This is an archive. See the current website at www.ssp.harvard.edu.

African and African American Studies

Not all courses are available to SSP students. For example, some courses are offered only for graduate credit. Note especially any listed prerequisites.

AFAM S-20 Introduction to African Languages and Cultures (32160)
(Print version)
John M. Mugane
(4 credits: UN, GR, NC) T,Th 3:30-6 pm, Barker Center for the Humanities, Room 230. Eight-week session. Tuition $2,275.

This course is an introduction to African languages and cultures. We explore language used by sub-Saharan Africans to understand, organize, and transmit indigenous knowledge to successive generations. Language serves as a road map to understanding how social, political, and economic institutions and processes develop: from kinship structures, the evolution of political offices, and trade relations to the transfer of environmental knowledge. The course objective is to explore and elaborate the language question in African studies and development.

AFAM S-121 The Mother of All Conflicts? Drama and the Battle of the Sexes Across the Ages (32171)
(Print version)
Biodun Jeyifo
(4 credits: UN, GR, NC) Short session II. Tuition $2,275.

*** AFAM S-121 has been CANCELED.***

AFAM S-183 Please, Wake Up! Race, Gender, and Ethnicity in the Early Films of Spike Lee (32167)
(Syllabus) (Print version)
Biodun Jeyifo
(4 credits: UN, GR, NC) M-Th 9:30 am-noon, Barker Center for the Humanities, Room 230. Short session II. Tuition $2,275.

This is a course on how the intersection of race, gender, and ethnicity in the early cinema of Spike Lee works to generate the qualities now commonly associated with his cinematic style. We pay special attention to the tension between Lee's passionate oppositional politics and his intensely personal, experimental, and playful approach to film and its expressive idioms and techniques. Films to be studied include She's Gotta Have It, School Daze, Do the Right Thing, Mo Better Blues, and Jungle Fever.

 



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