Courses

This two-course sequence assumes no previous knowledge of Arabic and provides a thorough grounding in the four language skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. It starts with the alphabet and the number system and builds the four skills gradually and systematically through carefully selected and organized materials focusing on specific, concrete and familiar topics such as self identification, family, travel, food, renting an apartment, study, the weather, etc.). These topics are listed in the textbook's table of contents.  The student who successfully completes the two-course sequence will have mastered about 1000 basic words and will be able to: 1) understand and actively participate in conversations on a limited range of practical topics such as self-identification, family, school, work, the weather, travel, etc., 2) read and understand, with the help of a short list of words, passages of up to 180 words written in Arabic script, and 3) discuss orally in class and write a 50-word paragraph in Arabic.  The two-course sequence aims to take the student from the Novice to the Intermediate Mid level according to the ACTFL proficiency guidelines.

Full details for ASRC 1201 - Elementary Arabic I

In this two-course sequence learners continue to develop the four language skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing and grammar foundation through the extensive use of graded materials on a wide variety of topics.  While more attention is given to developing native-like pronunciation and to grammatical accuracy than in ARAB 1201 and ARAB 1202, the main focus of the course will be on encouraging fluency and facility in understanding the language and communicating ideas in it.  The student who successfully completes this two-course sequence will have mastered over 1500 new words and will be able to: 1) understand and actively participate in conversations related to a wide variety of topics beyond those covered in ARAB 1201 and ARAB 1202, such as the history and geography of the Arab world, food and health, sports, economic matters, the environment, politics, the Palestine problem, etc. 2) read and understand, with the help of a short list of words, passages of up to 300 words, and 3) discuss orally in class and write a 150-word paragraph in Arabic with fewer grammatical errors than in ARAB 1202.  The two-course sequence aims to take the student from the Intermediate Mid to the Advanced Mid level according to the ACTFL proficiency guidelines.

Full details for ASRC 1203 - Intermediate Arabic I

This course offers an introduction to the study of Africa, the U.S., the Caribbean and other diasporas.  This course will examine, through a range of disciplines, among them literature, history, politics, philosophy, the themes - including race/racism, the Middle Passage, sexuality, colonialism, and culture - that have dominated Africana Studies since its inception in the late-1960s. We will explore these issues in the attempt to understand how black lives have been shaped, in a historical sense; and, of course, the effects of these issues in the contemporary moment. This course seeks to introduce these themes, to investigate through one or more of the disciplines relevant to the question, and to provide a broad understanding of the themes so as to enable the kind of intellectual reflection critical to Africana Studies.

Full details for ASRC 1500 - Introduction to Africana Studies

The short story is an ideal genre through which one might gain a basic introduction to African American literature and its major themes.  The foundational contributions to the development of the antebellum era of the nineteenth century were made by both black male and female authors during the fecund black literary renaissance of the 1850s, including "The Heroic Slave" by Frederick Douglass and "The Two Offers" by Frances E.W. Harper.  We will consider short stories by Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Charles Chesnutt, John Henrik Clarke, Ernest J. Gaines, Chester Himes, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Paule Marshall, Ann Petry, Mary Elizabeth Vroman, Alice Walker, and Richard Wright.  Through weekly entries in a reading journal, the production of six papers, and periodic in-class writing exercises, students will produce an extensive portfolio of written materials over the course of the semester.

Full details for ASRC 1822 - FWS: The African American Short Story

Machiavelli's "The Prince" is not only a manual for teaching a prince how to rule, but a critique of the use of mercenaries by Italian city-states. Using Machiavelli, this course takes up the question of universal conscription as a political problem for our mament: a political problem in so far as it raises the issue of democracy, and the relationship between representation and conscription or, a volunteer army.

Full details for ASRC 1851 - FWS: The Mercenary Menace: Reading Machiavelli's Prince

In 1884 Germany took a lead role in the Berlin Conference, formalizing the 'Scramble for Africa'. Losing its colonies at the end of WWI, this interlude of German colonialism may appear brief. However, it left a long-lasting legacy for Germany's conceptions of race not least for the Nazi regime and ensuing Holocaust. The present course considers conceptions of race in modern Germany through an Africana Studies canon. Taking Aimé Césaire's theoretical framework as its starting point, the course deploys a cultural history approach to consider three main topics/eras. The first concerns questions of mapping. We examine this by reading the Berlin Conference in the context of emerging German ethnic expositions (Völkerschauen), where Theodor Michael's autobiography serves as our core cultural text. The second pertains to the re-appropriation of Germany's formal colonial past for Nazi propaganda. Here, we examine the early German colonialist, Carl Peters, whose biography featured as a central cinematographic propaganda source for Nazi Germany in 1941. Finally, we will discuss neo-colonial elements in contemporary German humanitarian politics, where we consider recruitment advertisement produced by the German army in juxtaposition with Post-Development arguments.

Full details for ASRC 1853 - FWS: Race and Colonialism in Modern Germany

The World of the Black Panthers will invite students to examine the history and legacy of the Black Panther Party. Situating the Black Panthers within the twentieth-century Black radical tradition of resistance against both local manifestations and transnational dimensions of racial capitalism, this course will critically consider how the Party addressed intersecting oppressions of race, gender, class, sexuality, and nation through its intertwined domestic operations and international engagements. In particular, this seminar will focus on the global impact of the Party in the 1960s and beyond, most clearly evidenced by Panther iconography. In addition to honing writing skills, students will have the opportunity to conduct primary-source research and develop public humanities projects.

Full details for ASRC 1854 - FWS: The World of the Black Panthers

An introductory interdisciplinary course focusing on Africa's geographical, ecological, social and demographic characteristics; indigenous institutions and values; multiple cultural heritage of Africanity, Islam, Western civilization, and emerging Asian/Chinese influence. Main historical developments and transition;  contemporary political, economic, social and cultural change with technological factor. Africa's ties with the United States (from trans-Atlantic slavery to the present). Its impact on the emerging world order and its contribution to world civilization will also be explored.

Full details for ASRC 2003 - Africa: The Continent and Its People

The central questions of philosophy are perennial and universal, but the answers that are given to them are always historical and idiomatic.  This course will introduce its enrollees to how these questions have been answered in the global African world; how they have thought about and sought to make sense of or solve some of the same philosophical problems that have remained at the core of the "Western" tradition. The readings are chosen from a global African perspective. This does not mean that we will not read any of the 'traditional' texts, but will be yielding the pride of place to much maligned and characteristically absent from the "mainstream" philosophical traditions and the ideas of people that are not normally considered worthy of study in the American academy. We wish to broaden our repertoire so that our knowledge will reflect the comparative perspectives that studying different traditions can offer while at the same time giving us access to the wisdom of peoples other than our own.

Full details for ASRC 2020 - Introduction to African Philosophy

This course is designed for students who can speak and understand a spoken Arabic dialect (Egyptian, Lebanese, Syrian, Iraqi, etc.) but have little or no knowledge of written Arabic, known as Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic, or Fusha. The focus of the course will be on developing the reading and writing skills through the use of graded, but challenging and interesting materials. As they develop their reading and writing skills, students will be learning about Arab history, society, and culture. Classroom activities will be conducted totally in Arabic. Students will not be expected or pressured to speak in Classical Arabic, but will use their own dialects for speaking purposes. However, one of the main goals of the course will be to help the development of the skills to communicate and understand Educated Spoken Arabic, a form of Arabic that is based on the spoken dialects but uses the educated vocabulary and structures of Fusha.

Full details for ASRC 2105 - Arabic for Heritage Speakers

This introductory course to the study of the Caribbean will begin with examinations of what constitutes the Caribbean and an understanding of Caribbean space.  We will then study its peoples, contact between Europeans and indigenous peoples, African enslavement and resistance, Indian indentureship and other forced migrations.  By mid semester we will identify a cross-section of leading thinkers and ideas. We will also pay attention to issues of identity, migration and the creation of the Caribbean diaspora. Constructions of tourist paradise and other stereotypes and the development of critical Caribbean institutions and national development will be discussed as we read and listen to some representative oral and written literature of the Caribbean and view some relevant film on the Caribbean. This inter-disciplinary survey provides students with a foundation for more specialized coursework on the Caribbean offered in our department.

Full details for ASRC 2212 - Caribbean Worlds

This undergraduate course introduces the formal and topical innovations that African cinema has experienced since its inception in the 1960s. Sections will explore, among others, Nollywood, sci-fi, and ideological cinema. Films include: Abderrahmane Sissako's Bamako, Mohamed Camara's Dakan, Djibril Diop Mambéty's Touki-Bouki, Cheikh Oumar Sissoko's Finzan, Anne-Laure Folly's Women with Open Eyes, Ousmane Sembène's Camp de Thiaroye, Jean-Pierre Bekolo's Quartier Mozart.

Full details for ASRC 2235 - New Visions in African Cinema

In this class, we will examine how musicians working in such genres as rock, jazz, folk, classical, soul, and experimental music responded and contributed to the major themes of the 1960s in the US: the counterculture, Vietnam, the civil rights movement, women's liberation, and the space race. We will examine written texts, recordings, and films from the period. The ability to read music is not required.

Full details for ASRC 2260 - Music of the 1960's

Most people learn about Africa through the media.  However, media critics note that coverage is disproportionately skewed toward negative stories - poverty, war and corruption. While these factors are a reality for too many people on the continent, media observers note that too often the coverage lacks context and breadth.  Furthermore, media outlets do not report positive developments even where they exist.  This course will provide some of the depth and context necessary to understand events in contemporary Africa.  The first two-thirds of the course will examine African social and economic history since the nineteenth century - Africa's integration in the international economy, the rise of new social classes, the creation of the colonial state and the post-colonial state.  Our primary examples will be drawn from  East, West and Southern Africa to highlight both the similarities and differences of their historical development.  The final third of the course will examine several contemporary issues in which scholars and journalists have attempted to address the weaknesses in general press coverage. 

Full details for ASRC 2542 - The Making of Contemporary Africa

The legacies of slavery remain all too obvious in the modern Atlantic World. From demographic imbalances to pervasive social and economic inequality, much of the recent past has involved addressing that destructive early modern heritage. This course traces the roots of slavery and race in the Atlantic World from 1400 to 1800. Through lectures, readings, and class discussion, we will examine how politics, culture, gender, and the law intersected to shape the institution of slavery and the development of conceptions of race. As an Atlantic World course, we will take a comparative perspective and ask how different imperial regimes (Spanish, Portuguese, French, and English) fostered different systems of race and slavery in the Americas. We will also ask how the law as a lived experience, gender norms, and imperial politics all worked to shape the production of racial hierarchies.

Full details for ASRC 2755 - Race and Slavery in the Early Atlantic World

Designed for the general student population, this course appeals to students who intend to work with diverse communities (for example, students with interests in medicine, law, labor, government, business, the hospitality industry, or in the fields of gender, queer, or ethnic studies), or who are from diverse backgrounds and are now navigating the university. Serving as an introduction to the critical inquiries and scholarly fields of the English department, the course uses literature, visual, digital, and popular culture, alongside literary, social, and cultural theory to consider how people from different cultures encounter and experience each other. In light of changing national and global contexts of pandemic, environmental and climate change, trade and civil wars, and growing interracial and interethnic tensions, the course examines histories of racial representations, dating to the colonial era that resonates in twenty-first century depictions of race, class, gender, and other markers of "difference".

Full details for ASRC 2770 - Representing Racial Encounters, Encountering Racial Representations

When sugar "was king," that is, when it was valued in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as we might value petroleum today, European nations went to war in order to possess the sugar producing islands in the Caribbean. Sugar production, slave labor, and the transatlantic trade that they generated were crucial for European empire building and the creation of the enormous wealth that, in comparison with earlier historical periods, rapidly revolutionized agriculture, nutrition, industry, labor, and free trade; racialized Caribbean peoples; and gave rise to transatlantic debates on freedom, abolitionism, and humanitarian philanthropy. Readings include A. Stuart, Sugar in the Blood, S. Mintz, Sweetness and Power, C.L.R. James, Black Jacobins. Films include, Gutiérrez Alea's The Last Supper and M. Kalatozov's I am Cuba.

Full details for ASRC 3010 - Sweetness: How Sugar Built the Modern World

In this two-semester sequence, learners will be introduced to authentic, unedited Arabic language materials ranging from short stories, and poems, to newspaper articles dealing with social,  political,  and cultural issues. Emphasis will be on developing fluency in oral expression through discussions of issues presented in the reading and listening selections. There will be more focus on the development of native-like pronunciation and accurate use of grammatical structures than in the previous four courses. A primary objective of the course is the development of the writing skill through free composition exercises in topics of interest to individual students.  This course starts where ARAB 2202 leaves off and continues the development of the four language skills and grammar foundation using 18 themes, some new and some introduced in previous courses but are presented here at a more challenging level.  The student who successfully completes this two-course sequence have mastered over 3000 new words and will be able, within context of the 18 new and recycled themes to: 1) understand and actively participate in conversations, 2) read and understand, with the help of a short list of words, authentic, unedited passages of up to 400 words, and 3) discuss orally in class and write a 300-word paragraph in Arabic with fewer grammatical errors than in ARAB 2202.  The two-course sequence aims to take the student from the Advanced Mid to the Superior level according to the ACTFL proficiency guidelines.

Full details for ASRC 3100 - Advanced Arabic I

This course studies the life experiences and political struggles of black women who have attained political leadership. It will study their rise to political power through an examination of the autobiographies of women from the Caribbean, the U.S., Africa and Brazil. Political figures such as Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Shirley Chisholm, Benedita da Silva will serve as some of the primary sources of analysis and discussion. Students will have the opportunity to select and follow a political leader and her challenges closely. The first half of the course will examine some of the general literature on the subject; the second half will study the women in their own words. We will attempt to have some available local political leaders visit the class.

Full details for ASRC 3206 - Black Women and Political Leadership

This course explores cultural representations of Afro-Asian intimacies and coalition in novels, songs, films, paintings, and poems. What affinities, loves and thefts, and tensions are present in cultural forms such as anime, jazz, kung fu, and K-pop? Students will consider the intersections and overlap between African and Asian diasporic cultures in global cities such as New York, Chicago, Havana, Lahore, Kingston, and Hong Kong to ask the question: when did Africa and Asia first encounter each other? This will be contextualized through a political and historical lens of the formation of a proto-Global South in the early twentieth, Afro-futurism, women of color feminisms, and Third World solidarity and internationalism. Tackling issues of race, gender, sexuality, and resistance, this seminar also reckons with the intertwined legacies of the institutions of African enslavement and Asian indenture by reading the novels of Patricia Powell and the paintings of Kehinde Wiley, for instance. Students will work in groups to produce Afro-Asia DJ visual soundtracks as part of the final project.

Full details for ASRC 3310 - Afro-Asia: Futurism and Feminism

This is an introductory course on the politics of Sub-Saharan Africa. The goal is to provide students with historical background and theoretical tools to understand present-day politics on the continent. The first part of the course will survey African political history, touching on: pre-colonial political structures, colonial experiences and legacies, nationalism and independence movements, post-independence optimism and state-building, the authoritarian turn, economic crises, and recent political and economic liberalizations. The second part of the course will examine some contemporary political and economic issues. These include: the effects of political and social identities in Africa (ethnicity, social ties, class, citizenship); the politics of poverty, war, and dysfunction; Africa in the international system; and current attempts to strengthen democracy and rule of law on the continent.

Full details for ASRC 3353 - African Politics

This course offers undergraduates a unique approach to exploring the abolition movement and the Underground Railroad in Central New York. It is an experiential course that includes visits to specific known underground stations in Ithaca as well as Harriet Tubman's residence and the William H. Seward House in Auburn, NY. It is also a community-engaged course in which students will contribute research for grant writing for two sites: the St. James AME Zion Church in Ithaca, which is a documented Underground Railroad station, and the Howland Stone Store Museum in Sherwood, NY. Readings include classic slave narratives by Frederick Douglass, Equiano, Mary Prince, and Solomon Northup and histories of the Underground Railroad by Eric Foner and Kate Clifford Larson.

Full details for ASRC 3434 - Underground Railroad Seminar

Blaxploitation films of the 1970s are remembered for their gigantic Afros, enormous guns, slammin' soundtracks, sex, drugs, nudity, and violence. Never before or since have so many African American performers been featured in starring roles. Macho male images were projected alongside strong, yet sexually submissive female ones. But how did these images affect the roles that black men and women played on and off the screen and the portrayal of the black body in contemporary society? This interdisciplinary course explores the range of ideas and methods used by critical thinkers in addressing the body in art, film, photography and the media. We will consider how the display of the black body affects how we see and interpret the world by examining the construction of beauty, fashion, hairstyles and gendered images as well as sexuality, violence, race, and hip-hop culture.

Full details for ASRC 3505 - Blaxploitation Film and Photography

This course explores the rich and diverse history of African American filmmaking.  Focusing on films written and/or directed by African Americans, this seminar traces the history of filmmaking from the silent era to the present day.  In exploring Black cultural production and creative expression, students will consider the ways in which film is used as a medium of protest, resistance, and cultural affirmation.  We will look at films through the critical lenses of race and representation in American cinema while locating our analysis within larger frameworks of Hollywood's representation of African Americans and various cultural and social movements within local and global contexts.

Full details for ASRC 3999 - Introduction to African American Cinema

Rates of chronic disease and other health conditions, including mental illness and substance use disorders, have surged over the past three decades, owing largely to structural factors associated with the fragmentation of national healthcare systems, diminished social support networks, and government subsidization of unhealthy foods and hazardous pharmaceuticals. These issues are especially amplified in ethnoracial communities: for example, Blacks and Latinos typically have higher rates of disease in comparison to their non-Black counterparts, even after adjusting for factors such as income and education level. This course investigates the complex political, economic and cultural forces which contribute to health inequities. Students will be exposed to case studies throughout various diasporas—from Harlem to Cape Town—to understand the intricate ways in which race and health interact.

Full details for ASRC 4002 - Diasporic and Indigenous Health

Considering the archipelagic turn, this course takes a transnational approach to geographies, ecologies, literatures, and cultures of island chains. How are archipelagoes understood in relations of power to the mainland? Taking up Michelle Stephens and Brian Roberts "Archipelagic American Studies" students will depart from the conventional and continental definition of the United States and center a hemispheric approach to the Americas. Students will also consider the soundscapes of island cartographies and how gender and sexuality is mapped onto the land. How do island formations provide a framework for understanding militarization, Indigenous sovereignty, creolization, extractive capitalism, and imperialism? Archival analysis as well as experimentation with digital cartography and DJ'ing tools to produce original research theorizing islands will be part of the final project.

Full details for ASRC 4123 - Archipelagoes: Cartographies of Race, Sound, and Sexuality

Black women first began to shape the genre of autobiography during antebellum era slavery. They were prolific in developing the genre of autobiography throughout the twentieth century, to the point of emerging as serial autobiographers in the case of Maya Angelou. Significantly, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings(1970), the first autobiography of six by Angelou, along with autobiographies by a range of other black women writers, helped to launch the renaissance in black women's literature and criticism in African American literature during the 1970s. In this course, we will focus on how black women have continued to write and share their personal stories in the new millennium by examining autobiographies that they have produced in the first years of the twenty-first century. More broadly, we will consider the impact of this writing on twenty-first century African American literature, as well as African diasporan writing in Africa and the Caribbean. In the process, we will draw on a range of critical and theoretical perspectives.  We will read memoirs and autobiographies by a range of figures, including Michelle Obama, Jennifer Lewis, Monica Coleman, Serena Williams, Gabrielle Union, and Tiffany Haddish, among others. 

Full details for ASRC 4212 - Black Women's Autobiography in the 21st Century WritingHerStory

Using film, legal history, memoir, sociology and social history, this research-based seminar will focus on the historical and contemporary state of education in both the production and amelioration of social inequality.

Full details for ASRC 4301 - A Dilemma Revisited: African Americans, Inequality and K-16 Education in America

This seminar examines the dynamics of modern collective identities which dominated the Egyptian public sphere in the long twentieth century. We will explore the underpinnings and formation of territorial Egyptian nationalism, pan-Arabism and Islamism through close readings and class discussions of important theoretical, historiographical and primary texts.

Full details for ASRC 4650 - Contesting Identities in Modern Egypt

This course takes up literatures and arts of Black speculation in the broadest terms, from science fiction and fantasy to Afrofuturism and Afropunk to Phillis Wheatley's and Outkast's poetics. We'll give special attention to speculation in African American literature to think through how Black people used art in the midst of anti-blackness to imagine worlds otherwise and for the pleasure of the craft. We'll read Black speculation through multiple forms, including novels, graphic novels, film, and music. Figures for consideration include William J. Wilson ("Ethiop), Pauline Hopkins, Frances E. W. Harper, W. E. B. Du Bois, Octavia Butler, Ryan Coogler, Eve Ewing, N.K. Jemisin, Sun Ra, and Erykah Badu.

Full details for ASRC 4655 - Black Speculative Fiction

Therapeutic knowledge and practice in Africa have changed dynamically over the past century. Yet, questions about healing continue to be questions about the intimate ways that power works on bodies. Accounts of healing and medicine on the continent describe ongoing struggles over what counts as knowledge and who has the authority to intervene in social and physical threats. This class will discuss the expansion of biomedicine in Africa, the continuities and changes embodied in traditional medicine, and the shifting relationship between medicine, science and law. Our readings with trace how colonialism, post-independence nationalism, international development, environmental change and globalization have shaped the experience of illness, debility and misfortune today, as well as the possibilities for life, the context of care, and the meaning of death.

Full details for ASRC 4682 - Medicine and Healing in Africa

How should anti-racist people respond to the new racialized white identities that have emerged recently in Europe and the United States? What alternative conceptions of whiteness are available? How can we form cross-racial progressive coalitions? How should we understand the nature of our social identities and what they make possible? This course is a wide-ranging introduction to these questions with readings drawn from social and cultural theory, as well as literature and film. Films include Get Out and I Am Not Your Negro, as well as such Hollywood classics as Imitation of Life. Texts by such writers as James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Danzy Senna and Dorothy Allison, as well as relevant anthropological and social-theoretical work (Strangers in Their Own Land, Whiteness of a Different Color) and memoirs of anti-racist activists. A central text will be the recent book The Future of Whiteness by the Latina feminist scholar Linda Martin Alcoff.

Full details for ASRC 4733 - The Future of Whiteness

For senior Africana Studies majors working on honors theses, with selected reading, research projects, etc., under the supervision of a member of the Africana Studies and Research Center faculty.

Full details for ASRC 4900 - Honors Thesis

For students working on special topics, with selected reading, research projects, etc., under the supervision of a member of the Africana Studies and Research Center faculty.

Full details for ASRC 4902 - Independent Study

Full details for ASRC 6213 - Black Women's Autobiography in the 21st Century WritingHerStory

This course studies the life experiences and political struggles of black women who have attained political leadership. It will study their rise to political power through an examination of the autobiographies of women from the Caribbean, the U.S., Africa and Brazil. Political figures such as Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Shirley Chisholm, Benedita da Silva will serve as some of the primary sources of analysis and discussion. Students will have the opportunity to select and follow a political leader and her challenges closely. The first half of the course will examine some of the general literature on the subject; the second half will study the women in their own words. We will attempt to have some available local political leaders visit the class.

Full details for ASRC 6326 - Black Women and Political Leadership

Full details for ASRC 6610 - Afro-Asia: Futurism and Feminisms

Independent study course in topics not covered in regularly scheduled courses. Students select a topic in consultation with the faculty member who has agreed to supervise the course work.

Full details for ASRC 6900 - Independent Study

This class is the first in a two-part course sequence offered in the fall and spring semesters annually. In this hybrid theory and methods course, students will read historiographic, ethnographic, and sociological engagements about African-descended people throughout the Diaspora.

Full details for ASRC 6902 - Africana Studies Graduate Seminar

Healing and medicine are simultaneously individual and political, biological and cultural. In this class, we will study the expansion of biomedicine in Africa, the continuities and changes embodied in traditional medicine, and the relationship between medicine, science and law. We will explore the questions African therapeutics poses about the intimate ways that power works on and through bodies. Our readings will frame current debates around colonial and postcolonial forms of governance through medicine, the contradictions of humanitarianism and the health crisis in Africa, and the rise of new forms of therapeutic citizenship. We will examine the ways in which Africa is central to the biopolitics of the contemporary global order.

Full details for ASRC 7682 - Medicine and Healing in Africa

Provides an introduction to the Swahili language and culture. In this course, students engage in short conversations and communicative tasks in interpretive, interpersonal, and presentational modes on diverse topics such as family, communication and interactions, daily routines, shopping, asking for and giving directions, food, transportation, mood expressions and cultural sensitivity, etc. Students are also given tasks to help them develop knowledge of cultural aspects and language situations that are likely to be encountered in daily life interactions while in any Swahili speaking country. No prior knowledge of the language is required. Literature and cultural competence materials are incorporated into the course, along with audio-visual and web-based materials. By the end of this course students should be able at to reach proficiency level Novice Mid According to the American Council of on the Teaching of Foreign Language (ACTFL) www.actfl.org

Full details for SWAHL 1100 - Elementary Swahili I

Intermediate Swahili levels I and II in general impart speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills beyond Swahili elementary level to participate with ease and confidence in familiar topics and exchange information on unfamiliar topics. Students are assigned communicative tasks such as respond to a situation with a short text and take part in a discussion after viewing short video clips and prompts to elicit speaking and listening competence and cultural awareness responses beyond elementary level. The language and cultural scenarios practiced are designed to help students demonstrate language responses beyond familiar topics, and to feel comfortable conversing with Swahili native speakers, as well as to blend in and feel welcomed as part of the community while exploring different topics such as acquaintanceship, relationships, health, festivals, education, sports, housing, politics, commerce, travel, etc. Short stories are used to depict cultural aspects such as cultural expressions, proverbs, sayings, and riddles. Literature and cultural materials are incorporated into the course, along with audio-visual and web-based material. In this course, students have an opportunity to participate in language conversation outside the classroom and explore the opportunities for study abroad in East Africa. Swahili Elementary I and II are prerequisite for this course. By the end of this course, students should be able to reach proficiency level Intermediate High according to the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) www.actfl.org.

Full details for SWAHL 2101 - Intermediate Swahili I

Develops advanced speaking, reading, and writing skills with longer texts, films, advanced readings, and advanced oral discussion encompassing various topics. Examples of texts and films are; movies, novels, plays, poems, newspaper articles, essays, and speeches. Students will be prepared to narrate and describe events in a longer time frame. Students will also review and practice grammatical aspects and cultural expressions that pose challenges to non-native speakers when trying to comprehend native speakers. The course requires students to engage in small research projects during the course of study based on the student's areas of interest. During the course of study, students will have an opportunity to participate in language conversation outside the classroom and to engage in language conversational exchange with the students from the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.

Full details for SWAHL 3103 - Advanced Swahili I

Wolof is an African language. It is widely spoken in West Africa in countries such as Senegal, The Gambia and Mauritania. Wolof is the most widely spoken language in Senegal.  There are strong historical and contemporary links between the African American experiences and West Africa. Senegal and Wolof are important links in these experiences.  Wolof has some influence on some West European languages. Banana is a Wolof word and it is also an English word! Study Wolof, Know Africa and Know the world!

Full details for WOLOF 1117 - Elementary Wolof I

Wolof is an African language. It is widely spoken in West Africa in countries such as Senegal, The Gambia and Mauritania. Wolof is the most widely spoken language in Senegal.  There are strong historical and contemporary links between the African American experiences and West Africa. Senegal and Wolof are important links in these experiences.  Wolof has some influence on some West European languages. Banana is a Wolof word and it is also an English word! Study Wolof, Know Africa and Know the world!

Full details for WOLOF 2118 - Intermediate Wolof I

Full details for WOLOF 3113 - Advanced Wolof I

A two-semester beginner's course in Yoruba Language and Culture. Organized to offer Yoruba language skills and proficiency in speaking, reading, listening, writing, and translation. Focus is placed on familiar informal and formal contexts, e.g., home, school, work, family, social situations, politics, etc. Course uses Yoruba oral literature, proverbs, rhetoric, songs, popular videos, and theater, as learning tools for class comprehension. First semester focuses on conversation, speaking, and listening.  Second semester focuses on writing, translation and grammatical formation. Through the language course students gain basic background for the study of an African culture, arts, and history both in the continent and in the diaspora. Yoruba language is widely spoken along the west coast of Africa and in some African communities in diaspora.  Yoruba video culture, theater, music, and arts has a strong influence along the west coast and in the diaspora.A two-semester beginner's course in Yoruba Language and Culture. Organized to offer Yoruba language skills and proficiency in speaking, reading, listening, writing, and translation. Focus is placed on familiar informal and formal contexts, e.g., home, school, work, family, social situations, politics, etc. Course uses Yoruba oral literature, proverbs, rhetoric, songs, popular videos, and theater, as learning tools for class comprehension. First semester focuses on conversation, speaking, and listening.  Second semester focuses on writing, translation and grammatical formation. Through the language course students gain basic background for the study of an African culture, arts, and history both in the continent and in the diaspora. Yoruba language is widely spoken along the west coast of Africa and in some African communities in diaspora.  Yoruba video culture, theater, music, and arts has a strong influence along the west coast and in the diaspora.

Full details for YORUB 1108 - Introduction to Yoruba I

The intermediate course extends the development of the main language skills-reading, writing, listening, and conversation. The course deepens the development of correct native pronunciation, the accuracy of grammatical and syntactic structures; and the idiomatic nuances of the language. Students who take the course are able to (1) prepare, illustrate, and present Yoruba texts such as poems, folktales, advertisements, compositions, letters, (2) read Yoruba literature of average complexity, (3) interpret Yoruba visual texts of average difficulty, (4) comprehend Yoruba oral literature and philosophy-within the context of African oral literature and philosophy-of basic complexity. Through the Yoruba language students appreciate African oral literature and philosophy. The primary textual media are Yoruba short stories, poems, short plays, films, songs, and newspapers.

Full details for YORUB 2110 - Intermediate Yoruba I

This course will help students expand their understanding of the Yoruba language through the communicative approach. We will focus on the four skills, speaking, listening, learning, and writing.

Full details for YORUB 3110 - Advanced Yoruba I

IsiZulu is the most widely spoken language in the Southern African region and it is an official language of South Africa. This two-semester beginners' course emphasizes speaking and listening, and trains students to communicate in everyday situations.  In acquiring this competence, students are introduced to the structure of the language and to the significant status of Zulu language and culture in contemporary multilingual South Africa.  The course is structured around IsiZulu Sanamuhla, a set of web-based learning materials that features Zulu-speaking students and families in South Africa.

Full details for ZULU 1113 - Elementary Zulu I

The course is structured around IsiZulu Sanamuhla, a set of web-based learning materials that features Zulu-speaking students and families in South Africa.

Full details for ZULU 2116 - Intermediate Zulu I

The course is structured around IsiZulu Sanamuhla, a set of web-based learning materials that features Zulu-speaking students and families in South Africa.

Full details for ZULU 3113 - Advanced Zulu I