The course will focus on race and ethnicity in the United States. We begin with a brief history of racial categorization and immigration to the U.S. The course continues by examining a number of topics including racial and ethnic identity, interracial and interethnic friendships and marriage, racial attitudes, mass media images, residential segregation, educational stratification, and labor market outcomes. The course will include discussions of African Americans, Whites, Hispanics, and Asian Americans and Multiracials.

The aim of this course is to provide an interdisciplinary examination of the complex array of African American and other African Diaspora social practices and experiences. This class will focus on both classic texts and modern works that provide an introduction to the dynamics of African American and African Diaspora thought and practice. Topics include: What is Africana Studies?; The History Before 1492; Creating the African Diaspora After 1500; The Challenge of Freedom; Race, Gender and Class in the 20th Century; From Black Studies to Africana Studies: The Future of Africana Studies.

Topics vary. See the Africana Studies Department's course list at https://africana.sas.upenn.edu for a description of the current offering.


Fall 2017:After an examination of the philosophical, legal, and political perspectives on Human Rights, this course will focus on US policies and practices relevant to Human Rights. Toward that end, emphasis will be placed on both the domestic and the international aspects of Human Rights as reflected in US policies and practices. Domestically, the course will discuss (1) the process of incorporating the International Bill of Human Rights into the American legal system and (2) the US position on and practices regarding the political, civil, economic, social, and cultural rights of minorities and various other groups within the US. Internationally, the course will examine US Human Rights policies toward Africa. Specific cases of Rwanda, Kenya, South Africa and Egypt, as well as other cases from the continent, will be presented in the assessment of US successes and failures in the pursuit of its Human Rights strategy in Africa. Readings will include research papers, reports, statutes, treaties, and cases.

This course will explore how vectors of race and class influence and shape expressions of gender and sexual identity. Students will analyze how Black people both critics and artists have represented and theorized black sexuality in the United States. Course topics include: slavery, the Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights Movement, Black Power, Hip Hop

This introduction to African American literature will begin with contemporary, groundbreaking texts such as Claudia Rankines Citizen: An American Lyric and Toni Morrisons A Mercy. These twenty-first century texts will lead us to the questions about freedom, beauty, struggle, pleasure, and resistance that shape the origins of African American literature. The course will be shaped around circles of influence (not a linear mapping of a literary tradition). These circles of the changing same become the art of flow, layering, and rupture. We will dive into the multidirectional flow of slave narratives/neo-slave narratives,black modernism/black postmodernism,black respectability politics/ black radicalism, and mastery of form/deformation of mastery.


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

Survey of major themes, events, and personalities in African history from the early nineteenth century through the 1960s. Topics include abolition of the slave trade, European imperialism, impact of colonial rule, African resistance, religious and cultural movements, rise of naturalism and pan-Africanism, issues of ethnicity and "tribalism" in modern Africa.

This course combines scholarship on race and racism in plural societies with qualitative approaches to the study of political institutions, phenomena and actors. Germany, Brazil, France and Cuba will be examined as individual country cases and in comparative perspective. Conceptual and theoretical readings on race, racism and politics provide students with the analytic tools to draw more abstract lessons and generalizable conclusions about how racial and ethno-national hierarchy involves the role of the state and political economy, culture, norms and institutions. Students will also examine the impact of civil rights movements for political equality in response to legacies of racial and ethno-national hierarchy and inequality. Finally, students will become familiar with scholarship on nationalism and social movements as they relate to racial politics.

This course examines critical issues, problems, and perspectives in multicultural education. Intended to focus on access to literacy and educational opportunity, the course will engage class members in discussions around a variety of topics in educational practice, research, and policy. Specifically, the course will (1) review theoretical frameworks in multicultural education, (2) analyze the issues of race, racism, and culture in historical and contemporary perspectives, and (3) identify obstacles to participation in the educational process by diverse cultural and ethnic groups. Students will be required to complete field experiences and classroom activities that enable them to reflect on their own belief systems, practices, and educational experiences.