🐻 Cornell Africana Studies & Research Center unofficial reading list, fall 2026
← Back to Fields of Study
Freshman level
Elementary Swahili I SWAHL 1100
- Tuseme Kiswahili: Multidimensional Approach to the Teaching & Learning of Swahili as a Foreign Language by Fikeni E. M. K. Senkoro
Elementary Arabic I ASRC 1201
- Arabiyyat al-Naas, Part 1: An Intro. Course in Arabic by Younes et al.
Intermediate Arabic I ASRC 1203
- Arabiyyat al-Naas, Part 2: An Intermediate Course in Arabic by Younes et al.
African American History from 1865 ASRC 1595
- Race, Reform, and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction & Beyond in Black America, 1945-2006 by Manning Marable
Recreating the Caribbean: Migration & Identity in Contemporary Caribbean History ASRC 1976
- A Concise History of the Caribbean by B.W. Higman
American History from 1500 to 1800 ASRC 1985
- American Colonies: The Settling of North America by Alan Taylor
Sophomore level
Arabic for Heritage Speakers ASRC 2105
- Riḥla ilā Bilād al-‘Arab: A Comprehensive Intro. Course for Arabic Heritage Speakers by Munther Younes
Histories of the African Diaspora ASRC 2317
- The Americans Are Coming!: Dreams of African American Liberation in Segregationist South Africa by Robert Trent Vinson
- Jah Kingdom: Rastafarians, Tanzania & Pan-Africanism in the Age of Decolonization by Monique A. Bedasse
- All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake by Tiya Miles
The Novels of Toni Morrison ASRC 2603
- Paradise by Toni Morrison
The History & Politics of Modern Egypt ASRC 2670
- Ordinary Egyptians: Creating the Modern Nation through Popular Culture by Ziad Fahmy
- Modern Egypt: The Formation Of A Nation State by Arthur Goldschmidt Jr.
Junior level
Zora Neale Hurston & Langston Hughes ASRC 3705
- Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
- Tar Baby by Toni Morrison
- Mules & Men by Zora Neale Hurston
- The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes
- Mule Bone by Hurston & Hughes
- Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston
- Recyclopedia by Harryette Mullen
Senior level
Contesting Identities in Modern Egypt ASRC 4650
- Sacred Language, Ordinary People: Dilemmas of Culture & Politics in Egypt by Niloofar Haeri
- Ordinary Egyptians: Creating the Modern Nation through Popular Culture by Ziad Fahmy
- Karnak Café by Naguib Mahfouz
- A Border Passage: From Cairo to America – A Woman’s Journey by Leila Ahmed
- Industrial Sexuality: Gender, Urbanization & Social Transformation in Egypt by Hanan Hammad
- An Incurable Past: Nasser’s Egypt Then and Now by Mériam N. Belli
- Egypt in the Future Tense: Hope, Frustration, and Ambivalence before & after 2011 by Samuli Schielke
- Identifying with Nationality: Europeans, Ottomans & Egyptians in Alexandria by Will Hanley
- Nile Nightshade: An Egyptian Culinary History of the Tomato by Anny Gaul