Reading and discussion course on selected topics in African history.

This course focuses on the historical and cultural relationship between Africans and their descendants abroad.

This course will investigate the relationships among women, gender, sexuality, and anthropological research. We will begin by exploring the trajectory of research interest in women and gender, drawing first from the early work on gender and sex by anthropologists like Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict; moving through the 1970s and 1980s arguments about gender, culture, and political economy; arriving at more current concerns with gender, race, sexuality, and empire. For the rest of the semester, we will critically read contemporary ethnographies addressing pressing issues such as nationalism, militarism, neoliberalism and fundamentalism. Throughout, we will investigate what it means not only to "write women's worlds", but also to analyze broader socio-cultural, political, and economic processes through a gendered lens. We will, finally, address the various ways feminist anthropology fundamentally challenged the discipline's epistemological certainties, as well as how it continues to transform our understanding of the foundations of the modern world.

This course is cross-listed with HIST 610 (Colloquium in American History) when the subject matter is related to African, African American, or other African Diaspora issues.


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

Topics vary. This course is a critical exploration of recent literary and cultural theory, usually focusing on one particular movement or school, such as phenomenology, psychoanalysis, the Frankfurt School, or deconstruction. See Africana Studies Department's website at https://africana.sas.upenn.edu for a description of the current offering.

This course is designed to present quantitative and qualitative approaches to studying and evaluating developmental interventions for children and youth. Basic assumptions underlying the two overarching methodological orientations will be presented throughout the course as a means of determining which sets of methods to use for different types of research and evaluation questions. In addition to presenting quantitative and qualitative methods separately, the course also will present integrative or mixed-methods approaches.

This course treats some important aspect of African American literature and culture. Topics vary. Recent topics of the course have included: "Afro-American Women Writers," "Three Afro-American Writers: Ellison, Gaines and McPherson," "Afro-American Autobiography," and "Afro-American Literature: Black Music Among the Discourses." See the Africana Studies Department's website at https://africana.sas.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings.

An advanced Amharic course that will further sharpen the students' knowledge of the Amharic language and the culture of the Amharas. The learners communicative skills will be further developed through listening, speaking, reading and wwriting. There will also be discussions on cultural and political issues.

Offered through the Penn Language Center

An introductory course for students with no previous knowledge of Amharic. 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 19 million of the other ethnic groups in Ethiopia. The goals of this course are to introduce students to the culture, customs, and traditions of the Amharas. Students will develop communicative skills through listening, speaking, reading, and writing.