The Bright Continent: African Art History “This book aims to act as your map through the world of African art. As such, it will help you define the competencies you need to develop–visual analysis, research, noting what information is critical, asking questions, and writing down your observations–and provide opportunities for you to practice these skills until you are proficient. It will also expose you to new art forms and the worlds that produced them, enriching your understanding and appreciation.”
Our Lives: An Ethnic Studies Primer “This book is an introduction or primer to ethnic studies and is not a complete or comprehensive review of the literature. We identified and included major concepts, theories, perspectives, and voices in ethnic studies with research from anthropology, history, political science, psychology, and sociology to offer an inclusive approach for critical inquiry.”
Slavery to Liberation: The African American Experience This book “gives instructors, students, and general readers a comprehensive and up-to-date account of African Americans’ cultural and political history, economic development, artistic expressiveness, and religious and philosophical worldviews in a critical framework.”
Open Courses
African American History (Open Yale) This Open Yale course “examine[s] the African American experience in the United States from 1863 to the present (2010).”
Race, Crime and Citizenship in American Law (MIT OpenCourseWare) This seminar “looks at key issues in the historical development and current state of modern American criminal justice, with an emphasis on its relationship to citizenship, nationhood, and race/ethnicity.”
Race and Gender in Asian America (MIT OpenCourseWare) This seminar explores “various issues related to the intersection of race and gender in Asian America, starting with the nineteenth century, but focusing on contemporary issues.”
Race and Racism (MIT OpenCourseWare) This course in MIT’s Topics in Social Theory and Practice series explores race and racism in the United States; the courseware includes a syllabus, list of readings (some linked), lecture notes, and assignments.
Writing About Race (MIT OpenCourseWare) “The very notion of what constitutes race remains a complex and evolving question in cultural terms. In this course we will engage this question head-on, reading and writing about issues involving the construction of race and racial identity as reflected from a number of vantage points and via a rich array of voices and genres. Readings will include literary works by such writers as Toni Morrison, Junot Diaz, and Sherman Alexie, as well as perspectives on film and popular culture from figures such as Malcolm Gladwell and Touré.”
Public Domain Resources
Public Domain Native American Literature (Amherst College) This collection includes digitized books from Amherst College’s Younghee Kim-Wait (AC 1982) Pablo Eisenberg Native American Literature Collection, comprising more than 100 public domain works by or about Native Americans.
Zero-Cost Resources
Teaching Materials from the Zinn Education Project This site provides a variety of resources from a “people’s history” perspective, including PDFs of teaching activities that are free to download but require registration (also no-cost) on the website. Please note these teaching materials are NOT openly licensed.
Racial Equity Tools “Racial Equity Tools is designed to support individuals and groups working to achieve racial equity. It offers tools, research, tips, curricula, and ideas for people who want to increase their own understanding and to help those working toward justice at every level—in systems, organizations, communities, and the culture at large.” Most of the materials included at the site are freely accessibly online to users, but not all of them are openly licensed.
