The Black Atlantic considered as a socio-cultural and economic space from the 15th-century first arrival of Africans in the ’New World,’ through the rise of slavery in the Americas, continuing on to slave emancipation and decolonization in the 19th and 20th centuries, and concluding with contemporary black life in the Atlantic world. Traces the origins and importance of the concept of the Black Atlantic in the context of European imperial expansion and the transformation of indigenous structures of governance in the Americas, paying special attention to shifting social relations that shaped community formation among people of African descent and laid the foundations for political and economic institutions. Topics include: civilization, slavery, colonialism, capitalism, freedom, and justice, approached through focused engagement with African enslavement and settlement in Africa and the Americas; the development of transatlantic racial capitalism; variations in politics and culture between empires in the Atlantic world; creolization, plantation slavery, and slave society; the politics and culture of the enslaved; the Haitian Revolution; slave emancipation; and contemporary black Atlantic politics and racial capitalism.

College Core Curriculum (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2025)

CORE-UA 9534-000 (10672)
08/28/2025 – 12/04/2025 Tue
2:00 PM – 5:00 PM (Early afternoon)
at NYU Accra (Global)
Instructed by Baku, Kofi

CORE-UA 9534-000 (10936)
at NYU London (Global)
Instructed by

CORE-UA 9534-000 (10897)
at NYU London (Global)
Instructed by

CORE-UA 9534-000 (11252)
08/28/2025 – 12/04/2025 Mon,Wed
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM (Early afternoon)
at NYU Washington DC (Global)
Instructed by Miller, Kari