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AFRICA-RELATED COURSES
 
 
Anthropology   
Asian & Middle Eastern Studies   
Comparative Literature   
Demography/Population Studies   
Economics   
English   
Folklore and Folklife   
 
History   
History of Art   
History and Sociology of Science   
Music   
Political Science   
Religious Studies   
Romance Languages   
 
Sociology   
Women's Studies   
Annenberg School of Communication   
School of Education   
School of Nursing   
School of Social Work   
Wharton School of Management   
Wharton School of Real Estate 
 
 
 

Anthropology 

ANTH 105 Human Adaptation. 
ANTH 150 Women's Health, and Development. 
ANTH 242 World Ethnography 
ANTH 306 Medical Anthropology 
ANTH 327 Food and Population. 
ANTH 441 Cross Cultural Approaches to Health. 
ANTH 459 Nutritional Anthropology 
ANTH 483 Witchcraft and Sorcery 
ANTH 528 Topics in Medical Anthropology. 
ANTH 553 Political Anthropology 
ANTH 591 Demographic Anthropology.   

ANTH 105 Human Adaptation.


 
(Monge) Fulfills General Requirement: the Living World. An examination of the methods and techniques of physical anthropology as applied to specific problems of biological variation in man. Emphasis will be upon physical anthropology as a biological science. 
 

ANTH 150 Women's Health, and Development.


 
(Huss-Ashmore) Fulfills General Requirement: the Living World. Introduction to the problems of international development as these affect women in the third world. Emphasizes impact of cultural change on women's roles in production and reproduction. Views women's health as the outcome of interacting biological, physical, and social processes. 
 

ANTH 242 World Ethnography. 


 
(Staff) Fulfills General Requirement: Society The aim of this course is to provide an overview of the varieties of human experience in the world culture areas identified by anthropologists. The course will concentrate on regional cultural themes and social organizational processes in each of these areas. Students will read a sample of the classic ethnographies and articles that cover central anthropological topics.  
 

ANTH 306 Medical Anthropology


 
(Huss-Ashmore) Theoretical and applied interpretations of health concepts and human health behavior. Biological and ecological disease processes; case studies of social interaction in health care settings; social structural analyses of medical institutions. 
 

ANTH 327 Food and Population.


 
(Huss-Ashmore) Method and theory in bicultural anthropology applied to current issues in human health, including nutrition, growth, and reproduction. Emphasis on structure and analysis of data. 
 

ANTH 441 Cross Cultural Approaches to Health.


 
(Huss-Ashmore) The relationships between the demographic, sociocultural, and biological structures of communities and their health problems will be examined from an anthropological perspective. Emphasis will be given to folk concepts of disease etiology and their assimilation of modern health care practices; the ecology and natural history of disease and characterizing the health status of population aggregates. 
 

ANTH 459 Nutritional Anthropology. 


 
(Huss-Ashmore) Prerequisite(s): ANTH 003 and 103 or permission of instructor. Consideration of human nutrition and nutritional status within context of physical anthropology. Particular emphasis on role of physical anthropologist in analysis of human biological/nutritional interactions in terms of both effects upon individual and underlying factors and correlates. 
 

ANTH 483 Witchcraft and Sorcery. 

(Kopytoff) An anthropological examination of witchcraft and sorcery. 
 

ANTH 528 Topics in Medical Anthropology.


 
(Staff) Method and theory in bicultural anthropology applied to current issues in human health, including nutrition, growth and reproduction. Emphasis on structure and analysis of data. 
 

ANTH 553 Political Anthropology. 


 
(Barnes) Political systems of non-Western societies and theories about these systems analyzed and compared from an anthropological perspective.  
 

ANTH 591 Demographic Anthropology.  


 
(Huss-Ashmore) Population issues and demographic methods from an anthropological perspective. Processes of demographic change in modern, historic, and prehistoric human populations. Emphasizes demography as an aspect of human population ecology. 
 

Asian & Middle Eastern Studies 

AMES 159 The Origins of Racism. 
 

AMES 159 The Origins of Racism.


 
(Goldenberg) Fulfills Distribution Requirement I: Society. This course examines views and attitudes toward black Africans as found in the ancient and medieval sources of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. We will attempt to discover the relationship between these views and racism in Western civilization. 
 

Comparative Literature 

COML 100 Introduction to Literature 
 

COML 100 Introduction to Literature. 


 
(Staff) Fulfills General Requirement: Arts & Letters. This course explores the role of texts in various contexts, including literary tradition, art, music, law, medicine, architecture, history, and popular culture. Texts include the Sundiata epic, Achebe's Things Fall Apart, blues literature, represented this year by August Wilson's play Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, and the influence of African art on western artists and exhibits of African art in western museums. Readings will also include Derek Walcott's Omeros, an Afro-Carribean novel in verse based on Homer's Odyssey and involving a hero who dreams of a sea voyage to the village of his ancestors in Africa. 
 

Demography/Population Studies 

SOCI 531 The Demography of Race. 

SOCI 531 The Demography of Race.

(Zuberi) Topics vary from year to year. 

  

Economics 

ECON 171 Topics in Macroeconomics. 
ECON 660 Development Economics 
ECON 760 Development Economics: Basic Micro Topics 

ECON 171 Topics in Macroeconomics.


 
(Parente) Fulfills Distribution Requirement 1: Society This course will study some of the recent developments in macroeconomics. The course is divided in two parts. The first involves the study of economic growth and development. This part of the course will try to answer such questions as why do economies grow, and why are some countries so poor relative to others. The second part involves the study of economic fluctuations. This part of the course will try to answer questions such as why do business cycles occur. 
 

ECON 660 Development Economics. 


 
(Behrman) (Advanced undergraduate courses in micro and macroeconomic theory, or permission of instructor). Course designed primarily for non-economic graduate students interested in international development. Covers history of thought on development, recent development experience of the Third World, models of development, agricultural development, technology choice and innovation in less-developed countries (LDCs), trade and macroeconomic policy in LDCs, project evaluation, industrial development, and human resource development. 
 

ECON 760 Development Economics: Basic Micro Topics


 
(Behrman) Prerequisites(s): ECON 701 and 705, or permission of instructor. Analysis of selected topics in economic development related to household/firm (farm) behavior, including determinants of and the impact of human resources, contractual arrangements in land, labor and credit markets, investment and savings. Emphasis on tractable modeling that leads to integrated analysis given available data. 
 

English 

ENGL 090 Topics in Women and Literature 
AFST 266 Post-Colonial Novel 
ENGL 281 Topics in African-American Literature. 

ENGL 090 Topics in Women and Literature. 


 
(Griffin) Fulfills Distribution Requirement 3: Arts & Letters. Focusing on literature by and or about women, this course examines women as readers, writers, and subjects of literature. Works studied vary considerably from semester to semester and may include a wide range of works from various countries and in various genres, often selected to allow for examination of theoretical issues such as feminist humor, feminist literary theory, women and popular culture, and the place of women in the literary mainstream. Often special attention is paid to the experience of minority women. 
 

AFST 266 Post-Colonial Novel


 
(Barnard) Fulfills Distribution Requirement 3: Arts & Letters. This course approaches the modern British novel in a variety of ways. Offerings include Heart of Darkness, Black Mischief, The Grass is Singing, Things Fall Apart; some Gordimer stories, and her novel The Conservationist. Also, Waiting for the Barbarians. 
 

ENGL 281 Topics in African-American Literature.


 
(Staff) Fulfills Distribution Requirement 3: Arts & Letters. In the past the course has addressed itself to topics as diverse as African American Autobiography. Backgrounds of African-American Literature, including examination of oral narratives, black Christianity, and African-American music; and The Black Narrative, beginning with 18th century slave narratives and working toward contemporary literature. 
 

Folklore and Folklife 

AFST 213 Afro-American Folklore 
FOLK 229 Myth in Society 
AFST 430 African Diasporic Folklore. 
FOLK 503 Issues of Folklore Theory. 
FOLK 530 Afro-American Folklore 
FOLK 531 Prose Narrative. 
FOLK 532 Proverb, Riddle and Speech. 
FOLK 629 Theories of Myth 

AFST 213 Afro-American Folklore. 


 
(Gunkel) Fulfills General Requirement: History & Tradition. This course is designed to provide undergraduate students with an over-view of the major forms of expressive culture developed by Afro-Americans. We will focus on the continuous development of black cultural expression from slavery to the present, emphasizing the socio-historical context in which they are to be understood and interpreted. We will also examine manifestations and interpretations of black oral traditions in the literary works of a few selected Afro-American writers. 
 

FOLK 229 Myth in Society. 


 
(Ben-Amos) Fulfills Distribution Requirement 3: Arts & Letters. In this course we will explore the mythologies of selected peoples in the ancient Near East, Africa, Asia, and Native North and South America and examine how the gods function in the life and belief of each society. The study of mythological texts will be accompanied, as much as possible, by illustrative slides that will show the images of these deities in art and ritual. 
 

AFST 430 African Diasporic Folklore.


 
Fulfills Distribution Requirement 2: History & Tradition. A focus of the course is on the carryover of African traditions as they are adapted, maintained, and developed in various European and New World African-American communities from village economics to cityscapes. Traditions as various as storytelling, playing Christmas and Carnival, and religious practices will be surveyed. 
 

FOLK 503 Issues of Folklore Theory.


 
(Abrahams) An introduction to folklore for graduate students, concentrating upon certain key issues in the theory and history of the discipline. 
 

FOLK 530 Afro-American Folklore. 


 
(Staff) Fulfills Distribution Requirement: History & Tradition. A historical survey of Afro-American folklore from the slave period to the present including spirituals, folktales, ballads, jokes, folk beliefs, proverbs, the dozens, and toasts. Emphasis will be placed on the relationship between folklore and the black social and cultural experience in the United States. 
 

FOLK 531 Prose Narrative.


 
(Ben-Amos) Fulfills Distribution Requirement: Society. The topics of discussion in the course are the following: the nature of narrative, narrative taxonomy and terminology, performance in storytelling events, the transformation of historical experience into narrative, the construction of symbolic reality, the psycho-social interpretation of folktales, the search for the minimal units, the historic-geographic method in folktale studies, the folktale in history and the history of folktale research. 
 

FOLK 532 Proverb, Riddle and Speech.


 
(Staff) Through readings and collaborative projects this working seminar will explore the place of metaphor in the genres of proverb and riddle and examine their position in oral communication in traditional and modern societies. Critical readings of former definitions and models of riddles and metaphors will enable students to obtain a comprehensive perspective of these genres that will synthesize functional, structural, metaphoric, and rhetoric theories. 
 

FOLK 629 Theories of Myth. 


 
(Ben-Amos) Theories of myth are the center of modern and post-modern, structural and post-structural thought. Myth has served as a vehicle and a metaphor for the formulation of a broad range of modern theories. In this course we will examine the theoretical foundations of these approaches to myth focusing on early thinkers such as Vico, and concluding with modern 20th century scholars in several disciplines that make myth the central idea of their studies. 
 
 
 

History 

HIST 010 The World 900-1750 
HIST 011 The World: History & Modernity. 
HIST 175 African Descendants in Latin America 
HIST 615 Colonialism, Culture and Power 

HIST 010 The World 900-1750. 


 
(Farriss) Fulfills General Requirement: History & Tradition. 1400-1750: An introduction to world history before the industrial revolution. Coverage varies each year, but every year the focus will be on the world outside Europe and the U.S. Focus each semester on comparative and connective themes, such as trade and civilization, empires, agrarian societies and livelihoods, slavery and the slave trade, and expansion of world religions. 
 

HIST 011 The World: History & Modernity.


 
(Hudec) Fulfills General Requirement: History & Tradition. An explanation of major themes, milestones, and debates in the history of the global community since 1300. Using examples from around the world, the course will explore such issues as the causes of war and revolution; the impact of religion, science and technology on human communities; the development of global systems of slavery, colonialism, and labor migration; the rise of nationalisms; and perceived differences between "East" and "West," and "tradition" and "modernity." The course will also introduce students to the art and science of historical inquiry using primary sources, maps, pictures, and material culture. 
 

HIST 175 African Descendants in Latin America

(Bristol) 
 

HIST 615 Colonialism, Culture and Power. 

(Farriss) Colonialism as symbolization. Explores the relationship between power and our ways of organizing experiences or making sense of the world. Emphasis is on language and its uses, under such labels as discourse, interpretation, and narrative. 
 

History of Art 

AFST 409 African Art in the Diaspora. 

AFST 409 African Art in the Diaspora.


 
(Staff) This survey of African-American art will examine the adaptation and survival of African forms, themes and style throughout the New World, as well as the adoption of western styles and techniques and the African-American contributions to this tradition. Focus will be on Brazil, Surinam, the West Indies and the United States. Both folk and mainstream art will be explored. Questions of artistic hybridism, the role of the artist romanticized imagery, and continuity and change in aesthetics will also be addressed. 
 

History and Sociology of Science 

HSSC 145. Comparative Medicine. 
HSSC 325 In Search of Origins.   
HSSC 438 Who Owns the Past. 
HSSC 539 Science & Colonialism. 

HSSC 145. Comparative Medicine.


 
(Feierman) Fulfills Distribution Requirement II: History & Tradition. This course focuses on health and healing in the colonial and post-colonial world. We give special attention to local healing under condition of domination, the definitions of the body and the person in biomedicine and in non-European healing traditions, and to the political and cultural place of medicine in regions which have experienced colonial rule. 
 

HSSC 325 In Search of Origins.  


 
(Kuklick) Fulfills Distribution Requirement 2: History & Tradition. The impact of contact with non-Western peoples on Western social thought, from the era of European imperialist expansion to the present. The interpretation of the behavior of "primitive" peoples as manifestation of basic human nature, with implications for economic, political, and psychological theory. 
 

HSSC 438 Who Owns the Past.


 
(Kuklick) The recent controversies over the Enola Gay exhibit and the teaching of U. S. History to school children have made exceptionally visible the degree to which history may be used to define national identity. Scientific achievements may play central roles in partisan accounts -- both as testimonials to national virtue and as the means to resolve various sorts of disputes. This course will discuss the uses of history in contemporary and past situations, drawing examples from the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. 
 

HSSC 539 Science & Colonialism.


 
(Kuklick) The colonial expansion of European powers all over the globe was linked to all manner of scientific developments. The geological, geographical, botanical, zoological, and human characteristics of subject territories were new subjects for scientific inquiries, undertaken largely but not exclusively to assess the resources colonialists might exploit either in the metropoles or in settlements abroad. These inquiries proved powerful stimuli to scientific work in the metropoles, encouraging both discipline formation and the multiplication of scientific roles. This course considers these and kindred topics. 
 

Music 

MUSC 022 World Music and Cultures. 
MUSC 105 Anthropology of Music. 
MUSC 605 Anthropology of Music 
MUSC 705 Music Ethnomusicology: Reading Women in Jazz  

MUSC 022 World Music and Cultures.

(Staff) Fulfills General Requirement: Arts & Letters. Draws on repertories of various societies from Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas to examine relations between aesthetic productions and social processes.  
 

MUSC 105 Anthropology of Music.


 
(Muller) Fulfills General Requirement: Arts & Letters. Introduction to anthropological approaches to music, with study of musical theories, cultural life and performance contexts in selected non-Western and Western repertories. 
 

MUSC 605 Anthropology of Music. 

(Muller) Theories and methods of the ethnomusicological approach to the study of music in culture, applied to selected Western and non-Western performance contexts. 
 

MUSC 705 Music Ethnomusicology: Reading Women in Jazz 


 
(Muller) This seminar will take an interdisciplinary approach to the study of women in jazz performance. We will define "jazz" quite broadly to include contemporary musicians in the world music market, and consider the works of and about women from Africa, Europe, and the United States. Students will be required to read materials written by and about women in jazz, as well as listen to recordings made by the women studied. There are three interconnected parts to the seminar. In the first, we will develop a framework for listening to, and analyzing jazz as a musical and cultural test; in the second, we will read texts written by and about women in jazz; and in the third, we will listen to jazz performances by the women we read about. The seminar does not require in-depth technical knowledge of musical analysis. 
 
 
 

Political Science 

PSCI 116 Political Change in the Third World 
PSCI 117 Religion and Politics of the Third World. 
PSCI 118 The Military Politics of the Third World 
SCI 532 The Political Economy of North-South Relations. 
PSCI 533 Comparative Political and Economic Change. 

PSCI 116 Political Change in the Third World. 


 
(Callaghy) Fulfills Distribution Requirement 1: Society. A survey of the political structures and processes of the countries of the Third World. It will focus on contending theoretical perspectives about modernization and development, dependency and underdevelopment, and state-centric; colonial rule and its legacy; Third World societies and economics; authoritarian and democratic statecraft; the military; culture and politics; external actors; and protest and revolution. 
 

PSCI 117 Religion and Politics of the Third World.


 
(Smith) Fulfills Distribution Requirement I: Society. The relationships between religion and politics in South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and Latin America; Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Catholicism, and their interaction with politics. This course will alternate with PSCI 118. 
 

PSCI 118 The Military Politics of the Third World. 


 
(Smith) Fulfills Distribution Requirement I: Society. Analysis of the intervention of the military in the political systems of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Particular attention is devoted to the questions of whether military regimes can modernize their societies more effectively than civilian governments, and how military regimes get replaced by democratically elected governments. 
 

PSCI 532 The Political Economy of North-South Relations.


 
(Callaghy) Fulfills Distribution Requirement: Society. An analysis of the politics of the Third World debt crises and efforts at economic reform; the New International Economic Order of the 1970's; nature of the international political economy, including the rise and fall of "hegemons," the international state system and international organizations. 
 

PSCI 533 Comparative Political and Economic Change.


 
(Callaghy) Fulfills Distribution Requirement: Society. A comparative exploration of the politics and economics of the formation of states and the development of capitalism, both historical and contemporary, and an examination of contending theoretical perspectives about them. Examples will be taken from Europe since the sixteenth century, nineteenth and twentieth century Latin America and Asia, and contemporary Africa. 
 

Religious Studies 

RELS 117 Black Religion in America 
RELS 118 Black Sects and Cults. 

RELS 117 Black Religion in America. 


 
(Staff) Fulfills Distribution Requirement I: Society. The meaning of black religion, its social ideas and ideals, its impact in the public arena and its leadership in politics will be examined from historical, sociological and religious perspectives. 
 

RELS 118 Black Sects and Cults. 


 
(Staff) Fulfills Distribution Requirement I: Society. Examination of selected non-traditional Black American religious and secular movements, their founders and leaders. 
 

Romance Languages 

FREN 390 Litterature Francophone. 

FREN 390 Litterature Francophone.


 
(Moudileno) Fulfills Distribution Requirement III: Arts & Letters. A brief introduction about the stages of French colonialism and its continuing political and cultural consequences, and then reading in various major works -- novels, plays, poems -- in French by authors from Quebec, the Caribbean, Africa (including the Maghreb), etc. Of interest to majors in International Relations, Anthropology and African Studies as well as French 
 

Sociology 

SOCI 006 Race & Ethnic Relations 
SOCI 007 Population & Society. 
SOCI 135 Law & Society 

SOCI 006 Race & Ethnic Relations. 


 
(Zuberi) Fulfills General Requirement: Society. An analysis of dominant-minority group relations in different cultures throughout history, with special emphasis on the contemporary American scene. 
 

SOCI 007 Population & Society.


 
(Van de Walle) Fulfills General Requirement: Society. Social, economic, and political issues: population explosion, baby bust, abortion, teenage pregnancy, illegal aliens, etc. 
 

SOCI 135 Law & Society


 
(Fetni) Fulfills Distribution Requirement I: Society. Analysis of the emergence of laws, role of the legal profession, organization of courts, legislatures, and administrative agencies. Examination of problems of women and the law, divorce laws, civil liberties, differential access to the legal system, corruption and lawlessness in the international system. Readings include research reports, statutes, and cases. 
 
 
 

Women's Studies 

WSTD 294 Third World Feminism 

WSTD 294 Third World Feminism. 


 
(Staff) Resistance to local and global patriarchies, imperialism and capitalism constitute the historical context of Third World feminism. Women's struggles against these practices constitute their identity in such a way that the very category of women becomes determined in terms of the intersection of class, race, nation and culture specific politics and histories. We shall also examine the political and philosophical implications of Third World feminism for some specific feminist trends developed by women of the First World. 
 

Annenberg School of Communication 

COMM 538 Communication and Development 

COMM 538 Communication and Development. 


 
(Hornik) Major topics in international communication: alternative formulations of the role of mass media in the development of Third World countries, educational and informational uses of communication technology. Looks at health research in Tanzania, and women and development in communication in Africa.  
 

School of Education 

EDUC 810 Cultural Perspectives on Human Development. 
EDUC 817 Human Development and Basic Education in Developing Countries 

EDUC 810 Cultural Perspectives on Human Development.


 
(Wagner) Seminar on cultural influences on socialization and cognitive development. Special topics may include literacy, infancy, aging, sex-roles, traditional pedagogies. 
 

EDUC 817 Human Development and Basic Education in Developing Countries. 


 
(Wagner) Prerequisite: Prior graduate work in related areas. This seminar will cover a number of topics in human development (e.g., pre-school interventions, literacy campaigns, non-formal education) in the Third World that have received attention from researchers and policy planners (e.g., UNICEF, UNESCO, World Bank, AID). 
 

School of Nursing 

NURS 516 International Nutrition: Political Economy of World Health. 

NURS 516 International Nutrition: Political Economy of World Health.


 
(Sharman-Bader) The nutritional problems of the less developed countries are discussed in the context of basic human needs. The major forms of malnutrition related to poverty and their underlying causes are covered. 
 

School of Social Work 

FRSM 106 Dilemmas in International Development. 
SWRK 735 Social and Economic Development 
SWRK 750 Comparative Social Welfare. 

FRSM 106 Dilemmas in International Development.


 
(Estes) In this seminar students will be exposed to the interplay of international forces that inhibit developing nation progress and which, in some cases, actually add to their mal-development. During the course of the seminar, students will undertake an original piece of research on an international development topic of special interest to them. They will also be invited to meet with prominent professionals in the international development community. 
 

SWRK 735 Social and Economic Development. 

(Estes) 
 

SWRK 750 Comparative Social Welfare.


 
(Estes) The content of the course includes the nature and organization of welfare services within this country and in various countries throughout the world, such as the major industrial countries of North America and Europe and the emerging countries of the Third World. The major objective of the course is to acquire an ability to use the comparative method of analysis needed to assess the role of welfare programs in the development of social work and social welfare programs as they are planned to meet the identified common welfare needs in modern societies. 
 

Wharton School of Management 

PPMT 288/788 International Industrial Development Strategies 
PPMT 289/789 State, Politics and Markets in Less Developed Countries. 

PPMT 288/788 International Industrial Development Strategies. 


 
(Staff) Topics the following: the deindustrialization of the developed countries; the challenge posed by newly industrialized countries; agricultural and industrial problems of the developing countries; the role of multinational corporations in technology transfer and exporting; foreign debt, and crisis management. 
 

PPMT 289/789 State, Politics and Markets in Less Developed Countries.


 
(Pack) This course will analyze the interaction of political and economic policy in less developed countries (LDCs). Among the questions considered are the policies that are responsible for slow economic growth in many LDCs and the political institutions that make reform difficult. Attention will be given to both microeconomic policies and macroeconomic policies that have an important impact on economic performance. 
 

Wharton School of Real Estate 

CPLN 437/737 Housing Planning in Developing Countries 
CPLN 438/738 Field Research Methods in Developing Countries 

CPLN 437/737 Housing Planning in Developing Countries. 


 
(Hoek-Smit) This course on human settlement planning in transitional and developing economies will focus particularly on problems of shelter and infrastructure provision, within the framework of major theories of national economic development and development planning. 
 

CPLN 438/738 Field Research Methods in Developing Countries. 


 
(Hoek-Smit) This course in field-research methods is oriented towards the process of decision-making inherent in various planning situations. It deals with methods used to describe and analyze social/behavioral settings as well as organizational/institutional settings. It will explore the process of problem definition, the development of research strategies and the selection of appropriate and effective research methods. Special attention will be given to the research requirements within the different technical, political, and cultural contexts of developing countries. The course will briefly address the requirements for comparative international research.