Courses

Courses by semester

Courses for

Complete Cornell University course descriptions are in the Courses of Study .

Course ID Title Offered
ASRC1201 Elementary Arabic I
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

Fall, Summer.
ASRC1203 Intermediate 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

Fall.
ASRC1500 Introduction to Africana Studies
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

Fall, Spring.
ASRC1595 African American History From 1865
Focusing on political and social history, this course surveys African-American history from Emancipation to the present. The class examines the post-Reconstruction "Nadir" of black life; the mass black insurgency against structural racism before and after World War II; and the Post-Reform Age that arose in the wake of the dismantling of legal segregation. The course will familiarize students with the basic themes of African-American life and experience and equip them to grasp concepts of political economy; class formation; and the intersection of race, class and gender.

Full details for ASRC 1595 - African American History From 1865

Fall.
ASRC1816 FWS: Writing Black Life Experience and Black Lives
An examination of selected works by Zora Neale Hurston which allows the students to study this writer and simultaneously address issues of self-invention, creativity, the imagination and the writing of black lives. Framed within the genre of life writing, we will pay attention to how Hurston experienced and represented life as an African American woman in the U.S. South, the North during the Harlem Renaissance and in the African Diaspora. We will read and respond to a selection of works by Hurston in different genres – the essay, short story, folk tale, novel, life story (or autobiography). We will explore various approaches to writing through which students will work and develop writing skills in critical areas.

Full details for ASRC 1816 - FWS: Writing Black Life Experience and Black Lives

Fall.
ASRC2003 Africa: The Continent and Its People
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

Fall.
ASRC2543 In the Crossfire of Empires: Africa and World War II
World War II was one of the most transformative periods in the history of the 20th century. As a result, scholars, writers and filmmakers continue to re-examine the war from multiple angles. Nonetheless, most accounts of the war marginalize Africa's role and the consequences of the war for African communities.   This course considers the new historiography on World War II that aims to put the 'world' back into our analysis of WW II and considers the ways in which imperialism, race and gender shaped the prosecution and the consequences of the war.  It focuses specifically on Africa's social, economic and political engagement with the powers at the center of the conflict and introduces students to emerging debates in African historiography and the historiography of World War II. 

Full details for ASRC 2543 - In the Crossfire of Empires: Africa and World War II

Fall.
ASRC2650 Introduction to African American Literature
This course will introduce students to African American literary traditions in the space that would become North America. From early freedom narratives and poetry to Hip-Hop and film, we will trace a range of artistic conventions and cultural movements while paying close attention to broader historical shifts in American life over the past three centuries. We'll read broadly: poetry, fiction, speculative fiction, newspapers, and the like. We will ask: How do authors create, define, and even exceed a tradition? What are some of the recurring themes and motifs within this tradition? Authors may include: Phillis Wheatley, David Walker, Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, W.E.B. DuBois, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, Octavia Butler, Toni Morrison, and Eve Ewing.

Full details for ASRC 2650 - Introduction to African American Literature

Fall.
ASRC3010 Sweetness: How Sugar Built the Modern World
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

Fall.
ASRC3100 Advanced Arabic I
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

Fall.
ASRC3333 Ethics and Society: Aid and Its Consequences
The course looks at the connection between ethics and society.  It does so by focusing on the issues raised by the phenomenon of aid, giving or receiving it, and how we understand and react to it.  We seek to make sense of aid and its place In society.  We explore the ethics of aid from the point of view of philosophy.  We move to working through the implications of aid for (1) the giver; (2) the receiver; (3) the society, local and global; (4) the relations between individuals in a given society with respect to aid and; (5) relations between one society and its members and another society when they engage in aid-related activities.

Full details for ASRC 3333 - Ethics and Society: Aid and Its Consequences

Fall.
ASRC3434 Underground Railroad Seminar
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

Fall.
ASRC3570 Colonized and Colonizer: African and European Writers in Conversation
If the lion would tell its story, it would be vastly different from that told from the hunter's perspective. In this course, we will read texts where European and African authors have been in direct conversation, with the hope of developing a deeper understanding of how both the colonizer and colonized understood colonization and resistance – and the contradictions inherent in each. Looking at pairs of writers, such as Mannoni and Fanon, and Achebe and Conrad, we shall try to paint a picture that engages the voices and vulnerabilities of both lion and hunter.

Full details for ASRC 3570 - Colonized and Colonizer: African and European Writers in Conversation

Fall.
ASRC3999 Introduction to African American Cinema
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

Fall.
ASRC4002 Diasporic and Indigenous Health
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

Fall, Spring.
ASRC4509 Toni Morrison's Novels
In this course, we will engage in close and reflective critical readings of Toni Morrison's eleven novels. Morrison's writing style is characterized by highly distinctive strategies in the development of narrative and in the use of language. As we journey across her body of work as readers, we will examine a range of recurring themes, along with the "love trilogy" on which she focused her repertoire for several years. The course, through a comprehensive, chronological and focused look at Morrison's body of novels, will help students who entirely lack familiarity with it to gain a strong foundation for further research and study. By the end of the course, even students who already know Morrison's work will walk away with a deeper and more nuanced understanding of it. The course will help students to reinforce their skills in reading fiction, and more astute and exacting readers of the novel as a genre.

Full details for ASRC 4509 - Toni Morrison's Novels

Fall.
ASRC4560 The Politics and Joy in Black Women's Writing
This course will look at how Black women writers negotiated enslavement, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow era segregation while also managing to find avenues of joy, escapism, and a certain kind of freedom through art-making. In addition to reading primary texts by Phillis Wheatley, Hannah Bond, Jessie Redmon Fauset, and others we will also look at critical and theoretical work by Toni Morrison, Saidiyah Hartman, Barbara Fields, and Karen Fields.

Full details for ASRC 4560 - The Politics and Joy in Black Women's Writing

Fall.
ASRC4900 Honors Thesis
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

Fall.
ASRC4902 Independent Study
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

Fall.
ASRC6003 Doing Research With Marginalized Populations
This course covers the basic epistemology for social sciences research, integrating an explicit focus on applied mixed methods approaches (quantitative and qualitative) for conducting original "real world" research on humans. While these cognates will be approached theoretically, the course's concentration will be on the praxis of quantifying and contextualizing the experiences, attitudes, and outcomes of historically marginalized and "hidden" populations, including people who are Black, Latinx and indigenous, LGBTQ+,  and individuals with a mental illness or substance use disorder, with an intersectional lens. While not offering an exhaustive review of individual quantitative and qualitative methodologies, students will learn the fundamentals of curating a research framework on marginalized and hidden populations, engaging and recruiting people into their studies, collecting and analyzing data, and disseminating research findings.

Full details for ASRC 6003 - Doing Research With Marginalized Populations

Fall, Spring.
ASRC6015 The Politics of Care in African Literature
Confined to the figure of the "care-giver," the concept of care has long been seen as apolitical.  This course explores African aesthetic works in the light of recent debates that have taken "care" seriously as an ethical, philosophical, and political category, one with the potential to disrupt conventions conceptions of the modern political subject.  In addition to being deeply entangled with questions of race, gender, and class.  African works by Traore, N'Diaye, and others, are examined through a host of different philosophical lenses, from the bioethical concerns with reproductive rights and the issue of abortion (Gilligan; Butler), to the tradition of "cura" which extends from Seneca to Kierkegaard, to the centrality of care in articulating an "embodied citizenship" (Fleury; ubuntu).

Full details for ASRC 6015 - The Politics of Care in African Literature

Fall.
ASRC6132 Mobility, Circulation, Migration, Diaspora: Global Connections
This graduate seminar seeks to familiarize students with some of the most recent takes on transnational history that have emphasized the experiences of individuals and groups whose lives were affected by mobility across political boundaries. An explicit aim of the seminar is to use these border-crossing lives as a way to develop a critique of conventional areas studies frameworks and to explore the possibilities of imagining (geographically and otherwise) a different world (or multiple different ways of organizing global space). Since most of the readings will concentrate on the pre-nineteenth century world, the seminar will also offer students tools to rethink conventional narratives of the rise of a globalized world that tend to emphasize the second half of the nineteenth century as the birth of the global world. Globalization, this course will demonstrate, was happening long before most accepted narratives assert.

Full details for ASRC 6132 - Mobility, Circulation, Migration, Diaspora: Global Connections

Fall.
ASRC6212 Michel Foucault: Sovereignty to BioPolitics
This course will explore the ways in which Michel Foucault's oeuvre transitions from a concern with sovereignty to a preoccupation with biopolitics. Foucault's early work (one understands that there is no absolute Foucaultian division into "sovereignty" and "biopolitics"), such as "Madness and Civilization," attends to the structure, the construction and the force of the institution – the birth of asylum, the prison, while his later career takes up the question of, for want of a better term, "political efficiency." That is, Foucault offers a critique of sovereignty insofar as sovereignty is inefficient (neither the sovereign nor sovereign power can be everywhere; certainly not everywhere it needs or wants to be; ubiquity is impossible, even/especially for a project such as sovereignty) while biopower is not. Biopower marks this recognition; in place of sovereignty biopower "devolves" to the individual subject the right, always an intensely political phenomenon, to make decisions about everyday decisions – decisions about health, sexuality, "lifestyle." In tracing the foucaultian trajectory from sovereignty to biopower we will read the major foucaultian texts – "Madness and Civilization," "Birth of the Prison," "History of Sexuality" as well as the various seminars where Foucault works out important issues.

Full details for ASRC 6212 - Michel Foucault: Sovereignty to BioPolitics

Fall.
ASRC6321 Black Power Movement and Transnationalism
This seminar explores the international and transnational dimensions of the Black Power Movement, broadly defined. Beginning with an examination of transnationalism in the early 20th century, it examines the thought and political activities of African-American intellectuals and activists who crossed national boundaries, figuratively and literally, in the quest for black freedom. We will focus on the postwar era, particularly the 1950s through the 1980s, exploring transnationalism in the context of black feminism, Marxism, black nationalism, Pan Africanism, and other political traditions. We will examine the meeting and mingling of transnational discourses, ideologies, and activists in North America, the Caribbean, and Africa. 

Full details for ASRC 6321 - Black Power Movement and Transnationalism

Fall.
ASRC6380 Design Justice Workshop
Design Justice Workshops bring students and faculty in the humanities and the design disciplines together around a common and pressing urban issue related to race, social justice, and the urban environment. The intent of the Design Justice Workshop is to study complex urban conditions using theoretical and analytic tools derived in equal part from the design disciplines and humanist studies. The course emphasizes the social reciprocity of learning through faculty and students might advance understanding of race and social justice while also being impacted by both external visitors and the communities with which they interact. The Design Justice Workshop, organized annually around a specific theme and co-taught faculty in A&S and AAP, includes a one-week site visit to experience the conditions under study and meet with local experts, designers, and authorities. Design Justice Workshops are offered under the auspices of Cornell University's Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Collaborative Studies in Architecture, Urbanism, and the Humanities grant. Visit our website for current special topic seminar description and application instructions.

Full details for ASRC 6380 - Design Justice Workshop

ASRC6511 The African Diaspora: Theories and Texts
Theories and texts of the African Diaspora have become critically important in intellectual, media and popular communities. Among them, Sylvia Wynter is today considered to be one of the leading theorists of the Black experience. As this applies in general to African Diaspora Studies, her work has "revitalized philosophical debates across Black Studies, critical ethnic studies, postcolonial criticism and black feminist theory around both the historical project of decolonization and the ontological status of blackness in the modern world." (Cunningham, 119). This semester's course in African Diaspora Texts and Theories will study all the available works of Wynter (early and late essays, novel, plays, interviews) in relation to a selection of the writers of the Caribbean and larger Black radical intellectual tradition with whom she is in conversation. We will also examine some of the critical responses emanating from her work as well as some of the recently uncovered texts like "Black Metamorphosis."

Full details for ASRC 6511 - The African Diaspora: Theories and Texts

Fall.
ASRC6513 Toni Morrison's Novels
Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison received her M.A. in English at Cornell University in 1955.  To study her, in a way, is to gain a deeper understanding of how she journeyed on from her days as a student here to become one of the world's greatest writers, how she has helped to transform world literature, and how she has shaped Cornell's great legacy through the phenomenal one that she has built.  In this course, we will engage in close and reflective critical readings of Toni Morrison's eleven novels.  Morrison's writing style is characterized by highly distinctive strategies in the development of narrative and in the use of language.  As we journey across her body of work as readers, we will examine a range of recurring themes, along with the "love trilogy" on which she focused her repertoire for several years.  The course, through a comprehensive, chronological and focused look at Morrison's body of novels, will help students who entirely lack familiarity with it to gain a strong foundation for further research and study.  By the end of the course, even students who already know Morrison's work will walk away with a deeper and more nuanced critical understanding of it.  The course will help students to reinforce their skills in reading fiction, and help them to become more astute and exacting readers of the novel as a genre.  Morrison's novels have placed her at the vanguard of the globalization of the novel itself, and she is, undisputedly, one the most famous and innovative writers in the world.  Moreover, her thinking is so original and pivotal that her fiction and critical works are absolutely indispensable for all serious students and scholars in fields such as American literature.  Its impact on African American literature is equally vital.  We will focus on reading the repertoire of novels by Morrison, including The Bluest Eye, Sula (1973), Song of Solomon (1977), Tar Baby (1981), Beloved (1987), Jazz (1992), Paradise (1998), Love (2003), A Mercy (2008) Home (2012), and God Help the Child (2014).  We will screen selected scenes from the 1998 film adaptation of her novel Beloved, along with the documentary on Morrison, The Pieces I Am (2019).  

Full details for ASRC 6513 - Toni Morrison's Novels

Fall.
ASRC6900 Independent Study
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

Fall.
ASRC6902 Africana Studies Graduate Seminar
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

Fall.
SWAHL1100 Elementary Swahili I
Elementary Swahili provides a foundation in listening, speaking, reading, and writing the basic grammatical structures and vocabulary. No prior knowledge of the language is required. Swahili (Kiswahili) is spoken in the East and Central parts of Africa. It is an official and national language in Tanzania, and in Kenya. During a first semester course, students engage in short conversation and communicative tasks, such as, greetings, introduction, daily routines, shopping, etc. Students learn to comprehend short and simple utterances about topics pertaining to basic personal information and immediate setting in day to day life. A Swahili second semester increases your oral fluency, grammar, vocabulary, writing, reading, and listening skills. All listening exercises will aim at preparing students to speak. Be ready to actively participate in conversations, to express yourself orally, and write stories/compositions. Literature and Cultural materials are incorporated into the course, along with audio, video, and web-based materials.

Full details for SWAHL 1100 - Elementary Swahili I

Fall.
SWAHL2101 Intermediate 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

Fall.
WOLOF1117 Elementary Wolof I
This course is a basic introduction to the Wolof language. It aims to build students' basic understanding of the sentence structure of the language. It combines written and oral practice based on major cultural aspects of traditional and modern Wolof society. These exercises will include production, listening comprehension, reading comprehension, and writing.

Full details for WOLOF 1117 - Elementary Wolof I

Fall.
WOLOF2118 Intermediate Wolof I
This course will further your awareness and understanding of the Wolof language and culture, as well as improve your mastery of grammar, writing skills, and oral skills. Course materials will incorporate various types of text including tales, cartoons, as well as multimedia such as films, videos, and audio recordings.

Full details for WOLOF 2118 - Intermediate Wolof I

Fall.
WOLOF3113 Advanced Wolof I
YORUB1108 Introduction to Yoruba 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

Fall.
YORUB2110 Intermediate 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

Fall.
YORUB3110 Advanced 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

Fall.
ZULU1113 Elementary Zulu I
A beginning course in conversational isiZulu, using Web-based materials filmed in South Africa. Emphasis on the sounds of the language, including clicks and tonal variation, and on the words and structures needed for initial social interaction. Brief dialogues concern everyday activities; aspects of contemporary Zulu culture are introduced through readings and documentaries in English.

Full details for ZULU 1113 - Elementary Zulu I

Fall.
ZULU2116 Intermediate Zulu I
Development of fluency in speaking, listening, reading, and writing, using Web-based materials filmed in South Africa. Students describe and narrate spoken and written paragraphs. Review of morphology; concentration on tense and aspect. Materials are drawn from contemporary popular culture, folklore, and mass media.

Full details for ZULU 2116 - Intermediate Zulu I

Fall.
ZULU3113 Advanced Zulu I
Development of fluency in using idioms, speaking about abstract concepts, and voicing preferences and opinions. Excerpts from oral genres, short stories, and television dramas. Introduction to other South African languages and to issues of standardization, dialect, and language attitude.

Full details for ZULU 3113 - Advanced Zulu I

Fall.
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