This research seminar provides students with instruction in basic historical methods and an opportunity to conduct collaborative primary source research into the University of Pennsylvania's historic connections to slavery. After an initial orientation to archival research, students will plunge in to doing actual research at the Kislak Center, the University Archives, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the American Philosophical Society, the Library Company, and various online sources. During the final month of the semester, students will begin drafting research reports and preparing for a public presentation of the work. During the semester, there will be opportunities to collaborate with a certified genealogist, a data management and website expert, a consultant on public programming, and a Penn graduate whose research has been integral to the Penn Slavery Project.

In recent decades, many African countries have perennially ranked very high among the most religious. This course serves as an introduction to major forms of religiosity in sub-Saharan Africa. Emphasis will be devoted to the indigenous religious traditions, Christianity and Islam, as they are practiced on the continent. We will examine how these religious traditions intersect with various aspects of life on the continent. The aim of this class is to help students to better understand various aspects of African cultures by dismantling stereotypes and assumptions that have long characterized the study of religions in Africa. The readings and lectures are will be drawn from historical and a few anthropological, and literary sources.

The objectives are to continue to strengthen students' knowledge of speaking, listening, reading, and writing Swahili and to compare it with the language of the students; to continue learning about the cultures of East Africa and to continue making comparisons with the culture(s) of the students; to continue to consider the relationship between that knowledge and the knowledge of other disciplines; and using that knowledge, to continue to unite students with communities outside of class. Level 3 on the ILR (Interagency Language Roundtable) scale.

This course will explore the different dimensions of everyday life in Africa. Everyday life has been described by Agnes Heller (1978) as “the secret yeast of history.” What constitutes this “yeast of history” in contemporary Africa? In exploring everyday life, we will examine the existing (in)capacities in the structures of state and society in Africa for human well-being in relation to the differences between political life (bios) and bare life (zoe). The course engages with the everyday life in terms of how social, economic, and political lives are constituted and the implications of this process for whether Africans live well or not, how they die, and their struggles for alternative lives. With (ethnographic) accounts and perspectives from different countries in Africa, the course focuses deeply on how to understand and explain the conditions under which everyday social needs and economic necessities are turned into political/existential struggles as well as the conditions under which political exigencies can transform into economic, social and bodily fatalities. The overarching questions that will animate this course include these: What are the prevalent conditions of everyday life in Africa? What and who determines (in)eligibility regarding the everyday tools of good life and human survival? How are these determinations related to the differential distribution of potential and/or actual injury, harm, and damage to human life and the conditions of its survival? What can ethnographic insight contribute to our understanding of everydayness in Africa? The roles of sexualities, gender, generation, humor, identities, racism, hate, memory, memorial, transactions, etc., in the construction, reconstruction, and deconstruction of daily life – and death – in the continent will be examined. Audio-visual materials will be used to analyze important themes about quotidian life in Africa.

This course covers key novels, short stories, and essays by the great African American science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler, with a focus on her experiments with genre and gender-bending shape-shifters. See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings.

What is the role of the life and social sciences in shaping our understanding of race? How has racial stratification influenced scientists and how have scientists constructed racial difference and helped to maintain or contest racial inequities? How have these racial theories shaped the production of scientific knowledge and the way we think about human bodies, diversity, and commonality—and what are the consequences for justice in our society? This course draws on an interdisciplinary body of biological and social scientific literature to explore critically the connections between race, science, and justice in the United States, including scientific theories of racial inequality, from the eighteenth century to the genomic age. After investigating varying concepts of race, as well as their uses in eugenics, criminology, anthropology, sociology, neuroscience, medicine, and public health, we will focus on the recent expansion of genomic research and technologies that treat race as a biological category that can be identified at the molecular level, including race-specific pharmaceuticals, commercial ancestry testing, and racial profiling with DNA forensics. We will discuss the significance of scientific investigations of racial difference for advancing racial justice in the United States.

What is the role of the life and social sciences in shaping our understanding of race? How has racial stratification influenced scientists and how have scientists constructed racial difference and helped to maintain or contest racial inequities? How have these racial theories shaped the production of scientific knowledge and the way we think about human bodies, diversity, and commonality—and what are the consequences for justice in our society? This course draws on an interdisciplinary body of biological and social scientific literature to explore critically the connections between race, science, and justice in the United States, including scientific theories of racial inequality, from the eighteenth century to the genomic age. After investigating varying concepts of race, as well as their uses in eugenics, criminology, anthropology, sociology, neuroscience, medicine, and public health, we will focus on the recent expansion of genomic research and technologies that treat race as a biological category that can be identified at the molecular level, including race-specific pharmaceuticals, commercial ancestry testing, and racial profiling with DNA forensics. We will discuss the significance of scientific investigations of racial difference for advancing racial justice in the United States.

What is the role of the life and social sciences in shaping our understanding of race? How has racial stratification influenced scientists and how have scientists constructed racial difference and helped to maintain or contest racial inequities? How have these racial theories shaped the production of scientific knowledge and the way we think about human bodies, diversity, and commonality—and what are the consequences for justice in our society? This course draws on an interdisciplinary body of biological and social scientific literature to explore critically the connections between race, science, and justice in the United States, including scientific theories of racial inequality, from the eighteenth century to the genomic age. After investigating varying concepts of race, as well as their uses in eugenics, criminology, anthropology, sociology, neuroscience, medicine, and public health, we will focus on the recent expansion of genomic research and technologies that treat race as a biological category that can be identified at the molecular level, including race-specific pharmaceuticals, commercial ancestry testing, and racial profiling with DNA forensics. We will discuss the significance of scientific investigations of racial difference for advancing racial justice in the United States.

What is the role of the life and social sciences in shaping our understanding of race? How has racial stratification influenced scientists and how have scientists constructed racial difference and helped to maintain or contest racial inequities? How have these racial theories shaped the production of scientific knowledge and the way we think about human bodies, diversity, and commonality—and what are the consequences for justice in our society? This course draws on an interdisciplinary body of biological and social scientific literature to explore critically the connections between race, science, and justice in the United States, including scientific theories of racial inequality, from the eighteenth century to the genomic age. After investigating varying concepts of race, as well as their uses in eugenics, criminology, anthropology, sociology, neuroscience, medicine, and public health, we will focus on the recent expansion of genomic research and technologies that treat race as a biological category that can be identified at the molecular level, including race-specific pharmaceuticals, commercial ancestry testing, and racial profiling with DNA forensics. We will discuss the significance of scientific investigations of racial difference for advancing racial justice in the United States.

What is the role of the life and social sciences in shaping our understanding of race? How has racial stratification influenced scientists and how have scientists constructed racial difference and helped to maintain or contest racial inequities? How have these racial theories shaped the production of scientific knowledge and the way we think about human bodies, diversity, and commonality—and what are the consequences for justice in our society? This course draws on an interdisciplinary body of biological and social scientific literature to explore critically the connections between race, science, and justice in the United States, including scientific theories of racial inequality, from the eighteenth century to the genomic age. After investigating varying concepts of race, as well as their uses in eugenics, criminology, anthropology, sociology, neuroscience, medicine, and public health, we will focus on the recent expansion of genomic research and technologies that treat race as a biological category that can be identified at the molecular level, including race-specific pharmaceuticals, commercial ancestry testing, and racial profiling with DNA forensics. We will discuss the significance of scientific investigations of racial difference for advancing racial justice in the United States.