Join African Studies faculty members this winter for a diverse range of coursework!
Africa courses
ANTH 377: Anthropology and International Health
Instructor: James Pfeiffer
TTh | 3:30-5:20 p.m. | GWN 301
5 credits (SSc, W) | SLN: 10339
Course Description
Explores international health from medical anthropological perspective, focusing on serious health problems facing resource-poor societies around the globe and in the United States. Develops awareness on political, socio-economic, ecological, and cultural complexity of most health problems and anthropology’s consequent role in the field of international health.
ART H 201: Survey of Western Art-Ancient
Instructor: Sarah Levin-Richardson
MWF | 1-2:20 p.m. | ART 229
5 credits (A&H) | SLN: 10526
Course description
Major achievements in painting, sculpture, architecture, and the decorative arts in Europe, the Near East, and North Africa, from prehistoric times to the beginnings of Christianity.
DANCE 280: African Dance Techniques
Instructor: Codjo Etienne Cakpo-Gbokou
MWF | 4:30-6:20 p.m. | MNY 267
3 credits (A&H) | SLN: 13416
Course description
Studio instruction in traditional and contemporary dance techniques of Africa and the African diaspora. *Course fee is $65.
ENGL 242: Reading Prose Fiction
Instructor: Laura H. Chrisman
TTh | 12:30-2:20 p.m. | LOW 105
5 credits (A&H, W) | SLN: 14401
Course Description
Critical interpretation and meaning in works of prose fiction, representing a variety of types and periods.
HSTAFM 152: Introduction to African History, c. 1880 – Present
Instructor: Christopher Tounsel
TTh | 8:30-10:20 a.m. | PCAR 395
5 credits (DIV, SSc) | SLN: 15674
Course description
Examines Africa’s pasts from approximately 1880 to the present. Through the theme of the politics of wealth, explores the history of European colonization, African social and cultural life under colonial rule, anti-colonial movements and decolonization, and the changes and challenges of the post-colonial present.
HSTAFM 163: The Modern Middle East
Instructor: Arbella Bet-Shlimon
TTh | 2:30-4:20 p.m. | Location TBD
5 credits (DIV, SSc) | SLN: 15675
Course description
Provides an introduction to the politics, society, and culture of the Middle East since the 19th century and through the present. Aims to foster an understanding of imperial power and anti-imperialism, ethnicity and sectarianism, religious and secular sociopolitical movements, authoritarianism, and the transformations wrought by modernity and economic development.
JSIS A 210 / MELC 229: Introduction to Islamic Cultures and Thought
Instructor: Lillian Claire McCabe
TTh | 11:30 a.m.-1:20 p.m. | JHN 075
5 credits (A&H, DIV, SSc) | SLN: 16231, 17675
Course description
Covers major developments in the formative, classical, and modern periods of Islamic cultures and thought from seventh century Arabia to the contemporary Muslim world. Looks at the development of Islamic religious thought and legal practice as well as the Muslim polities, cultures, and intellectual traditions of Asia, Africa, Europe, and America.
JSIS A 362: The Political Economy of Africa
Instructor: TBD
MW | 2:30-4:20 p.m. | BNS 115
5 credits (DIV, SSc, W) | SLN: 16265
Course description
Focuses on the political economy of governance, development, and conflict in sub-Saharan African countries since independence. Explores the political and economic choices made by Africa’s colonial and post-colonial regimes and connects them to current events in sub-Saharan Africa.
MELC 286: Themes in Middle Eastern Literature
Instructor: Mehari Zemelak Worku
WF | 9:30-11:20 a.m. | MAR 168
5 credits (A&H, SSc) | SLN: 22172
Course description
The Virgin Mary in Ethiopic Christian tradition.
MELC 335 / MELC 535: Language Conflict and Identity in the Middle East and North Africa
Instructor: Hussein M. Elkhafaifi
W | 1:30-3:20 p.m. | SAV 168 (*this is a hybrid course)
5 credits (A&H, DIV, SSc) | SLN: 17685, 17693
Course description
Explores social and linguistic aspects of the languages and cultures of the Middle East and North Africa, focusing on the relationship between language and national/ethnic identity from the perspective of group conflict. Considers language policies in colonial and post-colonial states, and individual strategies of accommodation and resistance to these policies.
POL S 331: Government and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa
Instructor: Asli Cansunar
MW | 1-2:20 p.m. | THO 101
5 credits (SSc) | SLN: 19591
Course description
Breakdown of traditional society and the problems of building modern political systems.
African Diaspora courses
AFRAM 214 / ENGL 258: Introduction African American Literature
Instructor: Janelle Rodriques
MW | 2:30-4:20 p.m. | MEB 242
5 credits (A&H, DIV) | SLN: 10180, 14407
Course Description
Introduction to various genres of African American literature from its beginnings to the present. Emphasizes the cultural and historical context of African American literary expression and its aesthetics criteria. Explores key issues and debates, such as race and racism, inequality, literary form, and canonical acceptance.
AFRAM 261 / SOC 261: The African American Experience through Literature
Instructor: TBD
TTh | 8:30-10:20 a.m. | CDH 110B
5 credits (A&H, DIV) | SLN: 22145, 22157
Course Description
Instructs students in hermeneutical and sociological methods of analyses. Analyzes selected novels, essays, poems, short stories, and plays with the purpose of understanding the structures and functions of both society and personality.
AFRAM 337: Popular Music, Race, Identity, and Social Change
Instructor: Sonnet H. Retman
TTh | 3:30-5:20 p.m. | MGH 389
5 credits (A&H, SSc, DIV) | SLN: 10183
Course Description
Focuses on popular music, shifting formations of race and identity and social change in various cultural, historical, and political contexts. Explores popular music as a tool for social change, a vehicle for community-building and a form of political and aesthetic expression.
AFRAM 350: Black Aesthetics
Instructor: TBD
MW | 10:30 a.m.-12:20 p.m. | CDH 101
5 credits (A&H, SSc) | SLN: 10184
Course Description
Draws on both multimedia and print sources, including fiction, poetry, prose, films, polemics, historiography and speeches to explore the idea of a black aesthetic in various cultural, historical, and political contexts within the twentieth century.
AFRAM 405: Advanced African American Studies in Social Science
Instructor: LaShawnDa L. Pittman
TTh | 2:30-4:20 p.m. | MGH 286
5 credits (DIV, SSc) | SLN: 10186
Course Description
Advanced study of racial formation, Black cultural production, and resistance among people of African descent throughout the Diaspora. Social science theories and methods used to examine various topics, including social scientific analysis of political history; social movements; intellectual traditions; theory; and intersections with urban, digital and legal studies; race, science, and biopolitics; public health and environmental studies.
ART H 205: Arts of Africa
Instructor: Jennifer A. Baez
MW | 10-11:20 a.m. | ART 229
5 credits (A&H, W) | SLN: 10527
Course Description
Thematic exploration of art and artists from Africa and its diaspora.
COM 489 / AES 489 / GWSS 489: Black Cultural Studies
Instructor: Timeka Nicol Tounsel
MW | 12:30-2:20 p.m. | CMU 332
5 credits (DIV, SSc) | SLN: 12678, 10174, 15426
Course Description
Examines how images of blackness have been (re)constructed through identity formation and entrenched inequality. Topics include black women’s bodies, black men’s bodies, blackface minstrelsy, black queer studies, black power, and black hybridities.
CONJ 626: Global HIV Medicine Elective
Instructor: TBD
Date(s) TBD | Time TBD | Location TBD
12 credits (MEDICINE) | SLN: 12767
Course Description
Prepares health profession students for work in developing countries. Includes experience treating HIV-positive patients in resources-poor settings, analyzing the relationship between poverty and health, recognizing tropical diseases that are common in Sub-Saharan Africa or Southeast Asia, and understanding the epidemiology of HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa or Southeast Asia.
EDUC 325: Histories of Self-Determination in Indigenous and Black Education
Instructor: Shanee Adrienne Washington
MW | 11:30 a.m.-1:50 p.m. | CDH 105 (*this is a hybrid course)
5 credits (DIV, SSc) | SLN: 14147
Course Description
Explores histories of Indigenous and Black self-determination in education, centering the educational experiences of Native and Black students pre- and post-settler colonialism and slavery in the U.S. through the twenty-first century. Conceptualizes decolonial, abolitionist, and culturally sustaining/revitalizing educational spaces for these and other historically and contemporarily marginalized students.
HSTAA 322: African-American History, 1865 To The Present
Instructor: Travis M Wright
TTh | 10:30 a.m.-12:20 p.m. | MGH 287
5 credits (DIV, SSc) | SLN: 15663
Course Description
African-American experience from Reconstruction to the present, emphasizing the variety of African-American political expression. Gender and class differences are closely examined, as well as such constructs as “community,” “race,” and “blackness.”
MUSIC 131: History of Jazz
Instructor: TBD
Asynchronous online
5 credits (A&H) | SLN: 18050
Course Description
Extensive overview of important musicians, composers, arrangers, and stylistic periods of jazz history from emergence of the first jazz bands at the turn of the twentieth century through post-modern bebop era of the 1990s.
Language courses
FRENCH 102: Elementary French
Instructors: Madeleine Poole, Irina Markina, Claire Justine Wagenseil, Lorenzo Giachetti
MTWThF | 9:30-10:20 a.m. | THO 211
MTWThF | 11:30 a.m.-12:20 p.m. | THO 202
MTWThF | 12:30-1:20 p.m. | THO 234
MTWThF | 1:30-2:20 a.m. | THO 234
5 credits (A&H) | SLN: 15075, 15077, 15078, 15079
Course Description
Development of speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills to a basic level of proficiency. Teaches students to communicate in French and understand the cultural context of the language. Methods and objectives are primarily oral-aural. Oral practice in the language laboratory is required. Second in a sequence of three.
FRENCH 202: Intermediate French
Instructors: Sarah Kate Moore
MTWThF | 11:30 a.m.-12:20 p.m. | SMI 313
5 credits (A&H) | SLN: 15094
Course Description
Designed to bring students to an intermediate level of proficiency. Emphasis on experiencing the language in context through a multi-media approach. Second in a sequence of three.
PORT 103: Elementary Portuguese
Instructors: Eduardo Viana Da Silva, Felipe Carneiro de Figueredo
MTWThF | 11:30 a.m.-12:20 p.m. | DEN 156
TTh | 11:30 a.m.-12:20 p.m. | DEN 113
5 credits (A&H) | SLN: 19665, 22033
Course Description
Methods and objectives are primarily oral-aural. Covers all major elements of Portuguese grammar. Third in a sequence of three.
SWA 102: Basic Swahili
Instructor: Jacqueline Waita
MTWThF | 11:30 a.m.-12:20 p.m. | SAV 157
MTWThF | 12:30-1:20 p.m. | SAV 158
5 credits (A&H) | SLN: 20893, 20894
Course Description
Introduces the Swahili language and the diverse cultures and customs of the people of East Africa. Provides a basic foundation in speaking, reading, and writing. Second in a sequence of three.
SWA 202: Intermediate Swahili
Instructor: Jacqueline Waita
MWF | 9:30-10:20 a.m. | SAV 156 AND TTh | 9:30-10:20 a.m. | ECE 054
5 credits (A&H) | SLN: 20895
Course Description
Builds proficiency in the language by speaking, reading, and writing. Includes children’s stories, newspaper articles, poetry, and folklore. Second in a sequence of three.