Topics Vary. See the Africana Studies Program's website at www.sas.upenn.edu/africana for a description of the current offerings.


SPRING 2017: The history of the women and men of African Descent who have studied, taught, researched, and worked at the University of Pennsylvania provides a powerful window into the complex history of Blacks not only in America but throughout the Diaspora. This class will unpack, uncover, and present this history through close studies of texts and archived records on and at the university, as well as through first hand accounts by alumni and past and present faculty and staff members. These stories of the trials and triumphs of individuals on and around this campus demonstrate the amazing and absurd experience that Blacks have endured both at Penn and globally. Emphasis will be placed on the research process with the intent of creating a democratic classroom where all are students and all are instructors. Students will become familiar with archival historical research (and historical criticism) as well as with ethnographic research. Far more than just a survey of historical moments on campus and in the community, students will meet face to face with those who have lived and are presently living history and they will be faced with the challenge of discerning the most effective ways of documenting, protecting, and representing that history for future generations of Penn students.

This course continues to introduce basic grammar, vocabulary, and the reading and writing of Swahili to new speakers. During this term, folktales, other texts, and film selections are used to help introduce important aspects of Swahili culture and the use of the language in wide areas of Africa.

The main objective of this course is to further sharpen the Yoruba linguistic knowledge that the student acquired in level I. By the end of the course, the student should be able to (1) read, write, and understand simple to moderately complex sentences in Yoruba; and, (2) advance in the knowledge of the Yoruba culure.

This course covers the development of legal rules and principles concerning individual and group conduct in the United States since 1877. Such subjects as regulation and deregulation, legal education and the legal profession, and the legal status of women and minorities will be discussed.

This course will explore the arrival, establishment and contributions of free and enslaved Africans in Ibero-America, the region presently known as Latin America, and the Spanish Speaking Caribbean. It will look at how these actors and their descendants known today as Afro-Latinos, shaped and built the foundations of Latin American society and culture throughout the centuries from colonial period to present. The course will seek to understand Afro- Latinos' agency and negotiations as intellectual contributors to the ideologies that led to independence and the creation of Latin American nations.Likewise, the course will also explore the accomplishments, controversies and tensions in race dynamics and politics, gender relations, socio-economic issues, among others factors that took and continue to take place as people of African descent negotiate their identity and struggle to uphold their space in Latin America and the U. S.A. today.

The Elementary Zulu II course can be taken to fulfull a language requirement, or for linguistic preparatin 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.

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 communicaive competence to enable the students to acquire linguistic and extra-linguistic skills in Zulu. The content of the course is selected from various everydaylife situations to enable he students to communicae in predictable commom daily settings. Culture, as it relates to language use, is also part of the course content.


Students will acquire the speaking, listening, reading, 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 proficiency 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.

This course focuses on political responses to urbanization in the United States. Topics include local government, national urban politics, and the changing nature of cities.

After introducing students to the major theoretical concepts concerning law and society, significant controversial societal issues that deal with law and the legal systems both domestically and internationally will be examined. Class discussions will focus on issues involving civil liberties, the organization of courts, legislatures, the legal profession and administrative agencies. Although the focus will be on law in the United States, law and society in other countries of Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America will be covered in a comparative context. Readings include research, reports, statutes and cases.