The Virgin Mary is the world's most storied person. Countless tales have been told about the miracles she has performed for the faithful who call upon her. Although many assume that African literature was only oral, not written, until the arrival of Europeans, Africans began writing stories about her by 1200 CE in the languages of Ethiopic, Coptic, & Arabic. This course explores this body of medieval African literature and paintings, preserved in African Christian monasteries, studying their themes of healing, reparative justice, & personal ethics in a violent world. It develops skills in the digital humanities & comparative literary studies.

This course explores African Islam as a set of interconnected cultural continuums, religio-political movements, & interpretive identities. Lectures will cover significant moments in the burgeoning of African Muslim thought and identities through an array of literary sources. Students will examine writings from different spheres of African Islam on the continent & in African diasporas, from the 6th to the 21st century with literature from the centers in East, North, West, & Sub-Saharan Africa, students will engage with African Muslim diasporic writings from the Near East, the Indian Subcontinent, the Atlantic World, & the Americas.

How can we read, write, and critically think (imagine) about African politics and society? The course presents contemporary ethnography on African politics and society during the postcolonial era, emphasizing the multiplicity, complexities, and diversity of African ideas, imaginations, practices, and experiences, in along with the variety of national and international factors that either influence or are impacted by them. Upon completing the course, students will have the essential critical thinking abilities and analytical tools required to recognize and challenge reductionist and biased narratives concerning Africa.

Taking a cue from Afrofuturists, this interdisciplinary course frames Africa as a site of technological innovation. We will learn both about the historical context of major technological advancements in Africa and how literature and art have imagined the relationship between Blackness and technology. Drawing on cutting-edge findings in history, archaeology, and other fields, we will explore the development of major technologies in Africa's past, from metallurgy to urban engineering. We will also study how African societies have adopted new technologies in response to enslavement, environmental change, and colonial rule.

An interdisciplinary navigation into the field of narratology, the structure of (hi)stories, centering creation myths and origin stories. African mythogenesis paves our primary path of investigation, but we also consider the universality of myth, and students will write to their interests and experiences. This creative nonfiction class combines ethnographic research, critical reading, and literary hybridity. A polished 10-page piece presents an original, research-intensive mythscape alongside informed analysis and careful contextualization. Every person has a story we should hear. This unconventional class equips Tigers to tell theirs.

Humans have a deep history, one that informs our contemporary reality. Understanding our evolutionary history is understanding both what we have in common with other primates and other hominins, and what happened over the last 7 to 10 million years since our divergence from the other African ape lineages. More specifically, the story of the human is centered in what happened in the ~2.5 million year history of our own genus (Homo). This class outlines the history of our lineage and offers an anthropological and evolutionary explanation for what this all means for humans today, and why we should care.

Easily recognized as among the most important examples of canonical African art, Kongo sculpture, textiles, and ritual design are famous for their conceptual density, stylistic variety and rigorous abstraction. The course examines the role of art in the life of the Kongo Kingdom and related peoples, from the arrival of Spanish explorers and missionaries in the 15th century, through the era of Belgian colonization from the late 19th to mid-20th centuries, to the period since political independence in 1960. The seminar coincides with and will explore the Kongo Across the Waters exhibition at the Princeton University Museum.

History of Slavery in Africa and the Middle East focuses on the experiences of enslaved individuals and the powerful social, legal, and political regimes that attempted to define their subjection. Attention will be concentrated on the themes of race, gender, class, and diaspora to examine how these histories both differ from and are informed by histories of slavery globally. This course will analyze the relationship between abolitionist discourses and imperialism, underpinning the ongoing transition from slavery to freedom. Students will engage with literature to understand how historical production has distorted and silenced enslaved lives.

This course is about human-animal relations in history, specifically the management of predator attacks on human beings. The course examines the idea, common among conservationists around the world, that predators that attack humans are "problem animals" by definition and must be killed. The course draws on a range of primary and secondary to challenge the claim that predators that attack humans acquire a taste for human flesh and must, therefore, be killed lest they become a danger to all humans.

This course explores the colonial experience discussed by Italian writers who were in contact with Northern Africa between the 19th and the 20th centuries. This association between Italy and Africa has not been extensively developed neither within Italy or abroad, and it will be the primary focus of this course. The newly unified Italy (1861) looked at Africa as a colonial opportunity to expand its might and wealth. Writers soon embarked to places such as Alexandria and shared a unique perspective on Africa: they understood the continent not as a space to conquer and colonize, but rather as a surprisingly tolerant society in which to live.

A performance course in West African contemporary bass drumming technique with a focus on Dundun drumming. Taught by composer and master drummer Olivier Tarpaga, the course provides hands-on experience on Manding traditional and contemporary bass drumming rhythm. Students will acquire performance experience, skills and techniques on the Kenkeni, Sangban and Dundumba drums. Students will learn about the culture of the griots and the history of the ancient Manding/Mali empire.

This course introduces the study of African politics. The lectures briefly review the social and historical context of contemporary political life. They then profile some of the changes of the early post-Independence period, the authoritarian turn of the 1970s and 80s, and the second liberation of the 1990s and 2000s, before turning to some contemporary challenges (e.g., conflict resolution, land tenure, natural resource management, public goods provision, climate resilience, health, urbanization). Each session introduces a major analytical debate, theories, and African views. Broadly comparative; some special attention to selected countries.

Africa is urbanizing faster than any region of the world. This course analyzes socio-spatial dynamics that create urban life in Africa and generate inequalities arising from urbanization. Students will investigate the links between urbanization, infrastructure systems and informality, and how these shape and connect to food systems and impact the food security of urban residents. Upon completing the course, students will be able to recognize and challenge reductionist narratives concerning contemporary urbanism and explore possibilities for intervention, re-design and change.