Transfers ToUC and CSUCal-GETC Area 4DescriptionThis course introduces students to the discipline of African American Studies through the lens of Ethnic Studies frameworks. Students will engage with foundational concepts such as racialization, white supremacy, resistance, and liberation, applying them to historical and contemporary Black life in the United States. The course traces the evolution of African American Studies as an academic and political field, originating in the Third World Liberation Front student movements of the 1960s, and shaped by Black feminist, queer, and Afro-diasporic scholarship. Through interdisciplinary analysis—including history, literature, political theory, sociology, psychology, and cultural studies—students will examine how African American communities have historically resisted racial violence, systemic exclusion, and structural inequity while contributing to national and global movements for justice. Key theorists, activists, and artists such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Audre Lorde, Angela Davis, James Baldwin, bell hooks, and Ta-Nehisi Coates will be explored alongside contemporary issues such as police violence, reparations, and anti-Blackness in education, media, and policy. Emphasis is placed on Black agency, intersectionality, cultural production, and coalition-building. 