1 - 10 of 20 results for: AFRICAST

Throughout the history of modern Africa, Africans have specified their desired future¿development, understood broadly¿and identified the major obstacles in achieving it. Debates about development have intensified in the post-colonial period, especially as African countries have replaced the leaders installed at independence. Amidst the general critique of the imposition of external values and rules, Africans have differed, sometimes sharply, on priorities, process, and programs. While for some the challenge is to catch up with development elsewhere, for others it is essential to leap ahead, to set the pace, to initiate a radical social, economic, and political transformation. To ground and extend the common approaches to studying development that emphasize economics and that rely largely on external commentators, we will explore African perspectives. Our major task will be a broad overview, sampling the analyses of Africa¿s intellectuals in several domains. Course participants will review, compare, and analyze major contributions, developing an understanding of contemporary intellectual currents.

Public policy issues, their roots, and the conflicts they engender. The policy making process: who participates, how, why, and with what results? Innovative approaches to contested policy issues. Foreign roles and their consequences. Case studies such as: a clinic in Uganda that addresses AIDS as a family and community problem; and strategies in Tanzania to increase girls' schooling.

The focus of this course is to provide a forum in which students examine the role of memory and heritage in South Africa. The course will include visiting speakers, discussion and other activities. The complex relationship between memory and heritage in South Africa will provide the basis for a series of broad conversations about citizenship, national reconciliation, memorialization, justice, modernity and heritage ethics.

This course explores the relationship between art and politics in twentieth century Africa. Artistic production and consumption is considered in the context of various major political shifts, from the experience of colonialism to the struggle against Apartheid. Each week we will look closely at different works of art and examine how artists and designers responded to such challenges as independence, modernization and globalization. We will look at painting, sculpture, religious art, public and performance art, photography and film. How western perceptions and understanding of African art have shifted, and how museums have framed African art throughout the twentieth century will remain important points of discussion throughout the course.

The excitement around social innovation and entrepreneurship has spawned numerous startups focused on tackling world problems, particularly in the fields of education and health. The best social ventures are launched with careful consideration paid to research, design, and efficacy. This course offers students the necessary tools for understanding how to effectively design and evaluate education-based social ventures. Using TeachAIDS (an award-winning nonprofit educational technology social venture used in 74 countries) as a primary case study, students will be given an in-depth look into how the entity was founded and scaled globally. Guest speakers will include world-class experts and entrepreneurs in Philanthropy, Medicine, Communications, Education, and Technology. Students enrolling for 4 units complete additional assignments.

This course provides a general, introductory survey of Africa's past from prehistoric times into the 19th-century. Through lectures, readings, discussions, museum visits, debates and film, we will explore Africa's rich and dynamic past, juxtaposing the material remains of empires, states and cities with historical constructs of Africa as timeless, isolated and underdeveloped. The course begins with a critical examination of how we view Africa and its past and how the very concept of `Africa' changes throughout time. The course critically questions the usefulness of the prehistory/history divide and problematizes how Africa has served as an ethnographic font for examples of tribal life. We will challenge Western depictions of Africa as a dark continent `without history' by highlighting the continent's vibrant cultures, sophisticated technologies, dynamic and complex political systems and participation in far-reaching commercial networks, all predating the arrival of modern Europeans. The course ends with the transoceanic slave trade and nascent European colonialism and illuminates the roles these histories played in the production of negative and inaccurate images of Africa in contemporary discourse.

Medical, social, and political aspects of the HIV epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa including: biology, transmission, diagnosis,and treatment of HIV; mother-to-child transmission and breastfeeding; vaccines; community and activist responses to the HIV epidemic; economics of HIV treatment; governance and health; ethics in research and program implementation.

The purpose of this seminar is to prepare students for their overseas field experience in Madagascar. The seminar will provide an introduction to island biogeography and culture, with emphasis on Madagascar. During the seminar, students will give presentations on specific aspects of biogeography and will also lay the groundwork for the presentations they will be giving during the field seminar where access to the internet and to other scholarly resources will be quite limited. In addition, we will cover logistics, health and safety, cultural sensitivity, geography and politics, and basic language skills. We will also deal with post-field issues such as reverse culture shock, and ways in which participants can consolidate and build up their abroad experiences after they return to campus. Students will have the opportunity to participate pilot study aimed at developing a series of innovative online curriculum based upon their field experience.