This course continues to introduce basic grammar, vocabulary, and the reading and writing of Swahili to new speakers. During this term, folktales, other texts, and film selections are used to help introduce important aspects of Swahili culture and the use of the language in wide areas of Africa.

The main objective of this course is to further sharpen the Yoruba linquistic knowledge that the student acquired in level I. By the end of the course, the student should be able to (1) read, write, and understand simple to moderately complex sentences in Yoruba; and, (2) advance in the knowledge of the Yoruba culture.

The Elementary Zulu II course can be taken to fulfill a language requirement, or for linguistic preparation to do research on South Africa, Southern Africa/Africa-related topics. The course emphasizes communicative competence to enable the students to acquire linguistic and extra-linguistic skills in Zulu. The content of the course is selected from various everyday life situations to enable the students to communicate in predictable common daily settings. Culture, as it relates to language use, is also part of the course content. Students will acquire the speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills at the ceiling of low intermediate level and floor of high novice level, based on the ACTFL scale. The low intermediate level proficiency skills that the students will acquire constitute threshold capabilities of the third semester range of proficiency to prepare students for Intermediate Zulu I course materials.

The Accelerated Elementary Zulu course is intensive, and can be taken to fulfill a language requirement, or for linguistic preparation to do research onSouth Africa,Southern Africa/Africa-related topics. The course emphasizes communicative competence to enable the students to acquire linguistic and extra-linguistic skills in Zulu. The content of the course is selected from various everyday life situations to enable the students to communicate in predictable common daily settings. Culture, as it relates to language use, is also part of the course content. Students will acquire the speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills at the ceiling of low intermediate level and floor of high novice level, based on the ACTFL scale. The low intermediate level proficiency skills that the students will acquire constitute threshold capabilities of the third semester range of proficiency to prepare students for Intermediate Zulu I course materials.

This elementary course is for beginners and it requires no prior knowledge of Zulu. The course will expose students to the Zulu language and culture and will be based in the National Standards for Foreign Language Learning. Students will be engaged in communicative language learning through interpersonal, interpretive and presentational modes of language learning techniques. They will gain knowledge and understanding of the Zulu culture. They will use their Zulu language and culture learning experience to connect with other disciplines and further their knowledge of these disciplines through perspectives acquired from their Zulu class. They will also develop insight into the nature of language and culture through comparisons of the Zulu language and culture and their own. Through movies, songs, and other cultural activities online students will acquire the natural use of the language which will enable them to acquire linguistic and cultural skill to become life-long learners who can participate in Zulu communities in the U.S. and overseas.

How does Elizabeth Alexanders poem Praise Song for the Day, written for the inauguration of Barack Obama, relate to Amiri Barakas 9/11 poem Somebody Blew America? This seminar will explore the unnaming and experimentation that shape African American literature and theory in the early years of the 21st century. frameworks of the seminar will include the post-9/11 novel, the poetics of the black, black abstraction, twenty-first century practices of the black diaspora Age of Obama turn to the satirical. Critical texts such as How to See a Work Total Darkness and Abstractionist Aesthetics will be as central as cutting edgesuch as The Psychic Hold of Slavery and signature essays such as On Failing to the Past Present. This course will focus on the new literary voices that have the 21st century and, also, writers whose 21st century art is the late stage ofliterary trajectory. Special attention will be given to Toni Morrison, Colson Whitehead,Octavia Butler, Claudia Rankine, Mat Johnson, and Paul Beatty.

This course provides the opportunity for students to investigate the relationship between the emergence of African peoples as historical subjects and their location within specific geopolitical and economic circumstances. Topics vary.

This course examines the processes by which African peoples have established epistemological, cosmological, and religious systems both prior to and after the institution of Western slavery.

Topics in Ethnomusicology. Please see department website at www.africana.upenn.edu for current term course descriptions.