PSCI 206
Foundations of Afro-Caribbean Thought
Last Offered Fall 2008
Division II
Cross-listed AFR 180 / PSCI 206
This course is not offered in the current catalog or this is a previous listing for a current course.

This course is an introduction to the foundations of Afro-Caribbean thought, a branch of study within the larger field of Africana thought. Africana thought encompasses ideas from Africa, the Caribbean, North America, and other regions containing African Diasporic populations. In this class, we will examine the contours of the Afro-Caribbean intellectual and political tradition by analyzing important historical figures and movements, the African philosophical roots of the tradition, processes of enslavement and creolization, identity formation, nationalism, anti-colonialism, the role of gender, and the function of mass revolution. We will discuss in particular two influential branches of thought outlined by Paget Henry in the seminal text Caliban’s Reason: the poeticists and the historicists. Afro-Caribbean thought distinguishes itself not only by its unique categories of poetic and historical knowledge production, but also by the collapse of barriers between poetics and history in the domain of politics. Evaluating the moments of tension and symbiosis between the poeticist and historicst schools will allow us to investigate further the tradition comprehensively. A key objective of the course is to provide students with the necessary preparation to engage in higher level courses in this field of inquiry.