What coursework and professors shaped Bowdoin’s Africana Studies program during Mamdani’s time there?
Executive summary
Bowdoin’s Africana Studies curriculum in the years Zohran Mamdani attended (2009–2014) combined interdisciplinary course offerings—from history and literature to archaeology and art—with a faculty who emphasized critical, activist-oriented study of the African continent and the African diaspora, and professors who recall assigning anticolonial theorists such as Frantz Fanon alongside traditional American sources [1] [2] [3]. Critics and some alumni interpret that mix as politically formative; professors defend the program as academically broad and methodologically rigorous [4] [3].
1. Curriculum mix: interdisciplinary courses that range from archaeology to modern politics
Bowdoin’s Africana Studies is explicitly interdisciplinary, framing the field as study of Africa and the African diaspora across history, literature, art and politics, and catalog listings from the college show courses on topics ranging from ancient Egyptian state systems and funerary symbolism to contemporary Africana gender and literature offerings—demonstrating breadth in methods and subjects that Mamdani would have encountered [1] [2].
2. Core coursework that likely shaped political framing: Revolution, race and the Haitian example
Professors who taught Mamdani note that the curriculum included readings on revolutions and anticolonial thought; Mamdani himself has said he first read Frantz Fanon at Bowdoin, and faculty confirmed that lessons such as those about the Haitian Revolution were part of course material—signals that the program connected historical case studies to modern political critique [3].
3. Introductory and signature courses: gateway classes with strong faculty influence
Alumni accounts highlight introductory Africana Studies courses as decisive: one former student credits taking the intro class with Professor Judith Casselberry as the moment they “fell in love” with the field, and Bowdoin’s alumni pages and catalog emphasize foundational classes intended to meet core non-Euro/US requirements—courses Mamdani and his peers would have used as intellectual entry points [5] [2].
4. Faculty figures contemporaneous with Mamdani: who taught and who shaped department tone
Contemporaneous accounts and later reporting identify several faculty who taught in the program’s era; Bowdoin faculty lists and articles name professors such as Judith Casselberry and Brian Purnell as longstanding contributors to Africana Studies, and reporting quoting professors (Dr. Rael and Dr. Purnell) indicates they recall Mamdani as a serious student exposed to a range of ideas in their courses [5] [6] [3]. Some conservative commentators single out faculty influence more sharply, including claims about Peter Coviello’s institutional role during Mamdani’s years, though those claims appear in opinion pieces with clear agendas [4].
5. Activism and pedagogy: classroom learning that connected to campus organizing
Reporting links Mamdani’s coursework to activism: he co-founded a Bowdoin chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine while majoring in Africana Studies, and contemporaneous narratives frame his coursework as complementing campus organizing—suggesting the department’s pedagogy encouraged applying analytic tools to contemporary political questions [7] [8] [9].
6. Institutional evolution and larger context: growth, departmentalization, and debate over purpose
By the early 2010s Africana Studies at Bowdoin was growing in enrollment and course offerings, a trend documented in college reporting and external profiles; decades-long debates over the program’s mission—from its origins as a social-change-oriented program to its later formalization as a department—provide context for how faculty framed coursework as both scholarly and socially engaged [7] [6] [1].
7. Limits of available reporting and contested interpretations
The reporting establishes the kinds of courses offered and names key professors, and faculty themselves say the curriculum exposed students to a spectrum of ideas including conservative and traditional American thinkers; however, specifics about Mamdani’s individual course list, syllabi, or which professors taught which seminar sections in each year are not fully documented in the available sources, so precise attribution of influence to particular courses or single professors cannot be confirmed from the material provided [3] [2] [5].