Writing in 2001, literary critic Jahan Ramazani introduced his study The Hybrid Muse by noting that unlike authors of fiction, the achievements of postcolonial poets have been strangely neglected. In this course we ll consider whether and why that may be changing, focusing on Africana poets from the Caribbean and Africa. We will begin by considering Isidore Okpewho s influential study of oral poetry and myth in Africa, and then move chronologically through a set of weekly readings likely to include Nicolas Guillen (Cuba), Aime Cesaire (Martinique), Leopold Senghor (Senegal), Okpot Bitek (Uganda), Chris Okigbo (Nigeria), Kofi Awoonor (Ghana), Kamau Braithwaite (Trinidad), Derek Walcott (St. Lucia), David Dabydeen (Guyana/UK), Dionne Brand (Trinidad/Canada), Julia de Burgos (Puerto Rico), M. NourbeSe Philip (Tobago/Canada) and Chris Abani (Nigeria/US). Among the broad questions we ll consider are why women s voices appear to be underrepresented, how oral poetic traditions and translation inflect this body of work, the grounds of comparison across African and Caribbean spaces, and the particular contributions of poets who are also critics. The reading list may be adjusted to address interests of seminar members, and prospective students are welcome to send suggestions for particular authors, readings, or units to Tsitsi Jaji.


This is an introductory-level graduate class, open to advanced undergraduate majors by permission. No particular background knowledge is expected. Assignments will consist of weekly response papers, an in-class presentation, and a choice of a final conference-style paper (10-12pp) or syllabus.

This seminar will focus on a project that views history as a result of our contemporary society in which biographical truths are constantly shifting. So the historical biographers write about the way they remembered and visualize the past, and not about the way that it happened. We will take Du Bois's biography in his own words and interrogate his narrative with the visual narratives of his life and influence produced by others. "Visualizing W.E.B Du Bois" focuses on photographic, film, and video representations intended to present some aspect of Du Bois's reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record. Such projects include photos, materials originally shot on film stock, and digital images that can be either displayed in a book or magazine, and moving images made into a film or video for a TV show or released for screening in cinemas, or other broadcast mediums like YouTube and Vimeo.

The Accelerated Elementary Zulu course is intensive, and can be taken to fulfill a language requirement, or for linguistic preparation to do research on South Africa, Southern Africa/Africa-related topics. The course emphasizes communicative competence to enable the students to acquire linguistic and extra-linguistic skills in Zulu. The content of the course is selected from various everyday life situations to enable the students to communicate in predictable common daily settings. Culture, as it relates to language use, is also part of the course content.


Students will acquire the speaking, listening, and writing skills at the ceiling of low intermediate level and floor of high novice level, based on the ACTFL scale. The low intermediate level proficience skills that the students will acquire constitute threshold capabilities of the third semester range of proficiency to prepare students for Intermediate Zulu I course materials.

Religions of the African Diaspora - Religion shapes and defines the lives of many persons in the Africans Diaspora. This course will explore both the historical and present day manifestations of religions practices by those in the African Diaspora, including Voodu, Candomble, Obeah, Rastafari, African Initiated Churches, Pentecostalism, and Catholicism. Theoretical issues including sexuality, gender, and material culture will also be covered in the course.

Students taking this course will learn about the historical context of HBCUs in educating African Americans, and how their role has changed since the late 1800's. Students will also be expected to connect financial, societal, and/or economic connections between the role of HBCUs past and present. Specific contemporary challenges and success related to HBCUs that will be covered relate to control, enrollment, accreditation, funding, degree completion, and outreach/retention programming. Students will become familiar with HBCUs in their own right, as well as in comparison to other postsecondary institutions.

Offered through the Penn Language Center

Continuation of Elementary Amharic I.

This course is cross-listed when the subject matter is related to African, African American, or other African Diaspora issues. Courses recently offered are, "Political Culture and American Cities, Social Movements and Social Change, Critical Race Theory. See the Africana Studies Department's website at https://africana.sas.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings.


This course brings together the vantage points of urban political economy, history and urban anthropology. Readings and discussions will cross those literatures, folding in considerations of race, ethnicity and gender in the American city life, with a focus on the relation between culture and political economy. We will reconstruct the history of the the different tracks of urban studies in the U.S., beginning with its roots in sociology and anthropology in the Chicago School and in political science in reform-oriented studies of public administration. We will revisit the community power debate of the 1950s-1970s, which shook out significantly along disciplinary lines, and will examine the development of the urban political economy perspective in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as developments within U.S. urban anthropology since the 1960s. We will employ local case study materials, and at every point we will try to understand the intellectual trajectories of the urbanist discoursesin relation to dynamics contemporaneously shaping urban politics and policy.Course requirements are seminar preparation which includes each student's leading discussion around specified reading assignments-- and a research paper, the topic of which must be approved by week 5.

FALL 2015: This course examines the lived and shared experiences and representations of Caribbean and Latin American women. We will discuss the relationship between gender, labor, sexuality, religion, and race in the Caribbean and the ways these concepts intersect with women's individual subjectivity and national identity. By examining primary sources-such as speeches and letters-alongside historical scholarship, literature, and popular media, we will study the impact of slave society and colonial pasts on representations of women and construction of womanhood in the modern Caribbean and Latin America and their diasporas through the 20th century. Beginning with late-18th century and ending with contemporary migration narratives of each country, we will study the local and regional political conditions that informed gender norms, social movements, and characterizations of Caribbean sexuality globally. In our historical examination, we will question some of the iconic representations of Caribbean and Latin American women-the racially mixed temptress, the pious matriarch, and the poor uneducated laborer-to understand the meaning, purpose and usages Caribbean women's bodies as objects of praise, possession, obsession and/or ridicule by communities, governments and religions within and outside of the Caribbean.


In our interrogation of gender meanings, we will consider the ways Caribbean women and men define themselves and each other, while considering the intersections of color, class, religion and culture on the political and social realities of the Caribbean and the region. The geographic scope of the course will extend to Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica and Trinidad & Tobago. The following interrelated questions will anchor our exploration of each text: How have representations of Caribbean and Latin American women informed historical constructions and rhetoric of the region and national identity? What political and social strategies have Caribbean women and men used to define themselves in their countries and throughout the region? How do the history and contemporary conditions of a post-colonial nation impact the gender construction of Caribbean identities? What is the relationship between modern Caribbean gender identities and the regional racial and economic politics?