This course uses the history of black displacement to examine community power and advocacy. It examines the methods of advocacy (e.g. case, class, and legislative) and political action through which community activists can influence social policy development and community and institutional change. The course also analyzes selected strategies and tactics of change and seeks to develop alternative roles in the group advocacy, lobbying, public education and public relations, electoral politics, coalition building, and legal and ethical dilemmas in political action. Case studies of neighborhood displacement serve as central means of examing course topics.

This course examines the flourishing civilizations of the African continent between the Fall of the Roman Empire and the dawn of the "Age of Discovery." Although material remains of the complex cultures that created exceptional works of art are rare, current archaeology is bringing much new information to the fore, allowing for the first time a preliminary survey of the burgeoning artistic production of the African continent while Europe was building its cathedrals. Bronze casting, gold work, terracotta and wood sculpture, and monumental architecture - the course takes a multi-media approach to understanding the rich foundations of African cultures and their deep interconnection with the rest of the world before the disruptive interventions of colonialism.

Why are African Americans and some other minority groups disproportionately incarcerated and subjected to penal sanctions? What are the political, social and economic consequences for individuals, communities, and the wider society of mass incarceration in the United States? What types of reforms of the criminal justice system are desirable and possible? This advanced seminar analyzes the connection between race, crime, punishment, and politics in the United States. The primary focus is on the role of race in explaining why the country's prison population increased six-fold since the early 1970s and why the United States today has the highest incarceration rate in the world. The class will likely take field trips to a maximum-security jail in Philadelphia and to a state prison in the Philadelphia suburbs.

This course will define CHOICE by looking at the transnational linkages connecting artistic, curatorial, personal, and political choices. An overarching question of the course will be "how do artists, activist, curators, and communities, question, select, translate, and disseminate the information needed to incite large-scale movements and global change and how can we, as a class, do the same through our own choices?" Students will examine the significance of theories arising from museum studies, curatorial studies, global social justice movements, as well as dance and diaspora studies. As a way of emphasizing the perspectives, artistic practices, the political engagement of marginalized groups, and the work of activists in the global south, this class will explore rituals, performances, and visual and expressive cultures. Looking closely at altar-making practices, ritual performances, religious coalitions, and resistant narratives, we will learn how artists, activists, and communities seek economic gain, resist oppression, express political opinions, and create tenable lives in difficult situations. The class is divided into sections including: Geographies, Bodies, Spaces, Words, Futures so that students can begin to deconstruct the colonial frameworks that structure their thinking in these areas. The assignments of the class will also afford students opportunities to learn from the work of local curators, activists, artists, exhibitions, and initiatives, including those at the Penn Museum, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Philadelphia Assembled.

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

Global Blackface, Minstrelsy and Passing is an undergraduate seminar that will explore the performance of blackface across the world. We will look at the practice of "blacking up" in theater, opera, vaudeville and film through the Middle East, Africa, Europe, India, the Caribbean and put these historical practices in dialogue with British and American blackface performance. We will also look at how performers enlisted themselves or were hired for minstrelsy shows and how these translated around the world. The seminar will also explore the concept of passing, and whether it is just a matter of skin color, but also of language. This is a cultural history course that will also investigate constructions of blackness and whiteness around the world.

Racial, colonial, and other political formations have encumbered Black existence since at least the fifteenth-century. Black experiences of and reflections on these matters have been the subject of existential writings and artistic expressions ranging from the blues to reggae, fiction and non-fiction. Reading some of these texts alongside canonical texts in European existential philosophy, this class will examine how issues of freedom, self, alienation, finitude, absurdity, race, and gender shape and are shaped by the global Black experience. Since Black aliveness is literally critical to Black existential philosophy, we shall also engage questions of Black flourishing amidst the potential for pessimism and nihilism.

Urban development has been influenced by religious conceptions of social and economic justice. Progressive traditions within Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Baha'i, Humanism and other religions and systems of moral thought have yielded powerful critiques of oppression and hierarchy as well as alternative economic frameworks for ownership, governance, production, labor, and community. Historical and contemporary case studies from the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East will be considered, as we examine the ways in which religious responses to poverty, inequality, and ecological destruction have generated new forms of resistance and development.

Topic varies from semester to semester. For the Spring 2021 semester, the topic will be: Postmodern, Postcolonial, Post-Black. The end of the last century saw a shift in the way contemporary artistic practice was conceived. This class will consider the work and writings of key artists and thinkers of the last 50 years who have tackled issues of race, class, consumption, marginality, nationality, and modernism.

This course examines the history, politics, and significance of foreign aid to Africa since the late 19th century. While we do not typically think about the European colonial period in Africa in terms of 'foreign aid,' that era introduced ideas and institutions which formed the foundations for modern aid policies and practices. So we start there and move forward into more contemporary times. In addition to examining the objectives behind foreign assistance and the intentions of donors and recipients, we will look at some of the consequences (intended or unintended) of various forms of foreign aid to Africa over the past century. While not designed to be a comprehensive history of development theory, of African economics, or of international aid organizations, the course will touch on all of these topics. Previous course work on Africa is strongly advised.