"The nomad or immigrant who learns something rightly must always ponder travel and movement, just as the grief-stricken must inevitably ponder death. As does the artist who comes from a culture that is as much about harnessing life -joyous, jubilant, resilient life-as it is about avoiding death." Edwidge Danticat, Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work What can we learn about the current migration crisis from literature and film? This course will first introduce students to histories of migration during the 20th and 21st centuries that have emerged from Cameroon, Canada, France, Haiti, South Africa, United Kingdom, United States, among others. Students will then study how these histories shape film and literature as much as how artistic works shape these histories. From studying artistic works by Raoul Peck, Dany Laferriere, Ousmane Sembene, NoViolet Bulawayo and Edouard Duval-Carrie we will approach a few questions. What is it like to lose your home and your homeland? How can we learn from the stories of emigres, exiles, expatriates, immigrants, migrants and refugees of their search for refuge? How have these experiences of migration been affected by race, gender and class? Finally, how have "immigrant artists," to borrow from Edwidge Danticat, negotiate the zone of comfort or discomfort necessary to create and recreate?


This course is open to students from all majors. No previous knowledge of literary studies or current affairs required. Course evaluations include weekly Canvas posts, oral presentations and creative, individualized projects.

We live in a country which places a premium on indivi dual accomplishments. Hence, all of you worked extremely hard to get into Penn. Yet, social factors also have an impact on life chance. This class provides an overview of how membership in social groups shapes the outcomes of individuals. We will look at a range of topics from the organizational factors which promoted racial inequality in Ferguson, Mo to the refusal of (mostly elite) parents to vaccinate their children. The experience of women and men in the labor market -- and the social factors that lead women to earn less than men -- is another interesting topic taken up in the course. Who gets ahead in America? Course requirements include a midterm, research paper (five to six pages), final and recitation activities. Students are not expected to have any previous knowledge of the topic. Welcome to the course!

We live in a country which places a premium on indivi dual accomplishments. Hence, all of you worked extremely hard to get into Penn. Yet, social factors also have an impact on life chance. This class provides an overview of how membership in social groups shapes the outcomes of individuals. We will look at a range of topics from the organizational factors which promoted racial inequality in Ferguson, Mo to the refusal of (mostly elite) parents to vaccinate their children. The experience of women and men in the labor market -- and the social factors that lead women to earn less than men -- is another interesting topic taken up in the course. Who gets ahead in America? Course requirements include a midterm, research paper (five to six pages), final and recitation activities. Students are not expected to have any previous knowledge of the topic. Welcome to the course!

We live in a country which places a premium on indivi dual accomplishments. Hence, all of you worked extremely hard to get into Penn. Yet, social factors also have an impact on life chance. This class provides an overview of how membership in social groups shapes the outcomes of individuals. We will look at a range of topics from the organizational factors which promoted racial inequality in Ferguson, Mo to the refusal of (mostly elite) parents to vaccinate their children. The experience of women and men in the labor market -- and the social factors that lead women to earn less than men -- is another interesting topic taken up in the course. Who gets ahead in America? Course requirements include a midterm, research paper (five to six pages), final and recitation activities. Students are not expected to have any previous knowledge of the topic. Welcome to the course!

We live in a country which places a premium on indivi dual accomplishments. Hence, all of you worked extremely hard to get into Penn. Yet, social factors also have an impact on life chance. This class provides an overview of how membership in social groups shapes the outcomes of individuals. We will look at a range of topics from the organizational factors which promoted racial inequality in Ferguson, Mo to the refusal of (mostly elite) parents to vaccinate their children. The experience of women and men in the labor market -- and the social factors that lead women to earn less than men -- is another interesting topic taken up in the course. Who gets ahead in America? Course requirements include a midterm, research paper (five to six pages), final and recitation activities. Students are not expected to have any previous knowledge of the topic. Welcome to the course!

We live in a country which places a premium on indivi dual accomplishments. Hence, all of you worked extremely hard to get into Penn. Yet, social factors also have an impact on life chance. This class provides an overview of how membership in social groups shapes the outcomes of individuals. We will look at a range of topics from the organizational factors which promoted racial inequality in Ferguson, Mo to the refusal of (mostly elite) parents to vaccinate their children. The experience of women and men in the labor market -- and the social factors that lead women to earn less than men -- is another interesting topic taken up in the course. Who gets ahead in America? Course requirements include a midterm, research paper (five to six pages), final and recitation activities. Students are not expected to have any previous knowledge of the topic. Welcome to the course!

We live in a country which places a premium on indivi dual accomplishments. Hence, all of you worked extremely hard to get into Penn. Yet, social factors also have an impact on life chance. This class provides an overview of how membership in social groups shapes the outcomes of individuals. We will look at a range of topics from the organizational factors which promoted racial inequality in Ferguson, Mo to the refusal of (mostly elite) parents to vaccinate their children. The experience of women and men in the labor market -- and the social factors that lead women to earn less than men -- is another interesting topic taken up in the course. Who gets ahead in America? Course requirements include a midterm, research paper (five to six pages), final and recitation activities. Students are not expected to have any previous knowledge of the topic. Welcome to the course!

We live in a country which places a premium on indivi dual accomplishments. Hence, all of you worked extremely hard to get into Penn. Yet, social factors also have an impact on life chance. This class provides an overview of how membership in social groups shapes the outcomes of individuals. We will look at a range of topics from the organizational factors which promoted racial inequality in Ferguson, Mo to the refusal of (mostly elite) parents to vaccinate their children. The experience of women and men in the labor market -- and the social factors that lead women to earn less than men -- is another interesting topic taken up in the course. Who gets ahead in America? Course requirements include a midterm, research paper (five to six pages), final and recitation activities. Students are not expected to have any previous knowledge of the topic. Welcome to the course!

We live in a country which places a premium on indivi dual accomplishments. Hence, all of you worked extremely hard to get into Penn. Yet, social factors also have an impact on life chance. This class provides an overview of how membership in social groups shapes the outcomes of individuals. We will look at a range of topics from the organizational factors which promoted racial inequality in Ferguson, Mo to the refusal of (mostly elite) parents to vaccinate their children. The experience of women and men in the labor market -- and the social factors that lead women to earn less than men -- is another interesting topic taken up in the course. Who gets ahead in America? Course requirements include a midterm, research paper (five to six pages), final and recitation activities. Students are not expected to have any previous knowledge of the topic. Welcome to the course!

The term Africana emerged in public discourse amid the social, political, and cultural turbulence of the 1960s. The roots of the field, however, are much older,easily reaching back to oral histories and writings during the early days of the Trans-Atlantic African slave trade. The underpinnings of the field continued to grow in the works of enslaved Africans, abolitionists and social critics of the nineteenth century, and evolved in the twentieth century by black writers, journalists, activists, and educators as the sought to document African descended people's lives. Collectively, their work established African Studies as a discipline,epistemological standpoint and political practice dedicated to understanding the multiple trajectories and experiences of black people in the world throughout history. As an ever-transforming field of study, this course will examine the genealogy, major discourses, and future trajectory of Africana Studies. Using primary sources such as maps and letters, as well as literature and performance, our study of Africana will begin with continental Africa, move across the Atlantic during the middle passage and travel from the coasts of Bahia in the 18th centuryto the streets of Baltimore in the 21st century. The course is constructed around major themes in Black intellectual thought including:


retentions and transferal, diaspora, black power, meanings of blackness, uplift and nationalism. While attending to narratives and theories that concern African descended people in the United States, the course is uniquely designed with a focus on gender and provides context for the African diasporic experience in the Caribbean and Latin America.