African Studies

The course adopts an interdisciplinary approach to assisting students in understanding the sociopolitical, cultural and environmental dimensions of science and technology in the African World. Introducing the student to broad interdisciplinary perspectives on the social, historical and institutional underpinnings of science and technology in their global and African World contexts, the course offers insights into the ancient and contemporary dynamics of the phenomenon. Showing the collective contributions of all people as well as the shared experiences of millions engaged in agricultural, artisan and construction endeavors, the course assists the student in understanding the conceptual, civic and policy frameworks for harnessing the will and talents of young people in a rapidly changing world.

This is an interdisciplinary course examining the connections between the youth, education, revolutions in technology and transformations in politics and society at individual, national and global levels. The course aims at using social media as a heuristic device for gaining a better grasp of the drivers of change, the role of technology as well as the power of ideas, youth or organization in building a better world.

The topic of African development and underdevelopment is complex. To answer the question of how authentic and endogenous socioeconomic development can be achieved throughout the African continent, publications by renowned scholars in the field of development such as Amartya Sen, Joseph Stiglitz, and Ha-Joon Chang along with news programs from major global media networks (Al-Jazeera, France24, and Deustche-Welle TV etc.) will be examined and discussed throughout the course. In the process, students will become familiar with all the important international organizations and media outlets in addition to developing critical thinking, writing, and analytical skills.

Allows the student to explore a topic of interest under the close supervision of a faculty member. The course may include directed readings, applied work, assisting a faculty member with a research project, carrying out an independent research project, or other activities deemed appropriate.

Allows the student to explore a topic of interest under the close supervision of a faculty member. The course may include directed readings, applied work, assisting a faculty member with a research project, carrying out an independent research project, or other activities deemed appropriate.

Allows the student to explore a topic of interest under the close supervision of a faculty member. The course may include directed readings, applied work, assisting a faculty member with a research project, carrying out an independent research project, or other activities deemed appropriate.

This course reviews the evolution of the field of African Studies over the past two centuries. It also exposes students to approaches to research methodology and trains them in designing a research proposal which can lay the basis for a M.A. thesis or PhD dissertation

Theory in African studies is adopted in its dual role as a universal body of ideas, accumulated wisdom as well as a branch of the human tree of cognition with distinct characteristics organically connected to the larger whole. A survey of the universal foundations of theory is undertaken with the goal of showing the multiple pathways in the flow of knowledge. The course offers different viewpoints in terms of not only the debates among mainstream social science schools of thought but also the emerging paradigms of inquiry as the critical approaches subsumed in post-modernist, post-colonial and critical theories. The course attempts to introduce the student to the universal and particular dimensions of thought systems with the main goal of helping the student grow as an independent scholar synthesizing the best traditions of Western and African civilizations.

The historical trajectory of the African development policy discourse through successive epochs: the early post-independence days of national developmentalism, through orthodox (growth-oriented), meliorist (egalitarian), and neo-liberal (structural adjustment) paradigms to progressivist alternatives. The ultimate objective is to craft an endogenous framework of people-centered development for Africa.

General principles of development planning, including models, theories and approaches with African case studies.

This course is a study of African women's traditional and contemporary roles in Africa's social, political and economic development; identifies paradigm changes in women's economic, social and political roles and participation and the sources of these changes over historical time: study post-colonial African women's national and regional movements; studies African women's involvement in international and regional bodies such as the United Nations and its specialized and regional agencies and other networks to effect changes in general African general development paradigms and women's role therein.

This course is a systematic study and analysis of uniqueness of traditional African gender philosophies, theories, and practices within the family, community and society; study the cosmological and social privileging of social and economic achievements and acquisition of wisdom as determinants of individual's role and status in society; compares authentic African system of gender and social construction against the rigid privileging of biology as the sole determinant of people's role, status, and pattern of belonging and participation in society and economy.

The course examines one of the most significant phenomena of our time, globalization, which is a process that goes back to centuries of interlinking developments among nations and civilizations. The course takes the student through the global, historic and contemporary journey of the compression of time and space and the shared consciousness of the world's billions made possible by the instant images of satellites TVs, cell phones and overflow of goods, services, technologies and ideas. A critical analysis of the dynamics and issues from the vantage points of opposing views is encouraged. Considerable attention is paid to enabling students to benefit from the theoretical and research literature on the areas as well as insights into specific country, regional and issue-based case studies.

A study of strategies advanced by African states to change the world system by using international organizations of influencing their decisions to address issues of concern to Africa.

This course is a historical and political study of rural development and underdevelopment in Africa; policy and modeling of rural development and patterns of allocation of essential resources for rural development; comparative study of efficiencies and inefficiencies in rural development outcomes in different African regions and understanding the sources of the observed disparities; study of alternative, authentic African models and theories for sustained rural development.

Determinants of development policymaking process, the organizational framework of policy implementation and administrative performance. Case studies of selected African countries.

This is a seminar for graduate students with an interest in issues of health and disease in Africa, particularly as they pertain to the continents prospects for development. The aim of this course is to give students a broad understanding of the state of health in Africa, historical factors that contribute to contemporary patterns of ill-health and disease in Africa, and introduce students to a series of conceptual approaches to health and development in Africa

An examination of the political economy of urbanization in Africa, including the economic structure, spatial organization, and politico-administrative framework of African urban life.

Study of the determinants, organizational framework, and processes involved in developing foreign policy in African states.

This course examines the main sources of wars in Africa. Some studies have reduced the causes of war to three main ones, namely ethnicity, religion, and economics. This minimum objective of this course, then, will be to investigate the extent to which each one of the cited causes has contributed to the conflict of each selected case study.

This seminar exposes students to major debates in the history of South Africa from the 19th Century to the present.

This seminar examines the main ideas of key thinkers within the Africana philosophical tradition. It is structured around thematic units designed to give a foundational and advanced understanding of the development of Africana thought on a series of major philosophical topics: ontology, epistemology, race, gender, science, logic, monetary economics, and applied ethics, and the (in)commensurability of Africana and Western answers offered on these topics, and the multiplicity of methods employed in Africana philosophical thought.

This is a process-oriented writing course that integrates reading, research, writing, and oral presentations. You will carry out a research project on a legal topic of your interest.

This is a process-oriented writing course that integrates reading, research, writing, and oral presentations. You will carry out a research project on a legal topic of your interest.

This is a process-oriented writing course that integrates reading, research, writing, and oral presentations. You will carry out a research project on a legal topic of your interest.

This is a general introduction to Africa in World Affairs. Topics include Africa's participation in the political, economic, and cultural system. It analyzes some strategies advocated by African scholars to demarginalize Africa in world affairs.

The main objective of this course is to examine/analyze the elements to good governance, and to study their implication in an African environment. It explores strategies to improve governance in the continent. Evidently, each African country may have special urgency in implementing the above key elements. Thus, a country case study becomes imperative

The purpose of this course is for the design and performance of research leading to a Ph.D. See note on page 577 related to dissertation hours.

An examination of language policy and practices and the various forms of cultural and creative practice in contemporary Africa and their significance as a crucial resource in contemporary discourses of socio-economic transformation and development in Africa. The ways in which these forms of cultural practice engage issues of public policy, language, gender, class, ethnicity, tradition, modernity, democracy, governance, globalization and human rights will be emphasized.

In depth look at the poetry and prose of three South African authors from both a thematic and formal perspective. Examines the strengths and limitations of art as an instrument of struggle.

An examination of the relationship between these two modes of artistic and political expression in Africa: their style, content and effectiveness in raising social consciousness regarding development.

Survey of oral narrative genres from selected African societies, their form content, and function in society and how these genres have influenced African writers.

A thematic and formal examination of the image and role of women in society as developed in the Africa novel and short story.

An exploration of the ways filmmakers engage, revise, reconstruct and revision aspects of the distant and recent past in Africa and the Diaspora, and how the past speaks to the present and the future

This course studies the theories of education and their implications of development of relevant and effective education programs with goals and mission targeting the needs of a society at particular times; links this study with the constraints and opportunities of African pre-colonial education experiences; cases studies of specific African educational systems to identify their empirical strengths and weakness seen against guiding education theories and philosophies; develops concrete propositions that can help fix identified African educational deficits.

Sustainable and equitable development in Africa critically depends on the nature of inter-causal linkages that can be forged between international migrations, mobilization of Diasporas in North America and Europe, and migrant remittances. Such remittances constitute an important source of external finance and foreign exchange for African Development in terms of the relevant impacts on households, communities, national and regional spaces.

The course is designed to help the student in developing a significant understanding of the world of NGOs. The theories and concepts underpinning the purposes, modalities of operations, systems of mobilizations and the degrees to which the stated high goals are faithfully implemented are surveyed and analyzed. The course focuses on both the visions, ideas and skills NGOs have brought to practically all sectors of society in developing and industrialized countries. All the intermediate steps of NGO goals, mobilizations, activities and implementation mechanisms as well as the concrete results registered by the new global phenomenon are studied and discussed with the purpose of linking the universal and regional/national interplay of NGOs and Africa's quest for dignity, democracy and sustainable development.

This course examines the writings of a select group of African political thinkers and actors whose ideas have influenced and still continue to influence, a large number of Africans and people of African descent aboard.

Interdisciplinary introduction to the study, research, and interpretation of historical, cultural, social and political knowledge of African American, African, and Caribbean peoples examining contemporary black identities, politics, and culture, particularly focusing on the role and place of blacks in modern American cities through exploration of international migrations, race relations, and 20th-century cultural movements, including civil rights, social protest music