Course hub for POLSCI B263 - Which Way to Freedom? Debates in Black Political Thought
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
Identify and articulate the core arguments of major figures in African American political thought and understand how those arguments respond to specific historical problems and constraints.
What this means: You will not just summarize what Douglass, Du Bois, or Davis argued. You will understand why they argued it—what crisis or challenge they were addressing, what constraints shaped their thinking, and what was at stake in their intervention.
Trace how debates, problems, and arguments recur and transform across different historical periods—recognizing patterns of intellectual genealogy from slavery to the present.
What this means: You will see connections between thinkers separated by decades or centuries. You will notice how a problem that preoccupied Douglass reappears in new forms in Du Bois’s work, or how Du Bois’s insights shape how Baldwin approaches his moment. You will understand the tradition as a living conversation, not a collection of isolated figures.
Conduct genealogical analysis: identify which historical figures a contemporary thinker draws on, explain what they add or change from their predecessors, and analyze how the specificity of their historical moment reshapes the tradition.
What this means: This is the core skill you will develop throughout the semester. You will learn to read backward from a contemporary thinker to see what they inherit, and forward to see what they transform. You will understand how tradition is not fixed but constantly remade in response to new historical conditions.
Read primary texts charitably and in context, practicing generous disagreement by reconstructing positions on their own terms before offering critique.
What this means: Before you judge whether a thinker’s argument is right or wrong, you will work to understand it as they understood it. You will ask: What problems were they trying to solve? What resources were available to them? What were they trying to accomplish? This doesn’t mean you have to agree with them, but you will engage seriously with the logic of their intervention.
Apply genealogical analysis to unfamiliar contemporary sources, demonstrating how the Black political tradition informs present-day debates and offers intellectual resources for responding to contemporary struggles.
What this means: You will not just study the past. You will develop analytical tools that allow you to understand how contemporary thinkers—people writing and acting today—are engaged with the tradition you have studied. You will see how the arguments we examine in this course continue to shape how we think about freedom, justice, and resistance.