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.

Policy making in Africa and the intersection of policy processes and their political and economic dimensions. The failure to implement agreements by international institutions, national governments, and nongovernmental organizations to promote education. Case studies of crowded and poorly equipped schools, overburdened and underprepared teachers, and underfunded education systems.

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.

This course is a prerequisite for all those accepted to or on the wait list for the Spring BOSP Cape Town term abroad. It will explore issues in contemporary South Africa.

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 insights into understanding how to effectively develop, evaluate, and scale social ventures. Using TeachAIDS (an award-winning nonprofit educational technology social venture used in 78 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. Open to both undergraduate and graduate students.

This course will explore recent debates on the causes and structural terms of large-scale violence in Africa in the context of key contemporary models for reconciliation and transitional justice. Discussions will emphasize the broader international legal and political order each presupposes, and specifically whether their underlying reconstitution of rights and subjectivities are compatible with cultural, political or legal diversity. A historical assessment of the predominating Nuremberg paradigm of transitional justice¿structured around international military intervention and criminal trials based on international criminal courts¿will be contrasted with other regional models that engage with the challenges of the political reconciliation of formerly divided political communities. The necessity of understanding the specificities of both global and local historical and structural contexts will be examined with respect to various proposals for how to balance of balance concerns for both justice and peace. Readings will cover case studies from South Africa, Rwanda, DRC, northern Uganda, Sudan (including Darfur and South Sudan), Libya, Mali, and CAR.

Africa is often depicted as a place simply in need of science, technology, andnnmedicine. This class will introduce students to the culture and politics of science innnsub-Saharan Africa: to the diverse and rich traditions, histories and contemporarynnpredicaments of knowledge practices on the continent. We will consider the rolennof science in the colonial period, covering the expansion of European empires intonnAfrica and the forms of technical knowledge that colonial governments encountered, especially as they relate to health and the environment. We will examine the role of science at African independence and in international development work. Finally, we will discuss the techno-politics of medical training and research, resource extraction, and the internet in contemporary Africa. This course will provide some important background for those with an applied interest in Africa as well as provide an introduction to a growing area of scholarship. Course materials include historical and ethnographic works, as well as primary sources and films emphasizing scientific practice in the context of geopolitical relations of power and inequality.

This seminar is part of a broader program on Social Entrepreneurship at CDDRL. It will use practice to better inform theory. Working with three visiting social entrepreneurs from developing and developed country contexts students will use case studies of successful and failed social change strategies to explore relationships between social entrepreneurship, gender, democracy, development and justice. It interrogates current definitions of democracy and development and explores how they can become more inclusive of marginalized populations. This is a service learning class in which students will learn by working on projects that support the social entrepreneurs' efforts to promote social change. Limited enrollment. Attendance at the first class is mandatory in order to participate in service learning.

For students who conducted research over the summer in Africa. Students reflect on their time in Africa, transform their observations and research into scholarship, and connect as a community. Cape Town fellows and any others who conducted summer research in Africa can use this course to finish their research.

May be repeated for credit.

Goal is to prepare students for an HIV/AIDS prevention, service-learning experience in Tanzania. Topics include: history of HIV/AIDS epidemic globally and in Tanzania; social and economic impact of AIDS; national and societal responses; ethical issues in crosscultural service learning; teaching for prevention; biology of HIV transmission, disease progression, and prevention; introduction to Tanzanian history and politics; HIV/AIDS and development; social, cultural, and economic context of HIV risk; and strategies for HIV prevention in Tanzania.

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.

Policy making in Africa and the intersection of policy processes and their political and economic dimensions. The failure to implement agreements by international institutions, national governments, and nongovernmental organizations to promote education. Case studies of crowded and poorly equipped schools, overburdened and underprepared teachers, and underfunded education systems.

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 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 insights into understanding how to effectively develop, evaluate, and scale social ventures. Using TeachAIDS (an award-winning nonprofit educational technology social venture used in 78 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. Open to both undergraduate and graduate students.

This course will explore recent debates on the causes and structural terms of large-scale violence in Africa in the context of key contemporary models for reconciliation and transitional justice. Discussions will emphasize the broader international legal and political order each presupposes, and specifically whether their underlying reconstitution of rights and subjectivities are compatible with cultural, political or legal diversity. A historical assessment of the predominating Nuremberg paradigm of transitional justice¿structured around international military intervention and criminal trials based on international criminal courts¿will be contrasted with other regional models that engage with the challenges of the political reconciliation of formerly divided political communities. The necessity of understanding the specificities of both global and local historical and structural contexts will be examined with respect to various proposals for how to balance of balance concerns for both justice and peace. Readings will cover case studies from South Africa, Rwanda, DRC, northern Uganda, Sudan (including Darfur and South Sudan), Libya, Mali, and CAR.

Guest scholars present analyses of major African themes and topics. Brief response papers required. May be repeated for credit.

Crossdisciplinary colloquium; required for the M.A. degree in African Studies. Open to advanced undergraduates and PhD students. Addresses critical issues including patterns of economic collapse and recovery; political change and democratization; and political violence, civil war, and genocide. Focus on cross-cutting issues including the impact of colonialism; the role of religion, ethnicity, and inequality; and Africa¿s engagement with globalization.

Required for African Studies master's students. Student presentations.

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.

This course provides an introductory survey of Africa¿s past from prehistoric times through the 19th-century. The course will challenge Western depictions of Africa as a dark continent `without history¿ by highlighting the continent¿s vibrant cultures, sophisticated technologies, complex political systems and participation in far-reaching commercial networks, all predating European colonization. In tandem, the course explores how these histories are mobilized in the production of negative ideas about 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.

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.