SPRING 2018: In 1989, as she reflected on her magnum opus, Beloved, Toni Morrison declared "There is no place you or I can go, to think about or not think about, to summon the presences of,or recollect the absences of slaves. She went on, There is no suitable memorial, or plaque, or wreath, or wall, or park, or skyscraper lobby. There's no 300-foot tower, there's no bench by the road." And because such a place doesn't exist...the book had to." Today, there are significantly more markers of slavery in the public sphere as well as new novels, films, and television shows that directly take up the history and remnants of slavery in our lives. Looking at Colson Whitehead's novel, The Underground Railroad and WGN's tv series "The Underground," the remaking of the Whitney Plantation in Louisiana as well as considering the debates about confederate flags and monuments in places like New Orleans, Virginia, and South Carolina, this course will examine the meaning and movements behind these contemporary engagements with American slavery today.


See the Africana Studies Program's website at www.sas.upenn.edu/africana for a description of the current offerings.

The objectives are to continue to strengthen students' knowledge of speaking, listening, reading, and writing Swahili and to compare it with the language of the students; to continue learning about the cultures of East Africa and to continue making comparisons with the culture(s) of the students; to continue to consider the relationship between that knowledge and the knowledge of other disciplines; and using that knowledge, to continue to unite students with communities outside of class. Level 3 on the ILR (Interagency Language Roundtable) scale.

At the end of the course students will be at Level 2 on the ILR (Interagency Language Roundtable) scale.

In this advanced seminar, students will be introduced to a variety of approaches to African American literatures, and to a wide spectrum of methodologies and ideological postures (for example, The Black Arts Movement). The course will present an assortment of emphases, some of them focused on geography (for example, the Harlem Renaissance), others focused on genre (autobiography, poetry or drama), the politics of gender and class, or a particular grouping of authors. Previous versions of this course have included "African American Autobigraphy," "Backgrounds of African American Literature," "The Black Narrative" (beginning with eighteenth century slave narratives and working toward contemporary literature), as well as seminars on urban spaces, jazz, migration, oral narratives, black Christianity, and African-American music. See Africana Studies Department's website at https://africana.sas.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings.

This course will examine the lives of enslaved African Americans in the United States, both in the North and the South. We will engage historiographical debates, and tackle questions that have long concerned historians. For example, if slaves were wrenched from families and traded, could they sustain family relationships? If slaves worked from sun-up until sun-down, how could they create music? We will engage with primary and secondary sources to expand our understandings of values, cultural practices, and daily life among enslaved people. Topics will include: literacy, family, labor, food, music and dance, hair and clothing, religion, material culture, resistance, and memories of slavery. Several disciplines including History, Archaeology, Literature, and Music, will help us in our explorations. Written, oral, and artistic texts for the course will provide us with rich sources for exploring the nuances of slave life, and students will have opportunities to delve deeply into topics that are of particular interest to them.

Continuation of Elementary Amharic I. Amharic belongs to the southern branch of Hemeto-Semitic languages, which is also referred to as "Afrasian." Amharic is the official language of Ethiopia and is spoken by 14 million native Amharas and by approximately 18 million of the other groups in Ethiopia. This course continues to introduce basic grammar, vocabulary, and the reading and writing of Amharic to new speakers.