1 - 10 of 11 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 independence era leaders. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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