Global Arc

Examines selected aspects on conflict in Africa. The concept "conflict" is used to mean organized and/or collective political violence that causes the death of about 1,000 people per year. The course will focus on the following issues: analytical debates about conflicts in Africa; actors/participants such as guerrillas, warlords, and child soldiers; continental politics about conflict; the politics of humanitarian intervention; wars in the Great Lakes Region; the war and warlords of West Africa; the genocide in Rwanda, and the aftermath of wars, especially those of Southern Africa. One three-hour seminar.

Critical African Studies is a colloquium designed as a capstone course for African Studies Certificate students. The course is designed to introduce students to cutting-edge scholarship in African Studies. Students engage with African Studies scholars from Princeton University and beyond. In addition to attending the African Studies Lecture Series and Works-in-Progress series, students in Critical African Studies will workshop their junior or senior independent research. This capstone course is open to junior and senior certificate students and must be taken to fulfill the African Studies Certificate requirements.

This course looks at the ways in which digital technology shapes interactions and imaginations of Africa globally. Key themes that will be covered include societal transformations stemming out of the introduction and increasing use of the internet, mobile phones, and new media as well as gendered and racialized digital divides in relation to access to social services, such as health, education, housing, water, and sanitation. A particular attention will be given to the impact of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and the ways the digital space has been an arena on how Africans and their countries have responded to the pandemic.