Courses
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, offers over 1,000 courses with significant Africa-related content (i.e., at least 25 percent). To search for current courses, see the Coursedog Catalog.
Since inception, the African Studies Initiative (ASI) funded numerous curriculum innovation by Twin Cities faculty and P&A instructors in African Studies and in the four African less commonly taught languages (LCTLs) currently offered at Minnesota: Arabic, Portuguese, Somali, and Swahili. ASI Faculty Travel and Curriculum Development Grants, as well as ASI funds designated for African LCTLs and related area-studies instruction in literature, history, and culture, have supported the creation or redesign of over 50 undergraduate, graduate, and professional courses with significant Africa-related content. These courses, many interdisciplinary, span departments or programs across five colleges and schools: the College of Continuing and Professional Studies; the College of Food, Agricultural, and Natural Resource Sciences; the College of Liberal Arts; the Medical School; and the School of Public Health. With ASI support, faculty and P&A instructors have reimagined approaches to teaching Africa across the disciplines. Faculty curricular innovation, in turn, informs the ASI’s research-based public programming and K–16 outreach—and growing visibility as a regional and national resource hub in African Studies.
ASI-Funded Academic-Year Courses with Significant Africa-Related Content, New or Redesigned:
AFRO 1021: Introduction to Africa
AFRO 1023W: Introduction to African World Literatures
AFRO 3006: Impact of African Migrations in the Atlantic World
AFRO 3135: Political Dynamics in the Horn of Africa
AFRO 3578/ARTH 3578/CSCL 3553/GLOS 3978: Arts of Africa: Contemporary Sub-Saharan African Popular Art Forms
AFRO 3654: African Cinema
AFRO 4478W/POL 4478W: Contemporary African Politics and the Colonial Legacy
AFRO 3xxx: African Americans and African Immigrants
AFRO 3xxx: Contemporary China-Africa Relations
SMLI 1225: Accelerated Beginning Somali I
SMLI 1226: Accelerated Beginning Somali II
SMLI 3xxx: Intensive Intermediate Somali
SWAH 3425: Advanced Swahili
ARAB 3811: Egyptian Colloquial Arabic I (formerly ARAB 3900: Conversational Arabic)
ARAB 3812: Egyptian Colloquial Arabic II (formerly ARAB 3900: Conversational Arabic II)
ARAB 3900: Jordanian Colloquial Arabic
ARAB 5040: Readings in Arabic Texts – Classical and Modern Arabic
ARAB 5101: Advanced Arabic I
ARAB 5102: Advanced Arabic II
FREN 3101W: Methods in French and Francophone Studies
FREN 3451: North African Cinema
FREN 3471/3750: Topics in Francophone African Literatures and Cultures: Migrants, Refugees, and the Mediterranean in Film, Literature, and Art
FREN 5350: The Mediterranean(s) in Theory: (The) Mediterranean Works: Art and Literature on the Borders of Fortress Europe
FREN 8420: The Mediterranean in the Global Era: Theory, Literature, and Art
GCC 3xxx/5xxx: Advancing Health Equity: The Structural Determination of Health at Home and Abroad
GEOG 5900: Applied Quantitative Methods Using Survey Data
GEOG 3xxx/5xxx: Land and People, Food and Health: Geographic Perspectives of Contemporary Africa
GLOS 3613W/SOC 3613W: Stuffed and Starved: The Politics of Eating
GLOS 3900: Biopolitics of Health and Disease in the African Diaspora
GLOS 3900: Politics of Global Health
HSEM 2001H: Fragile Subjects: Portraits of Childhood in African World Literature
HIST 3437: Politics of Violence in Africa: The Decolonization of Kenya and Algeria in Comparative Perspective
HORT 5032: Organic Vegetable Production
LING 1705W: World Englishes: The Linguistics of English-Based Varieties around the Globe
MUED 5301: General Music I
MUED 5302: General Music II
MUED 5750: World Music in Education: Africa
MUS 5460: World Music Ensemble
MUS 5805: Worlds of Improvisation
PUBH 6713: Global Health in a Local Context: Social Determinants, Community Engagement, and Social Action in Minnesota (formerly PUBH 7200)
TH 3152W:Global Avant-Gardes: Theatre, Music, Modernity (formerly TH 3152/5152, GLOS 3152/5152)
Intensive summer program in Arabic, funded since 2014
ARAB 1101: Beginning Arabic I
ARAB 1102: Beginning Arabic II
ARAB 3101: Intermediate Arabic I
ARAB 3102: Intermediate Arabic II
Summer course in Portuguese, funded since 2014
PORT 3001: Portuguese for Spanish Speakers
Summer learning-abroad course in Somali, planned for 2020
SMLI xxxx: Somali Pastoralists: Culture of Survival