The material I studied in Black Consciousness introduced me to African scholars and schools of thought that I had never heard of. It expanded my mind and challenged it to analyze other segments of blackness for their influential value. Our final assignment was a research paper where we used the sources we studied over the semester to analyze a scholar’s work and draw a conclusion about what impact black consciousness has on our society. My research topic was Chinua Achebe and his memoir “There Was A Country” about the Nigerian Biafran war. Having known little about black consciousness prior to this class, and known nothing about the Biafran war prior to reading the memoir, this research paper was challenging in all of the necessary ways. I found that a lot of what Achebe wrote, his techniques, and his ideologies aligned with the ancient African scholars as well as today’s Black American scholars. This class taught me about the concept of sankofa, reaching to the past to recover what is lost in order to preserve its future, and it is a philosophy that I see embedded in African and Diasporic societies. It has also been embedded in myself.

Black Consciousness Research Paper

French Kiss incorporated the French societal understanding of sex, relationships, gender roles, politics, and other related areas. We read, listened to, and viewed different works of art from historical France to modern day France, previous French colonies, and colonized French Africa. My target language during my studies was French, partly because my family is from francophone Africa and mainly because my future goals involve the development of former French-colonized countries. Because of this class, I was given insight into unique cultural practices of French people with certain novels and music, and then able to compare them to the practices in countries like Algeria through the novel “L’amour, La Fantasia” by Algerian writer Assia Djebar, for example. Her novel explored how the presence of two opposite cultures in one place created ripples that were empowering and oppressive to women. This concept of duality was key for me to grasp for my studies; how people operate in their current society is a direct reflection of their past experiences and their desire to accept the changes occurring around them.

Human Sexuality in Cross-Cultural Development centered on gender, sex, the female body, toxic masculinity, and more. Prior to this class, I was unaware of many concepts within these areas that are necessary to grasp in order to understand a global context. The topics of gender and sexuality, the differences between the two, and how the understandings of these affect each society in various ways piqued my interest the most.

I plan to practice international law within developing countries, most of which have societies and legal systems that recognize gender as binary and sex as an interchangeable term for gender. Having as high a level of ignorance of these topics as I had prior to this class is not conducive to my studies or to my future plans. Studying these topics taught me the basics of how grand the idea of gender actually is and its place within the global sphere. As American society shifts its perceptions of gender and sex, it sets a tone for other western countries, which in turn affect the views of West African countries. This global communication is precisely what I have focused my studies on.

This class was my first introduction to significant roles played by black women historically across coasts. It introduced me to ideas such as Black Womanism, taught me about intersectionality, and widened my understanding of scholarship being inclusive to black women everywhere. We read stories by Alice Childress and analyzed music videos by Yemi Alade, a Nigerian singer.

This class identified patriarchy as a shared, global experience and followed how women within the African diaspora were continuing to make room for themselves within these societies throughout time. Through my coursework, I traced back to African women pre-slave trade and studied matrilineal cultures where the woman’s lineage was respected and most important. By the end of the semester, I was able to connect novelist Alice Childress to rapper Nicki Minaj, identify how their work has been groundbreaking for women in different ways in different time, and see how the patriarchy affected them in similar ways.

In order to understand Cultural Dynamics, it is pivotal that an in-depth learning of the past is done. Early African Civilizations traced the kingdoms and people of Africa that existed way prior to colonization, beginning with the appearance of the first people on Earth. Through this class, I was exposed primarily to how African societies truly operated without outside interference. I applied this to the rest of my studies, recognizing that it from these historical contexts that African countries operate till this day.

Cross-Cultural Psychology was a very insightful class as it highlighted the many culture-specific, psychological phenomenon that exists. This class identified understanding how culture implicates on the psychology of a person. We were given articles and examined documentaries about cultural groups, like Chinese migrant workers or middle school children in a reform school.

One of the most interesting topics I was introduced to was the psychological disorder “Taijin Kyofusho”, a culturally bound disorder found in Japan and Korea. This disorder is defined as the interpersonal fear of offending others and is present in two countries where respect and approval are highly valued. I could not fathom exactly how important these were to these two cultures until understanding that there were unique social anxieties surrounding the two values. Prior to learning this, the idea that a disorder could only occur within a specific culture had completely evaded me. After this class, however, I had a larger understanding of the scope of Cultural Dynamics.