range of cultural and political texts including speeches, autobiographies, newspapers, films and the records of black freedom organizations.Objectives
On completion of this module students should be:- able to understand the major trends in African American political and cultural life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
- familiar with key political and cultural texts of black America.
- able to analyse a range of cultural and political texts including autobiographies, speeches, newspapers and film
- able to apply an interdisciplinary approach to the study of American History.
Learning outcomes
- understanding of the relationship between politics and culture in the U.S.
- new ways of thinking about leadership
- ability to draw on different types of primary source material.
Skills outcomes
- High-level skills in oral and written communication of complex ideas.
- Independence of mind, self-discipline and self-direction to work effectively under own initiative
- Ability to locate, handle and synthesize large amount of information
- Capacity to employ analytical and problem-solving abilities
- Ability to engage constructively with the ideas of peers, tutors and published authorities
- Empathy and active engagement with new cultural contexts.
Syllabus
This module examines black political and cultural leadership in the United States in the 20th and 21st centuries. Topics include:
- The legacy of the Black Leadership in the Anti-Slavery movement
- Early Twentieth Century debates about how best to tackle segregation and lynching including the leadership offered by Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey
- Protest Literature of the Harlem Renaissance and Garvey movements
- Black Women's alternative models of leadership
- Gender, Respectability and the Oratory of Martin Luther King
- Malcolm X , Stokely Carmichael and the Masculine Rhetoric of Black Power
- Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition
- Bill Cosby and middle class black America
- The Rise of Barack Obama and the appeal of the HBO television series The Wire.
Teaching methods
Delivery type | Number | Length hours | Student hours |
Lecture | 11 | 1.00 | 11.00 |
Seminar | 6 | 1.00 | 6.00 |
Independent online learning hours | 10.00 | ||
Private study hours | 173.00 | ||
Total Contact hours | 17.00 | ||
Total hours (100hr per 10 credits) | 200.00 |
Private study
- Exam preparation- Researching, preparing and writing group project report and longer assignments
- Undertaking set reading for seminars and lectures
- Self-directed reading around the subject.
Opportunities for Formative Feedback
- Contributions to class discussions- 1 x Group Document Project maximum 1,500 words submitted to the VLE worth 10% of module mark
- An assessed essay.
Methods of assessment
Coursework
Assessment type | Notes | % of formal assessment |
Essay | 1 x 2,000 word assessed essay to be submitted by 12 noon, Monday of teaching week 8. | 30.00 |
Project | 1 x 1,000-1,500 word assessed group project document | 10.00 |
Total percentage (Assessment Coursework) | 40.00 |
Normally resits will be assessed by the same methodology as the first attempt, unless otherwise stated
Exams
Exam type | Exam duration | % of formal assessment |
Standard exam (closed essays, MCQs etc) | 2 hr 00 mins | 60.00 |
Total percentage (Assessment Exams) | 60.00 |
Normally resits will be assessed by the same methodology as the first attempt, unless otherwise stated
Reading list
The reading list is available from the Library websiteLast updated: 16/06/2011
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- Undergraduate module catalogue
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- Taught Postgraduate programme catalogue
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