Goucher College 2021-2022 Undergraduate Catalogue 
    
    Mar 28, 2024  
Goucher College 2021-2022 Undergraduate Catalogue PLEASE NOTE: This is an archived catalog. Programs are subject to change each academic year.

SOA 205 - African Cultures and Societies (4 Cr.)

(formerly ANT 205) (GCR Social and Behavioral Sciences area)
This course invites students to more deeply consider aspects of cultural process and the human condition in Africa through the lens of ethnographic inquiry and attention to African expression. Readings explore infancy and old age, gender, rural and urban settings, agriculture and industry, work and play. Our framework is simultaneously local and global, historical and contemporary, modern and traditional, situating African lives in the complex layering and contexts that shape social experience. Through our engagement with the readings and with documentary films, we will encounter and address such theoretical themes and issues as agency, colonialism, nationalism, performance, enculturation, political economy, cultural change, and the ethics and practices of ethnographic representation. This course will prepare students to move beyond superficial understanding of African lives, and provide inspiration and possible focus for study abroad or other further research. Spring semester. Offered 2021-22 and alternate years. Turner.