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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.

This course will focus on the history of slavery in the British, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch Atlantic world(s), from the late 1400s to the 1800s. Its main focus will be on the experiences of enslaved Africans and their descendants. Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Europeans forcibly embarked over 10 million Africans to the Americas. Drawing on methodologies used by historians, archaeologists and anthropologists, the course will reconstruct the daily lives and the socio-economic, cultural and political histories of these captives. We will seek to hear their voices by investigating a variety of historical testimonies and recent scholarship. The course will examine slavery in the context of broader trends in Atlantic World studies, a field that has grown considerably in recent years, providing new ways of understanding historical developments across national boundaries. We will seek to identify commonalities and differences across time periods and regions and the reasons for those differences. Covered topics will include slave ship voyages, labor, agency, the creation of new identities (creolization), religion, race, gender, resistance, legacies, and memory.

Desert environments make up a third of the land areas on Earth, ranging from the hottest to the coldest environments. Aridity leads to the development of unique adaptations among the organisms that inhabit them. Climate change and other processes of desertification as well as increasing human demand for habitable and cultivatable areas have resulting in increasing need to better understand these systems. Namibia is a model system for studying these processes and includes the Sossuvlei (Sand Sea) World Heritable Site. This seminar will prepare students for their overseas field experience in Namibia. The seminar will provide an introduction to desert biogeography and culture, using Namibia as a case study. During the seminar, students will each give two presentations on aspects of desert biogeography and ecology, specific organisms and their adaptations to arid environments, cultural adaptations of indigenous peoples and immigrants, ecological threats and conservation efforts, and/or national and international policy towards deserts. Additional assignments include a comprehensive dossier and a final exam. Students will also carry out background research for the presentations they will be giving during the field seminar where access to the internet and to other scholarly resources will be limited. In addition, we will cover logistics, health and safety, cultural sensitivity, geography, and politics. We will 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.

This course has as its primary objective, the historical study of the intersection of race, science and medicine in the US and abroad with an emphasis on Africa and its Diasporas in the US. By drawing on literature from history, science and technology studies, sociology and other related disciplines, the course will consider the sociological and cultural concept of race and its usefulness as an analytical category. The course will explore how the study of race became its own ¿science¿ in the late-Enlightenment era, the history of eugenics--a science of race aimed at the ostensible betterment of the overall population through the systematic killing or "letting die" of humanity¿s "undesirable" parts, discuss how the ideology of pseudo-scientific racism underpinned the health policies of the French and British Empires in Africa, explore the fraught relationship between race and medicine in the US, discuss how biological notions of race have quietly slipped back into scientific projects in the 21st century and explore how various social justice advocates and scholars have resisted the scientific racisms of the present and future and/or proposed new paths towards a more equitable and accessible science.

This course aims to equip students with an understanding of the cultural, political and literary aspects at play in the literatures of Francophone Africa and the Caribbean. Our primary readings will be Francophone novels and poetry, though we will also read some theoretical texts. The assigned readings will expose students to literature from diverse French-speaking regions of the African/Caribbean world. This course will also serve as a "literary toolbox," with the intention of facilitating an understanding of literary forms, terms and practices. Students can expect to work on their production of written and spoken French (in addition to reading comprehension) both in and outside of class. Special guest: LEILA SLIMANI (Goncourt Prize 2016). Required readings include: Leila Slimani, "Sexe et Mensonges au Maroc", Albert Memmi, "La Statue de Sel," Kaouther Adimi, "L'Envers des autres", Maryse Condé, "La Vie sans fards". Movies include "Goodbye Morocco", "Aya de Yopougon", "Les Baies d'Alger". nTaught in French. Prerequisite: FRENLANG 124 or consent of instructor.

This seminar is part of a broader program on Social Entrepreneurship at CDDRL in partnership with the Haas Center for Public Service. 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. Students should register for either 3 OR 5 units only. Students enrolled in the full 5 units will have a service-learning component along with the course. Students enrolled for 3 units will not complete the service-learning component. Limited enrollment. Attendance at the first class is mandatory in order to participate in service learning.

This is a student driven, dialogue based, and intellectual community focused course. We will explore and challenge the taken-for-granted framing of key African issues and debates. Engagement with discussion leaders drawing on their own research and case studies from across the African continent will guide us across shifting terrain. This course centers the scholarship and voices of African students. Topics include: Afropolitanism, Brain Drain/ Gain, Education, Leadership, Global Health, AI Application in Africa, Economic Development, Industrial Policy, LGBTQI Rights, Gender and Sexuality.

May be repeated for credit.