ARTH 223
Egyptian Art. Pittman
Survey of the art of Ancient Egypt from the Predynastic Period through the New
Kingdom. Emphasis on major monuments of architecture, sculpture, relief and
painting; questions stylistic change and historical context.
Asian & Middle
Eastern Studies:
- AMES 060
- Word and Image: The Unity of Art and Writing in Ancient Egypt.
Silverman.
Fulfills General Requirement: History & Tradition. Freshman
Seminar.
The course will introduce the student to the mind of ancient man through
the achievements of the ancient cultures of Egypt and the Near East.
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- AMES 062
- Land of the Pharaohs. Silverman.
This course provides an introduction to the society, culture and history
of ancient Egypt. The objective of the course is to provide an
understanding of the characteristics of the civilization of ancient Egypt
and how that ancient society succeeded as one of the most successful and
long-lived civilizations in world history.
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- AMES 166 (AMES 468, RELS 114)
- The Religion of Ancient Egypt. Silverman.
Fulfills Distribution Requirement: History & Tradition.
The multifaceted approach to the subject matter covers such topics as
funerary literature and religion, cults, magic, religious art and architecture,
and the religion of daily life.
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- AMES 266
- History of Ancient Egypt. Wegner.
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- Egyptian Artifacts. Staff.
Detailed typological and chronological discussion of principal kinds of
ancient Egyptian artifacts.
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- AMES 466
- History of Ancient Egypt. Wegner
Fulfills Distribution Requirement: History & Tradition.
Review and discussion of the principal aspects of ancient Egyptian
history, 3000-500 BC.
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- AFST 467 (AMES 467)
- Introduction to Egyptian Culture and Archaeology. Redford.
Fulfills Distribution Requirement: History & Tradition.
Principal aspects of ancient Egyptian culture (environment, urbanism,
religion, technology, etc.) with special focus on archaeological
data; includes study of University Museum artifacts.
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- AMES 468
- Religion in Ancient Egypt. Wegner.
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- AFST 547 (AMES 547)
- Egypt & Canaan During the Bronze Age. Staff.
Fulfills Distribution Requirement: History & Tradition.
Selected chapters in the history of cultural and economic
interconnections between Egypt and Asia in the third and second millennia
B.C.E.
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- AMES 569
- Problems in Ancient Egyptian History. Staff.
Fulfills Distribution Requirement: History & Tradition.
In-depth analysis of specific historical issues and topics. Reading
knowledge in French and German is required.
Demography:
- DEMG 621
- Mortality
- DEMG 622
- Fertility
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- AFST 777 (DEMG 777, SOCI 777)
- Special Topics in African Demography. McDaniel or Van de
Walle.
This course will focus on three different debates in African demography:
issues and controversies in African Historical demography, family
structure and fertility, and mortality.
English:
- AFST 283 (ENGL 280, AFAM 283)
- Anglophone African Literature. Staff.
Fulfills Distribution Requirement: Arts & Letters.
A study of a variety of African narrative traditions in a historical
setting. Texts to be studied include autobiographies, novels and various
oral narrative genres.
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- ENGL 572 (AFAM 572, AFST 572, COML 575)
- South African Literature. Barnard.
This course is concerned with the context, and an aspect of the content and form, of African
literature. It is based on a selection of representative texts written in English, as well as a few
texts in English translation. It involves, first, a study of themes relating to social change and the
persistence of cultural traditions, followed by an attempt at sketching the emergence of literary
tradition by identifying some of the formal conventions established by the writers in their use of
old forms and experiments with new.
Folklore:
- AFST 455 (AFAM 455, FOLK 455)
- African Folklore. Ben-Amos.
A survey of the folklore of sub-Saharan African peoples; their myths,
epics, tales, proverbs, riddles, and songs, examined both for their use
and function in particular cultural contexts and for their literary quality.
History:
- AFST 075 (AFAM 075, HIST 075)
- Africa to 1800. Cassanelli.
Fulfills General Requirement: History & Tradition.
Early civilizations, population movements, states and kingdoms, religions
and cultures, the spread of Islam, and the era of the slave trade.
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- AFST 076 (AFAM 076, HIST 076)
- Africa Since 1800. Cole.
Fulfills General Requirement: History & Tradition.
This course will survey major themes, events, and personalities in African
history from the early nineteenth century through the 1960's. Topics
include abolition of the slave trade, European imperialism, impact of
colonial rule, African resistance, religious and cultural movements, rise
of nationalism and pan-Africanism, issues of ethnicity and "tribalism" in
modern Africa.
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- HIST 206
- Britain's African Empire. Reese.
Fulfills Distribution Requirement: History & Tradition.
From the middle of the nineteenth century until the 1960s
Great Britain ruled over an African empire many times larger than
the United Kingdom itself. This seminar will examine British
colonial rule from its inception through decolonization. Using case
studies of specific colonies, including South Africa, Kenya, and
Nigeria we will explore the mechanics of rule, colonial ideology
and the emergence of non-African communities such as white settlers
and South Asian immigrants and the, often distructive, impact of
these factors on African societies. The image of Africa and
Africans at 'home' in the metropole as an instrument for justifying
colonial expansion will also be considered, as well as African
resistance to British rule including the Zulu wars of the 1870s in
South Africa, the Kenyan Mau Mau rebellion of the 1950s and the
South African anti-apartheid movement. Finally, the seminar will
consider the process of official decolonization and the legacy of
neo-colonialism left in its wake.
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- HIST 487
- Religious Imagination in Colonial Africa in the 19th and 20th Century.
Staff.
Fulfills Distribution Requirement: History & Tradition.
This seminar will draw our attention to some of the conceptual problems
that have recently surfaced in the social history of popular
religions in colonial Africa.
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- HIST 507 (AFAM 507)
- Modern African History. Cassanelli.
Fulfills Distribution Requirement: History & Tradition.
Selected topics in African history from the colonial occupation to
independence. Emphasis on varieties of economic, religious, and cultural
nationalism. Some knowledge of African history desirable.
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- HIST 630 (AFST 630)
- African History: Core Issues of Social Process. Feierman.
This graduate seminar explores the literature of African history while
trying to find ways to understand history which happens on unfamiliar
social and cultural terrain. A tentative list of topics includes
the following: Oral tradition; knowledge and identity; Ecology and
ethnicity; forms of local authority and state power; ritual, conquest,
and the transformation of political authority; political economy, gender
and personal dependency; the ecological history of disease; popular
associations and the state; the local bases of nationalism.
History &
Sociology of
Science:
- AFST 325 (HSSC 305)
- Health & Healing in Africa. Feierman.
This course is a history of health and healing from the mid-nineteenth
century (just before European colonial conquest) until today. No
background in African history is necessary. We study health, disease and
healing in the context of social and economic change. The course covers
not only the spread of biomedicine, but also the history of "traditional"
healers and of healing within African religious movements. Disease and
malnutrition are also studied in a wide context, including in work,
family, and farming.
Linguistics:
- LING 202 (LING 502)
- Introduction to Field Linguistics. Liberman.
Prerequisite: LING 520, LING 530 or permission of instructor.
Instruction and practice in primary linguistic research, combining study
of reference materials and work with native-speaker informants.
View on-line Syllabus
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- LING 240
- The Structure of Language
(Bantu). Downing.
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- LING 502 (LING 202)
- Introduction to Field Linguistics. Liberman.
Prerequisites: LING 520, LING 530, or permission of instructor.
Instruction and practice in primary linguistic research, combining study
of reference materials and work with native-speaker informants. The emphasis
will be on quickly building a grammatical sketch and a lexicon adequate
to support further research. Each student will do a term project
investigating some phenomenon of general interest.
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- LING 652
- Current Trends in Syntactic Theory - Bantu Languages. Zaenen
Prerequisite: LING 550 (Syntax I), or permission of instructor.
This course will review the existing literature on Bantu syntax, focusing
on problems of valency alternations, agreement and concord, and other
issues.
Music:
- AFST 210 (MUSC 210, AFAM 211)
- African Music and Dance. Botwe-Asamoah.
An introductory course that explores the unity of diversity manifested
by language, music and dance in the life of African people. Dance and
music as a dimension of life, the role of dance in the community, and the
concept of music and dance as play will be explored. Fundamentals of
African music and dance: theory, technique, selected body movements,
performance organization, vocal and instrumental resources (theory),
African vocal styles and characteristics of African rhythm through
regulative beat will be taught.
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- AFST 403 (MUSC 403, ANTH 403, FOLK 412)
- The Music and Performance of Africa. Staff.
This course is designed for students with little or no musical training,
though such background would be helpful. This course is an overview of
African music and performance, and will address the large geocultural
areas of the continent. African aesthetics of performance, from group
participation to the integration of dance and rhythm will be emphasized.
Philosophy.
- AFST 238 (PHIL 238, AFAM 238)
- Introduction to African Philosophical Thought. Gyekye.
This course is intended to introduce students to the philosophical
thought of both the traditional sages and contemporary thinkers of
Africa. It sets out by exploring the question of philosophy in African
culture in the traditional setting, and will take up such methodological
matters as: philosophy and "ethnophilosophy," "closed" and "open" belief
systems, and rationality.
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- PHIL 282, AFAM 287
- African Social and Moral Thought. Gyekye.
This course will be a critical examination of concepts in African social
and moral thought in the traditional setting as well as in the
contemporary world.
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- AFST 438 (PHIL 438)
- African Philosophical Thought. Gyekye.
This course will be divided into two sections. Section 1, on
methodological matters, will take up the question of philosophy in
African culture in the traditional setting. Section II will be a
critical examination of African conceptions of God, person, community,
human destiny, cause, chance and purpose, human nature and ethics,
morality and religion, the basis of political activity.
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- AFST 489 (PHIL 489, AFAM 489)
- Ethnicity, Identity, and Nationhood. Gyekye.
This course will be a philosophical examination of the complex of
problems related to ethnicity and ethnic identity. The topics to be
discussed will include: ethnicity as a concept, ethnic identities, the
invention of ethnicity, ethnicity and nationhood, nation-building,
ethnocentrism, ethnicity and culture, multiculturism.
Political Science:
- AFST 165 (AFAM 165, PSCI 165, PSCI 465, AFST
465)
- Contemporary African Politics. Callaghy.
Fulfills Distribution Requirement: Society.
A survey of politics in Africa focusing on the complex relationships
between state, society, the economy, and external actors. Subjects
covered include pre-colonial political institutions, colonial rule, the
independence struggle, authoritarian and democratic statecraft, military
rule, ethnicity, and class, with special attention to the politics of
Africa's interrelated debt, economy, and development crises.
Romance Languages:
- FREN 301 (AFST 301)
- Africa and the African Diaspora. Moudileno.
This course will take the form of an introductory seminar designed to
provide undergraduate students with an overview of significant
issues and themes focusing on the historical, political, and
cultural relationships between Africans and their descendants
abroad. It will encompass: a review of different historical
periods and geographical locations, from Ancient Egypt to
modern American, Caribbean, and African states; a critical
evaluation of social movements and theories that have
developed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries among
scholars of different origins in their attempt to reconstruct
Africa as a center, and the Diaspora as a specific cultural
space; and, an exploration of representations of Africa and
the Diaspora in canonical literary works and other forms of
fiction like the visual arts.
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- FREN 693 (AFST 693)
- French African Studies: Africa Looks to Europe. Moudileno.
Topics will vary. Seminar will focus on one area, author, or
"problematique" in Francophone studies. Examples of area-focused
seminar: The African contemporary novel or Francophone Caribbean
writers. Example of single-author seminar: The Poetry and Drama of Aime
Cesaire. Examples of thematic approach: writing and national identity;
postcolonial conditions; autobiography.
Women's Studies:
- AFST 305 (AFAM 305, WSTD 305)
- Interpreting African Women's Lives. Blakely.
This course critically examines the process of constructing and
interpreting personal experience/life history narratives told by African
women. Urban and rural women's narrative texts are considered as they
inform our understanding of the nature of personal experience narrative, the
role of collaborating researchers in life history production, and the
significance of enabling African women to "speak for themselves."
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- AFST 355 (AFAM 355, FOLK 355, WSTD 355)
- Women and Ritual in Africa. Blakely.
Fulfills Distribution Requirement: History & Tradition.
Students examine a wide range of ritual phenomena involving African women
including spirit possession, semisecret association activities,
healing processes, birth rituals, initiation, funerary events, and other
rites of passage.
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