We will read our favorite kids' books, determine the kinds of books we love to read and write, and then write them, aiming at a clear voice appropriate to the story, and as much order or misrule as each writer's kid-muse demands. For inspiration, we'll visit the Maurice Sendak Collection at the Rosenbach Museum and Library and have a nostalgia wallow in the kids' section at the library. Then students write, fast-fast, drafts of stories to workshop , mull and revise. Yes, fun is required. For sure we'll critique, but first we'll try to outrun our interior grown-up! Workshopping happens first with student writer colleagues, and then with the real kids in schools, through our partner West Philadelphia Alliance for Children. Reading to children will give studentwriters a chance to hear where children laugh, see where they look scared, or notice when they begin to fidget. Returning with revisions will be a promise fulfilled, and an important marker in the literary life of everyone involved. Our class will act as a team of editors, then, to submit stories-andillustrations by authors and/or kids-on the upcoming website, SafeKidsStories.org.

Study of a Literary Theme- For many of us, the first experience of travel is imaginary, through the portal of a novel, film, or memoir. This course combinesthese narratives of travel and stories of coming of age. At the center of our exploration will the contemporary rise of Study Abroad programs in U.S. universities. We'll place this in historical context as we consider how cross-cultural encounters have been portrayed, with particular attention to authors of color from the U.S. and the global South. No previous travel experience is assumed other than imaginative; this course is open to students, freshman to senior, from all majors -- especially the undeclared. Materials well consider together include selections from Don Quixote (the adventures of a knight errant and his servant in Spain by Miguel Cervantes), James Baldwin (an African American in Switzerland and France), Samuel Selvon (a Trinidadian in the UK), Faith Adiele (a Nigerian-American in Burma), Amitav Ghosh (an Indian in Egypt) and Kiana Davenport (a Hawaiian in France). These readings will be complemented by films including two versions of Around the World in in Eighty Days, The Motorcycle Diaries, Roman Holiday and Touki Bouki. Assignments will include regular journal entries and 2 essays.

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

A primary goal of the seminar is to help students develop proposals as to how a Penn undergraduate education might better empower students to produce, not simply "consume," societally-useful knowledge, as well as function as caring, contributing citizens of a democratic society. Please note new location of the class: The Netter Conference Room is on 111 South 38th Street, on the 2nd floor.


Among other responsibilities, students focus their community service on college and career readiness at West Philadelphia High School and Sayre High School. Students are typically engaged in academically based community service learning at the schools for two hours each week.

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 "tribalisms" in modern Africa.

The course begins with four two-hour online classes that provide an overview of South African music, dance, and theater beginning two weeks before the festival. Students will be expected to post to blogs and discussion forums about course materials, audio, video, and readings--provided online prior to leaving for South Africa. These blogs and discussion materials will be fully integrated into the online lectures. The Grahamstown Festival includes a wide range of events: we will focus on South African jazz, gospel, and art music, with some discussion of dance and theater. All students will be required to post daily to blogs and discussion forums while at the Festival. The class will conlcude with two days of discussion, synthesis, and a final essay.

This course examines how we as consumers in the "Western" world engage with musical difference largely through the products of the global entertainment industry. We examine music cultures in contact in a variety of ways-- particularly as traditions in transformation. Students gain an understanding of traditional music as live, meaningful person-to-person music making, by examining the music in its original site of production, and then considering its transformation once it is removed, and recontextualized in a variety of ways. The purpose of the course is to enable students to become informed and critical consumers of "World Music" by telling a series of stories about particular recordings made with, or using the music of, peoples culturally and geographically distant from the US. Students come to understand that not all music downloads containing music from unfamiliar places are the same, and that particular recordings may be embedded in intriguing and controversial narratives of production and consumption. At the very least, students should emerge from the class with a clear understanding that the production, distribution, and consumption of world music is rarely a neutral process.

This course examines how we as consumers in the "Western" world engage with musical difference largely through the products of the global entertainment industry. We examine music cultures in contact in a variety of ways-- particularly as traditions in transformation. Students gain an understanding of traditional music as live, meaningful person-to-person music making, by examining the music in its original site of production, and then considering its transformation once it is removed, and recontextualized in a variety of ways. The purpose of the course is to enable students to become informed and critical consumers of "World Music" by telling a series of stories about particular recordings made with, or using the music of, peoples culturally and geographically distant from the US. Students come to understand that not all music downloads containing music from unfamiliar places are the same, and that particular recordings may be embedded in intriguing and controversial narratives of production and consumption. At the very least, students should emerge from the class with a clear understanding that the production, distribution, and consumption of world music is rarely a neutral process.

This course examines how we as consumers in the "Western" world engage with musical difference largely through the products of the global entertainment industry. We examine music cultures in contact in a variety of ways-- particularly as traditions in transformation. Students gain an understanding of traditional music as live, meaningful person-to-person music making, by examining the music in its original site of production, and then considering its transformation once it is removed, and recontextualized in a variety of ways. The purpose of the course is to enable students to become informed and critical consumers of "World Music" by telling a series of stories about particular recordings made with, or using the music of, peoples culturally and geographically distant from the US. Students come to understand that not all music downloads containing music from unfamiliar places are the same, and that particular recordings may be embedded in intriguing and controversial narratives of production and consumption. At the very least, students should emerge from the class with a clear understanding that the production, distribution, and consumption of world music is rarely a neutral process.

This course examines how we as consumers in the "Western" world engage with musical difference largely through the products of the global entertainment industry. We examine music cultures in contact in a variety of ways-- particularly as traditions in transformation. Students gain an understanding of traditional music as live, meaningful person-to-person music making, by examining the music in its original site of production, and then considering its transformation once it is removed, and recontextualized in a variety of ways. The purpose of the course is to enable students to become informed and critical consumers of "World Music" by telling a series of stories about particular recordings made with, or using the music of, peoples culturally and geographically distant from the US. Students come to understand that not all music downloads containing music from unfamiliar places are the same, and that particular recordings may be embedded in intriguing and controversial narratives of production and consumption. At the very least, students should emerge from the class with a clear understanding that the production, distribution, and consumption of world music is rarely a neutral process.