African Studies Program
Minor in African Expressive Cultures
Students on Summer 2022, Fall 2022, or Spring 2023 requirements AFREXPCMIN
Requirements
The minor requires at least 15 credit hours, including the requirements listed below.
- Introductory Course. One (1) course:
- AFRI-L 231 African Civilization
- HIST-H 227 African Civilizations
AFRI-L 231 African Civilization
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- A historical introduction to Africa.
- Repeatability
- Credit given for only one of AFRI-L 231 or HIST-H 227.
- Summer 2025CASE GCCcourseSpring 2025CASE GCCcourseFall 2024CASE GCCcourse
- Summer 2025CASE SHcourseSpring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
HIST-H 227 African Civilizations
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Introduction to African culture; African environment; early humans in Africa; precolonial history; traditional political, economic, and social systems; language, religion, art, music, literature.
- Repeatability
- Credit given for only one of AFRI-L 231 or HIST-H 227.
- Summer 2025CASE GCCcourseSpring 2025CASE GCCcourseFall 2024CASE GCCcourse
- Summer 2025CASE SHcourseSpring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
- Electives. 12 credit hours:
- AAAD-A 430 The Cinema of Africana Women
- ANTH-E 300 Culture Areas and Ethnic Groups (Approved topics: "PHOTOGRAPHY AND ETHNOGRAPHY" (TPC 305))
- ANTH-E 309 Problems in African Ethnography
- ANTH-E 386 Performance, Culture, and Power in the Middle East and North Africa
- ARTH-A 155 Introduction to African Art
- ARTH-A 255 Topics in African Art History
- ARTH-A 352 Art of Eastern and Southern Africa
- ARTH-A 355 Art, Craft, and Technology in Sub-Saharan Africa
- ARTH-A 356 Art of Central Africa
- ARTH-A 453 Art of Sub-Saharan Africa I: Arts of Africa's Western Sudan
- ARTH-A 454 Art of Sub-Saharan Africa II: Arts of the West African Coast
- ARTH-A 458 Topics in the Ethnographic Arts (approved topics only; see academic advisor)
- CMLT-C 261 Introduction to African Literature
- CMLT-C 291 Studies in Non-Western Film (approved topics only; see academic advisor)
- CMLT-C 361 African Literature and Other Arts
- COLL-C 103 Critical Approaches to the Arts and Humanities (Approved topics: "MAGIC, SCIENCE & ART IN AFRICA" (TPC 21))
- FOLK-E 302 Music in African Life
- FOLK-F 252 Folklore and the Humanities (Approved topics: "CULTRL WORK OF MUS IN E AFRICA" (TPC 19); "GLOBAL POP MUSIC" (TPC 10))
- FOLK-F 301
- FOLK-F 450 Music in Religious Thought and Experience
- FRIT-F 467 French Beyond the Hexagon (approved topics only; see academic advisor)
- HIST-E 340 African Popular Culture
- HIST-J 300 Seminar In History (Approved topics: "AFRICAN HISTORY AND FILM" (TPC 72))
- Additional courses chosen in consultation with the African Studies advisor
AAAD-A 430 The Cinema of Africana Women
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Historical and critical overview of films produced by African American women from the 1940s to the present. The course emphasizes how black women filmmakers combine their creative abilities with a desire to capture dominant issues that affect black women's lives in America.
- Summer 2025CASE AHcourseSpring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
ANTH-E 300 Culture Areas and Ethnic Groups
- Credits
- 1–3 credit hours
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- An ethnographic survey of a selected culture area or ethnic group.
- Repeatability
- May be repeated for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
ANTH-E 309 Problems in African Ethnography
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Concentrating on ethnographies of African cultures, this course seeks to create an understanding of specific social worlds through the interaction of cultural practices (economy, the arts, law, language, religion, politics) as they have been affected by colonialism, nationalism, modernity, and globalization.
- Repeatability
- May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
- Summer 2025CASE SHcourseSpring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
ANTH-E 386 Performance, Culture, and Power in the Middle East and North Africa
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Middle Eastern cultures are well known for their rich and diverse performance practices. Taking an ethnographic perspective, this course views performances as communicative events through which social relations are organized. It explores how performances both participate in local arrangements of power and constitute responses to colonialism, nationalism, and globalization.
- Repeatability
- Credit given for only one of ANTH-E 386 or CMCL-C 422.
- Summer 2025CASE GCCcourseSpring 2025CASE GCCcourseFall 2024CASE GCCcourse
- Summer 2025CASE SHcourseSpring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
ARTH-A 155 Introduction to African Art
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- African art in its cultural setting. Major style areas: prehistoric Nok culture, kingdoms of Ife and Benin, Western Sudan, Guinea Coast, equatorial forests, Congo, eastern and southern Africa.
- Repeatability
- Credit given for only one of ARTH-A 155 or FINA-A 155.
- Summer 2025CASE AHcourseSpring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
- Summer 2025CASE GCCcourseSpring 2025CASE GCCcourseFall 2024CASE GCCcourse
ARTH-A 255 Topics in African Art History
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Variable topics in African art and visual culture, including important issues and areas of the continent.
- Repeatability
- May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours in ARTH-A 255 and FINA-A 255.
- Summer 2025CASE AHcourseSpring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
ARTH-A 352 Art of Eastern and Southern Africa
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- A one-semester survey of visual arts, traditions of eastern and southern Africa, examining architecture, personal arts of the body and household, religious arts, and contemporary painting and sculpture. Emphasis on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but some earlier traditions, such as Ethiopian Christian art and Swahili architecture, are also discussed.
- Repeatability
- Credit given for only one of ARTH-A 352 or FINA-A 352.
- Summer 2025CASE GCCcourseSpring 2025CASE GCCcourseFall 2024CASE GCCcourse
- Summer 2025CASE SHcourseSpring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
ARTH-A 355 Art, Craft, and Technology in Sub-Saharan Africa
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Examination of technology, history, and uses of traditional African art materials, such as metals, ceramics, wood, and fiber. Emphasis is on furniture, textiles, decorative arts, and utilitarian objects.
- Repeatability
- Credit given for only one of ARTH-A 355 or FINA-A 355.
- Summer 2025CASE GCCcourseSpring 2025CASE GCCcourseFall 2024CASE GCCcourse
ARTH-A 356 Art of Central Africa
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Analysis of visual art traditions of central Africa, focusing primarily on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but also including art from Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, Central African Republic, and Angola.
- Repeatability
- Credit given for only one of ARTH-A 356 or FINA-A 356.
- Summer 2025CASE AHcourseSpring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
ARTH-A 453 Art of Sub-Saharan Africa I: Arts of Africa's Western Sudan
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Analysis of visual art traditions of West Africa, focusing primarily on the peoples of the Western Sudan and including the area from northern Nigeria to Senegal. Emphasis on the concepts and themes that give the art its beauty, power, and social relevance for the peoples who use it.
- Repeatability
- Credit given for only one of ARTH-A 453 or FINA-A 453.
- Summer 2025CASE SHcourseSpring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
ARTH-A 454 Art of Sub-Saharan Africa II: Arts of the West African Coast
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Analysis of visual art traditions of West Africa, focusing primarily on the peoples of the Atlantic coast from Nigeria to the Republic of Guinea. Emphasis on the concepts and themes that give the art its beauty, power, and social relevance for the peoples who use it.
- Repeatability
- Credit given for only one of ARTH-A 454 or FINA-A 454.
- Summer 2025CASE SHcourseSpring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
ARTH-A 458 Topics in the Ethnographic Arts
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Specific themes of particular interest in the ethnographic arts. Topics will be based on art categories (such as textiles and music) or geographic areas (such as new developments in the study of central Bantu initiation arts).
- Repeatability
- May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 7 credit hours in ARTH-A 458 and FINA-A 458.
- Summer 2025CASE SHcourseSpring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
CMLT-C 261 Introduction to African Literature
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Oral and written poetry, epic, fiction, drama, and film from around the continent with reference to historical and cultural contexts, and debates on language choice, "authenticity," gender, and European representations of Africa.
- Summer 2025CASE AHcourseSpring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
- Summer 2025CASE GCCcourseSpring 2025CASE GCCcourseFall 2024CASE GCCcourse
CMLT-C 291 Studies in Non-Western Film
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Emphasis on non-Western film in relation to literary and cultural texts. Films may be studied as adaptations of literary works, as reworkings of generic or ideological traditions, and in their engagement with the aesthetics of non-Western theater and Hollywood. Focus on one regional tradition (African, Asian, Middle Eastern) each time the course is offered.
- Repeatability
- May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
- Summer 2025CASE AHcourseSpring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
CMLT-C 361 African Literature and Other Arts
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Notes
- R: CMLT-C 205 or 3 credit hours of literature
- Description
- A focus on critical issues in the field of African letters, such as transnationalism, the question of orality, choice of language, the economics and politics of publishing--both within and outside the continent, and their impacts on cultural forms including new, non-literary media. Authors such as Achebe, Aidoo, Armah, Diop, Farah, Head, Kunene, Ngugi, p'Bitek, Sembene, and Soyinka.
- Summer 2025CASE AHcourseSpring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
COLL-C 103 Critical Approaches to the Arts and Humanities
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Specific topics will vary by section and over time, but all versions of COLL-C 103 will meet the objectives of the College of Arts and Sciences Critical Approaches curriculum. The curriculum is intended for freshmen and sophomores, who will learn how scholars from the arts and humanities Breadth of Inquiry area frame questions, propose answers, and assess the validity of competing approaches. Writing and related skills are stressed.
- Repeatability
- Credit given for only one of COLL-C 103 or COLL-S 103.
- Summer 2025CASE AHcourseSpring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
- Summer 2025CASE CAPPcourseSpring 2025CASE CAPPcourseFall 2024CASE CAPPcourse
FOLK-E 302 Music in African Life
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Study of how Africans create, perform, think about, and use music in their lives. Topics include traditional and popular musical styles in relationship to social and historical contexts, as well as translocal, transnational, and global cultural and musical exchanges in which Africans participate.
- Summer 2025CASE AHcourseSpring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
FOLK-F 252 Folklore and the Humanities
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Basic theoretical approaches to the study of folklore, emphasizing the relationship to other humanistic disciplines such as literary and religious studies and history.
- Repeatability
- May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
- Summer 2025CASE AHcourseSpring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
FOLK-F 450 Music in Religious Thought and Experience
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- Explores the roles of music in select religious traditions of the world. Comparative analysis of relationships between music and ritual, religious music and popular culture, sacred music and mass media, music and religious identity, and music and trance. Focus on major world religious traditions, local traditions, and combinations thereof.
- Summer 2025CASE AHcourseSpring 2025CASE AHcourseFall 2024CASE AHcourse
FRIT-F 467 French Beyond the Hexagon
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- Two of FRIT-F 305, FRIT-F 306, FRIT-F 361, FRIT-F 362, FRIT-F 363, FRIT-F 364, FRIT-F 375; or one of FRIT-F 222, FRIT-F 225, FRIT-F 226, FRIT-F 227, FRIT-F 310, FRIT-F 311, and one of FRIT-F 305, FRIT-F 306, FRIT-F 361, FRIT-F 362, FRIT-F 363, FRIT-F 364, FRIT-F 375; or consent of director of undergraduate studies
- Description
- Introduction to the literature, film, and popular culture of one or more French-speaking zones-Quebec, the Antilles, the Indian Ocean Islands, Southeast Asia, North Africa, or sub-Saharan Africa.
- Repeatability
- May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
HIST-E 340 African Popular Culture
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- African popular culture (music, sports, fashion) is the lens used to explore how Africans responded to and shaped life under colonial rule and after independence. We consider questions like: What is the relationship between popular culture and politics? How does popular culture change how we think about colonialism and independence?
- Summer 2025CASE GCCcourseSpring 2025CASE GCCcourseFall 2024CASE GCCcourse
- Summer 2025CASE SHcourseSpring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
HIST-J 300 Seminar In History
- Credits
- 3
- Prerequisites
- None
- Description
- The refinement of students\' skills as historians; will focus on the skills of writing, interpretation, historical reasoning, discussion, and research.
- Repeatability
- May be repeated with a different topic and the authorization of the history undergraduate advisor for a total of 6 credit hours.
- Summer 2025CASE SHcourseSpring 2025CASE SHcourseFall 2024CASE SHcourse
- Minor GPA, Hours, and Minimum Grade Requirements.
- Minor GPA. A GPA of at least 2.000 for all courses taken in the minor—including those where a grade lower than C- is earned—is required.
- Minor Minimum Grade. Except for the GPA requirement, a grade of C- or higher is required for a course to count toward a requirement in the minor.
- Minor Upper Division Credit Hours. At least 9 credit hours in the minor must be completed at the 300–499 level.
- Minor Residency. At least 9 credit hours in the minor must be completed in courses taken through the Indiana University Bloomington campus or an IU-administered or IU co-sponsored Overseas Study program.
Minor Area Courses
-
Unless otherwise noted below, the following courses are considered in the academic program and will count toward academic program requirements as appropriate:
- Any course contained on the course lists for the academic program requirements at the time the course is taken—as well as any other courses that are deemed functionally equivalent—except for those listed only under Addenda Requirements
- Any course directed to a non-Addenda requirement through an approved exception
Exceptions to and substitutions for minor requirements may be made with the approval of the unit's Director of Undergraduate Studies, subject to final approval by the College of Arts and Sciences.