African Studies

The course is designed to equip students with experience, knowledge, and skills for succeeding in globally interdependent and culturally diverse workplaces. During the course, students are challenged to question, reflect upon, and respond thoughtfully to the issues they observe and encounter in the internship setting and local host environment. Professional and personal development skills as defined by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), such as critical thinking, teamwork, and diversity are cultivated. Assignments focus on building a portfolio that highlights those competencies and their application to workplace skills. The hybrid nature of the course allows students to develop their skills in a self-paced environment with face-to-face meetings and check-ins to frame their intercultural internship experience. Students complete 45 hours of in-person and asynchronous online learning activities and 225-300 hours at the internship placement.

This course offers rich insights on important issues in international politics: threats to international peace and security, humanitarian crises, and armed conflict prevention and management. Beyond these particular crises, the course examines the changing power relations among states at the global scale. It considers complex forms of political decision-making and social monitoring, involving a diverse group of actors: politicians, national and international bureaucrats, diplomats, militaries, rebels, investors, business(wo)men, consultants, activists, scientists, artists, journalists, etc. The course examines how the multidimensional interactions these actors entertain locally or in faraway headquarters blur the divide between the intervenors on one side and local actors and host governments on the other.

This course explores cultures of the French-speaking countries of the south (Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa), in their plural identities and their universes of reference, in order to better understand them. It studies literary texts and the analysis of films and audiovisual documentaries. Writers from these French-speaking countries accompany readers in discovering the other through literary strategies that prepare for the reception of difference. The course offers readings that will be like intercultural adventures in which the literary technique of the child narrator-character is decisive.

The course provides an overview of Africa's historical, cultural, and societal development. Themes like precolonial societies and livelihoods, the transatlantic slave trade, colonialism, independence, and postcolonial transformations are described with the help of anthropological, archaeological, and historical approaches and insights. Teaching is composed of lectures, seminars, group exercises, film screenings, and study visits.

This course overviews the challenges and opportunities for the international community in contemporary Africa. Taught by a former ambassador with wide Africa experience, the course exposes students to the major themes in the world’s interactions with Africa, including humanitarian intervention, economic opportunity, struggles against terrorism and instability, and great power competition. The course is intended for future practitioners in diplomacy, business, or media with an interest in Africa, and more widely for those seeking to understand global engagement with a great continent.

This is a special studies course with projects arranged between the student and faculty member. The specific topics of study vary each term and are described on a special study project form for each student. The number of units varies with the student's project, contact hours, and method of assessment, as defined on the student's special study project form.