printer friendly pageAFRICAST 181: Media Representations of Africa (AFRICAST 81)
How has Africa been dominantly represented in the media? How are these representations challenged, complexified and reproduced in the postcolonial context? What is the role of African media in these processes? This class is an introduction to the variety of roles played by the media in representing Africa, with a particular focus on the postcolonial context. The topic is particularly relevant to contemporary Africa as the emerging middle-class, economic and cultural globalization, and the uptake for communication technologies are shaping contested images of the continent. You will: develop a theoretical and empirical understanding of the media as instruments of domination but also of resistance; learn how to critically deconstruct media representations in everyday life; understand the challenges of intercultural communication in an unequal world. Key concepts such as: representation, stereotyping, cultural appropriation, afropessimism, afrocentrism, afro optimism, afropolitanism. Readings drawn from media and cultural studies, anthropology, postcolonial theory and literature. In class-analysis of photographs, news articles and broadcasts, PR campaigns, social media, films and documentaries.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-SI, WAY-EDP
Instructors:
Nothias, T. (PI)
AFRICAST 190: Madagascar Prefield Seminar
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.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 1-2
Instructors:
Siegel, R. (PI)
AFRICAST 195: Back from Africa Workshop
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.
Last offered: Autumn 2013
AFRICAST 199: Independent Study or Directed Reading
May be repeated for credit.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 1-5
| Repeatable
for credit
Instructors:
Assenyoh, K. (PI)
;
Hubbard, L. (PI)
;
Roberts, R. (PI)
...
more instructors for AFRICAST 199 »
Instructors:
Assenyoh, K. (PI)
;
Hubbard, L. (PI)
;
Roberts, R. (PI)
;
Samoff, J. (PI)
;
Stanton, T. (PI)
AFRICAST 200: The HIV/AIDS Epidemic in Tanzania: A Pre-Field Seminar
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.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 1
Instructors:
Katzenstein, D. (PI)
AFRICAST 209: Running While Others Walk: African Perspectives on Development (AFRICAST 109)
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.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
AFRICAST 211: Education for All? The Global and Local in Public Policy Making in Africa (AFRICAST 111)
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.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
Instructors:
Samoff, J. (PI)
AFRICAST 212: AIDS, Literacy, and Land: Foreign Aid and Development in Africa (AFRICAAM 111, AFRICAST 112)
Is foreign aid a solution? or a problem? Should there be more aid, less aid, or none at all? How do foreign aid and local initiatives intersect? A clinic in Uganda that addresses AIDS as a family and community problem. Multiple strategies in Tanzania to increase girls' schooling. These are imaginative and innovative approaches to pressing and contested policy challenges. We will examine several contentious issues in contemporary Africa, exploring their roots and the intense conflicts they engender, with special attention to foreign aid and the aid relationship. As African communities and countries work to shape their future, what are the foreign roles and what are their consequences?
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
Instructors:
Samoff, J. (PI)
AFRICAST 216: Islam in Africa through the Arts (AFRICAST 116)
This course will survey the history of Islam and Muslim societies in Africa through their arts. Covering three periods (Pre-colonial, Colonial, and Post-colonial), and four geographic regions (North, East, West, and Southern Africa), the course will explore the various forms and functions of Qur anic recitation and calligraphy, architecture, illumination, dress, poetry, music, literature, portraiture, and the contemporary cinematic arts of Muslim societies on the continent from a variety of perspectives (spiritual, intellectual, aesthetic, social, political, etc.). Through these artistic works and traditions we will explore the general themes of philosophy/ theology/ mysticism, trade, Islam s relationship with other religions, state formation and revolution, gender and ethnic dynamics, colonial constructions of religious identity, diasporic communities, and contemporary conflicts and debates between Sufis, Salafis, and the state across the continent. Students will become familiar with the basic vocabulary and concepts of Islam, as well as various forms of African Islamic artistic traditions and those of African Muslim societies. Students and will become familiar with what these artistic productions mean(t) for the communities that produce(d) them, and what they can tell us about the philosophy, beliefs, history, and socioeconomic and political circumstances in which they are/were produced. This course will feature a number of creative assignments in which students will get a chance to produce their own piece of calligraphy, design their own mosque, and write their own Sufi poem or Sufi commentary on a popular song. These creative projects will be featured in an exhibit at the end of the class.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
Instructors:
Ogunnaike, O. (PI)
AFRICAST 219: Novel Perspectives on South Africa (AFRICAST 119, CSRE 119)
South Africa's rich vein of contemporary fiction provides as a fascinating window onto that country's social dynamics. In this class we'll focus on a number of recent works that tease out some of the key themes that continue to shape both South Africa and the world today.nnSelected novels will provide a framework within which to consider, among other topics: explosive public protest aimed at the Zuma government and other institutions, particularly around the question of university fees and other #MustFall issues; the place of youth culture and coming-of-age in a changing society; attempts to deal with HIV-Aids and other infectious diseases, with their considerable impact; simmering dissatisfaction, especially among young people, about 'Transformation'; the apparent victory of neoliberal policies over social justice, at least it was perceived in the 1980s and early 90s, and the rise of a new black middle class; changing notions of South Africa's place in Africa and in the world. If we take these themes together, the novel seems well suited to the exploration of personal identities amid the social change, and our choices of authors are aimed at showcasing South Africa¿s literary talent beyond the tired tropes of J. M. Coetzee¿s bleak vision.nnFour novels will form the core of our discussion. Zakes Mda in Little Suns (2016) uses one of his characteristic historical settings to explore the private aftermaths of a public event: the assassination of the colonial commissioner, Hamilton Hope (1880), amidst a rising of the amaXhosa people in the Eastern Cape. Niq Mhlongo's After Tears (2007) is the story of a young man's attempts to negotiate academic failure at the University of Cape Town on the one hand and his family's upwardly mobile expectations of him on the other. Ivan Vladislavic setsThe Restless Supermarket (2001) in central Johannesburg of 1993, adopting the perspectiveof a retired proofreader of telephone directories, enjoying one of his old haunts on the eve of its demolition. Finally, in Zoë Wicomb's October: a novel (2014), a scholar-author tries to deal with changes in her own life in Scotland at the same time as she reconnects with her family in rural Western Cape and deals anew with its challenges and skeletons in the cupboard.nnThis course is conceived in the frame of (South) African humanities. Anyone interested in contemporary Cape Town, including students who have spent a term in BOSP-Cape Town or intend to do so, will find several points of engagement. Graduate students are welcome to audit the class: the key point will be a willingness to read and discuss.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 1
Instructors:
Parker, G. (PI)
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