Arabic language is used by many societies not only in communication but also in correspondence and in documenting the affairs of their daily lives. Arabic script is adopted by many groups whose native languages are not Arabic, in writing their languages before some moved to the Roman alphabet. In many historical documents specific style of writing and handwriting are dominant. This specificity is influenced by the dialectical variations, the historical development of each region and the level of Arabic literacy and use. The aims of this course which will focus on the Arabic writing tradition of Africa and the Middle East are as follows: (1) Reading and interpreting hand-written Arabic documents from Africa and the Middle East with focus on different historical eras. (2) In-depth understanding of the historical and language contexts of the selected documents. (3) Examining different handwriting styles that are in vogue in Africa and the Middle East.

On the stage of modern world history, Haiti plays the unique role as both the exceptionally victorious and tragic character. This course interrogates archival documents, oral histories, historical texts, and prose created within the nation and her diaspora in order to establish a nuanced image of the projection of Haiti's modern history. Using two classic Haitian texts, Marie Vieux-Chauvet's Love, Anger, Madness (1968) and Michel-Rolph Trouillot's Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (1995),this course examines how, why,and to what end Haiti's history and popular narratives about the country have served to construct and dismantle global movements, popular culture, and meanings of race, gender, and citizenship in the Americas. In our historical examination, we will question some of the iconic representations of Haiti through literature that deepen the affective historical profile of Haiti with interrogations of culture, sexuality, political, and media performance. Students will become familiar with the post -colonial history of Haiti and the region, meanings of race, and the production of history. The course is a research and historical methods seminar. Students will conduct archival research and write narratives from primary source material. This course qualifies as a "methods" course for Africana Studies undergraduate majors and minors.

This course is an examination and analysis of the changing images and achievements of African Americans in motion pictures and television. The first half of the course focuses on African-American film images from the early years of D.W. Griffith's "renegade bucks" in The Birth of a Nation (1915); to the comic servants played by Steppin Fetchit, Hattie McDaniel, and others during the Depression era; to the post-World War II New Negro heroes and heroines of Pinky (1949) and The Defiant Ones (1958); to the rise of the new movement of African American directors such as Spike Lee (Do the Right Thing), Julie Dash (Daughters of the Dust), Charles Burnett, (To Sleep With Anger) and John Singleton (Boyz N the Hood). The second half explores television images from the early sitcoms "Amos 'n Andy" and "Beulah" to the "Cosby Show," "Fresh Prince of Bel Air," and "Martin." Foremost this course will examine Black stereotypes in American films and television--and the manner in which those stereotypes have reflected national attitudes and outlooks during various historical periods. The in-class screenings and discussions will include such films as Show Boat (1936), the independently produced "race movies" of the 1930s and 1940s, Cabin in the Sky (1943), The Defiant Ones (1958), Imitation of Life (the 1959 remake) & Super Fly (1972).

Topics vary: Black Feminist Approaches to History & Memory - The term black feminism emerged in public discourse amid the social, political, and cultural turbulence of the 1960s. The roots of black feminism, however, are much older, easily reaching back to the work of black women abolitionists and social critics of the nineteenth century. The concept continued to grow and evolve in the work of twentieth century black women writers, journalists, activists, and educators as they sought to document black women's lives. Collectively, their work established black feminism as a political practice dedicated to the equality of all people. More recently, black feminism has been deployed as a tool for theoretical and scholarly analysis that is characterized by an understanding that race, class, gender, and sexuality are inextricably interconnected. Using materials such as slave narratives, social criticism, and archival sources, this course will explore the theoretical and practical applications of black feminist thought in nineteenth and twentieth century North American culture and politics. In particular, we will consider the symbols and practices (storytelling, myth-making, art, archival research) that black women use to document lives. We will ask: how do these methods of documentation inform our understanding of the past and the production of historical knowledge? How can we understand black feminism as both theory and practice? And what are the implications of black feminist approaches for current research and scholarship? We will give particular attention to concepts such as gender, race, memory, the archive, and embodied knowledge to complicate our understanding of historical documentation, epistemology, and authenticity. The course material will include scholarship by Harriet Jacobs, Audre Lorde, Saidiya Hartman, Hazel Carby, Hershini Young, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Toni Morrison, and others. (Image: From In Praise of Shadows, Kara Walker (2009).

This course will focus on the urban history and cultural politics of contemporary Cuba with an emphasis on contemporary art and contemporary developments in the city of Havana. Students will learn about the Spanish influence on early colonial art, the development of formal academic art training and the changes to art instruction and the form and content of art created since the Revolution.

The purpose of this course is to engage students in the rigorous process of mining experiences for material that can be transformed into a public performance piece. In-class writing, group discussions, and field work in the Philadelphia area. AUGUST WILSON AND BEYOND. The people need to know the story. See how they fit into it. See what part they play. - August Wilson, King Hedley II. In this seminar, students will read groundbreaking playwright August Wilson's 20th Century Cycle: ten plays that form an iconic picture of African American traumas, triumphs, and traditions through the decades, told through the lens of Pittsburgh's Hill District neighborhood. Other readings include supporting material on Wilson's work and African American theatre, the works of contemporary playwrights whom Wilson has influenced (such as Suzan-Lori Parks and Tarell Alvin McCraney), and context on Penn's relationship with West Philadelphia. As an Academically Based Community Service (ABCS) course,this seminar gives students the opportunity to enhance their understanding of the plays, and history and culture that shaped them, by forming meaningful relationships with West Philadelphia residents. Wilson's plays provide the bridge between the two groups. The course culminates with students writing an original theatre piece inspired by the readings and relationships, which they will share at an end-of-semester performance.

Throughout Africa, social and cultural identities of ethnicity, gender, generation, rank and status were conveyed in a range of personal ornamentation that reflects the variation of African cultures. The meaning of one particular item of clothing can transform completely when moved across time and space. As one of many forms of expressive culture, dress shape and give forms to social bodies. In the study of dress and fashion, we could note two distinct broad approaches, the historical and the anthropological. While the former focuses on fashion as a western system that shifted across time and space, and linked with capitalism and western modernity; the latter approach defines dress as an assemblage of modification the body. The Africanist proponents of this anthropological approach insisted that fashion is not a dress system specific to the west and not tied with the rise of capitalism. This course will focus on studying the history of African dress by discussing the forces that have impacted and influenced it overtime, such as socio-economic, colonialism, religion, aesthetics, politics, globalization, and popular culture. The course will also discuss the significance of the different contexts that impacted the choices of what constitute an appropriate attire for distinct situations. African dress in this context is not a fixed relic from the past, but a live cultural item that is influenced by the surrounding forces.

This course explores the visual history of race in the United States as both self-fashioning and cultural mythology by examining the ways that conceptions of Native American, Latino, and Asian identity, alongside ideas of Blackness and Whiteness, have combined to create the various cultural ideologies of class, gender, and sexuality that remain evident in historical visual and material culture. We also investigate the ways that these creations have subsequently helped to launch new visual entertainments, including museum spectacles, blackface minstrelsy, and early film, from the colonial period through the 1940s.