Course Details

Course offered Autumn 2020

HONORS 230 B: Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing: #BlackLivesMatter in Historical Context (SSc, DIV)

HONORS 230 B: Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing: #BlackLivesMatter in Historical Context (SSc, DIV)

SLN 16133 (View UW registration info »)

LaTasha Levy (American Ethnic Studies)
Email: levyl@uw.edu

Credits: 5
Limit: 7 students

Honors Credit Type

7 seats for HONORS students, 5 seats for AES students
Priority to juniors and seniors
Note: class will meet on-line

This seminar will be conducted on-line, Fridays 1:30-4:20, with additional course activities outside of class time. 

This course explores the emergence of #BlackLivesMatter as a critical development in a long history of Black resistance to anti-black racism and state violence. While the recent movement has organized campaigns against police shootings, mass incarceration and other iterations of racial marginalization, #BlackLivesMatter also conjures specific intellectual and activist traditions in African American history. In this course, students will examine the origins of #BlackLivesMatter as an ideological intervention, alongside the historical events, organizations, and leaders who have given it inspiration. Course material will engage the political thought of Ida B. Wells, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Assata Shakur and Ella Baker—all of whom figure prominently in #BlackLivesMatter historical frames. Students will also engage an ever-growing body of intellectual interventions (both academic and public scholarship) that interrogate the social, cultural, and economic contexts of racial violence in the United States and beyond.

This course provides an excellent opportunity for students to explore the art of public writing in relation to the rise of a social movement. As students engage recent scholarship, music, and documentaries related to the Black Lives Matter movement they will also sharpen their editorial and analytical skills through peer review and public commentary.

Prior to the first day of class, students are required to view “Queer on the Frontlines of #BlackLivesMatter” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YHs9jIH-oo) and write a 350-word blog post that explores how the short feature confirmed and/or challenged your perceptions of the movement.