This interdisciplinary seminar aims to introduce students to the countries of North Africa, with a focus on the Maghreb and Libya (1830-present). It does so while examining the region's close economic and cultural connections to sub-Saharan Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. Readings will include histories, political analysis, anthropological studies, and novels, and will cover a wide range of topics such as colonial and postcolonial experiences, developments in Islamic thought and practice, and labor migration. This class is intended for juniors, seniors, and graduate students.

This course will primarily consider case studies in Africa with a view to drawing comparisons with conflict geographies here at home (in Philadelphia or where you consider home to be). Conflicts on the African continent are some of the least well understood by lay publics; often characterized as the result of pre-modern tribalism and a naturalized consequence of state dysfunction or resource scarcity. In this course, we will demystify the notion that war is inevitable or that some cultures are naturally prone to conflict. We will do so by examining some of the underlying challenges to consensus and peace in cities and countries in Africa, drawing connection to conditions, both historic and contemporary, that exist closer to home. After all-and as recent conflict conflict geographies such as the Dakota Access Pipeline, Charlottesville Rally, and Women's March remind us-spaces and communities in in the United States are rife with struggle and contestation. Throughout the semester, we will ask: How do individuals experience conflict? What roles do spaces have in structuring oppression, activating conflicts, resisting power, and building peace? How is the study of conflict-understood as both routine contestation and violent confrontation-informed by research on built and natural environments? This is a course that will require the active


participation of every individual-in completing all readings, preparing questions and comments, and debating issues with respect and openness. There are no other prerequisites for this course, nor preferred disciplinary concentrations. We will draw from our collective experiences (academic and and personal) to discuss research in diverse fields, including Anthropology, Conflict and Peace Studies, Geography, Political Ecology, and Urban Studies.

The end of colonial rule was the springboard for the start of cold wars in various regions of Africa. Where peace could not be maintained violence erupted. Even where secession has been attained, as in the new country of South Sudan, the threat of civil war lingers. While domestic politics have led to the rise of armed conflicts and civil wars in many African countries, the external factors should also not be ignored. Important in all current conflicts is the concern to international peace and security. Overall this course will: (1) investigate the general nature of armed conflicts in Africa (2) provide in-depth analysis of the underlying factors (3) and discuss the regional and the international responses to these conflicts and their implications. Special emphasis will be placed upon African conflicts and civil wars in: great Lakes area, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan, Somalia, South Sudan, and Uganda.

Al- Andalus, the Muslim Kingdom of Spain, is the point of departure for this Penn Global Course which looks at the history, religion, and memories of the Andalusian Peninsula in Spain. The purpose of this course is to investigate the interreligious lives of Muslims, Christians, and Jews during what is called the Convivencia, or La Convivencia. This time refers to a time when Muslims, Christians and Jews lived in peace before the Reconquista, or reconquest of Spain by Catholics in 1492. Our task is to not only understand this history, but to understand how convivencia is a problematic,but useful term in understanding this time period of great cultural growth,building, and religious innovation.

This course draws on an interdisciplinary body of biological and social scientific literature to explore critically the connections between race, science, and justice in the United States, including scientific theories of racial inequality, from the eighteenth century to the genomic age. After investigating varying concepts of race, as well as their uses in eugenics, criminology, anthropology, sociology, neuroscience, and medicine, we will focus on the recent expansion of genomic research and technologies that treat race as a biological category that can be identified at the molecular level, including race-specific pharmaceuticals, commercial ancestry testing, and racial profiling with DNA forensics. We will discuss the significance of scientific investigations of racial difference for advancing racial justice in the United States.

This course draws on an interdisciplinary body of biological and social scientific literature to explore critically the connections between race, science, and justice in the United States, including scientific theories of racial inequality, from the eighteenth century to the genomic age. After investigating varying concepts of race, as well as their uses in eugenics, criminology, anthropology, sociology, neuroscience, and medicine, we will focus on the recent expansion of genomic research and technologies that treat race as a biological category that can be identified at the molecular level, including race-specific pharmaceuticals, commercial ancestry testing, and racial profiling with DNA forensics. We will discuss the significance of scientific investigations of racial difference for advancing racial justice in the United States.

This course draws on an interdisciplinary body of biological and social scientific literature to explore critically the connections between race, science, and justice in the United States, including scientific theories of racial inequality, from the eighteenth century to the genomic age. After investigating varying concepts of race, as well as their uses in eugenics, criminology, anthropology, sociology, neuroscience, and medicine, we will focus on the recent expansion of genomic research and technologies that treat race as a biological category that can be identified at the molecular level, including race-specific pharmaceuticals, commercial ancestry testing, and racial profiling with DNA forensics. We will discuss the significance of scientific investigations of racial difference for advancing racial justice in the United States.

This course draws on an interdisciplinary body of biological and social scientific literature to explore critically the connections between race, science, and justice in the United States, including scientific theories of racial inequality, from the eighteenth century to the genomic age. After investigating varying concepts of race, as well as their uses in eugenics, criminology, anthropology, sociology, neuroscience, and medicine, we will focus on the recent expansion of genomic research and technologies that treat race as a biological category that can be identified at the molecular level, including race-specific pharmaceuticals, commercial ancestry testing, and racial profiling with DNA forensics. We will discuss the significance of scientific investigations of racial difference for advancing racial justice in the United States.

This course draws on an interdisciplinary body of biological and social scientific literature to explore critically the connections between race, science, and justice in the United States, including scientific theories of racial inequality, from the eighteenth century to the genomic age. After investigating varying concepts of race, as well as their uses in eugenics, criminology, anthropology, sociology, neuroscience, and medicine, we will focus on the recent expansion of genomic research and technologies that treat race as a biological category that can be identified at the molecular level, including race-specific pharmaceuticals, commercial ancestry testing, and racial profiling with DNA forensics. We will discuss the significance of scientific investigations of racial difference for advancing racial justice in the United States.

This course explores the visual history of race in the United States as both self-fashioning and cultural mythology by examing the ways that conceptions of Native American, Latino,and Asian identity, alongside ideas of Blackness and Whiteness, have combined to create the various cultural ideologies of class, gender, and sexuality that remain evident in historical visual and material culture. We will also investigate the ways that these creations have subsequently helped to launch new visual entertainments, inclduing museum spectacles, blackface minstrelsy, and early film, from the colonial period through the 1940s.