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Skidmore College
First-Year Experience

Scribner Seminar Program Course Description

Africa in Stereotypes

Instructor(s): Sonia Silva, Anthropology

Are Africans really isolated and uncivilized? Is there really an African race? How has Africa been portrayed in Western museums, movies, and the mass media? And what do these portrayals reveal about Africa and about the West? In this seminar we will learn to analyze critically North American and European stereotypes about Africa south of the Sahara desert. While the main focus of this course is the criticism of Western stereotypes, students will also be introduced to Africa's own complexity, dynamism, and diversity from the perspective of anthropology and other social and humanistic disciplines.

Course Offered: