Courses
Setswana Language
Instructor: University of Botswana faculty
Required course, 4 semester credits
Taught by professors from the African Languages Department, this language course will feature intensive classroom study, plus homework and occasional field trips. For the second half of the semester, students will meet regularly to improve their conversational skills. Students will work on grammar as well as vocabulary as they learn the fundamentals of Botswana's national language.
Globalization, the Environment, and Development in Botswana (Spring 2012)
Instructor: Bill Moseley, Program Director
Required course (Spring 2012), 4 semester credits
Click here to see a course syllabus
Botswana is often held up as an African development miracle, a shining success story to counter the more pessimistic media accounts of governance and development in Africa. Unlike Nigeria or the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, Botswana has adeptly managed its diamond resources and invested wisely in infrastructure and education. Botswana’s first president, Seretse Khama, is widely regarded as a frugal, shrewd and unassuming leader who took his country from being a back water colony to a prosperous middle income country. Botswana’s amazing landscapes, from the drylands of the Kalahari to the wetlands of the Okavango Delta, have also been managed in a unique way with the country positioning itself as a high-end ecotourism destination. Despite these great successes, all is not perfect in Botswana. The country currently has one of the most unequal income distributions in the world, it is struggling to cope with an extremely high HIV/AIDS prevalency rate, and some minority groups in Botswana have a continuing history of mistreatment by the government.
The goal of this course is to examine the case of Botswana in a global and regional context with a particular focus on the themes of environment and development. Our aim will be: to critically examine which development efforts have worked and which have not; to explore the external and internal factors which contributed to these successes and failures; and to reflect on the value of these lessons for other parts of the world. We adopt a hybrid approach, which straddles both the social and natural sciences, to explore a number of key environment and development questions within the context of globalization. We start by situating ourselves in Gaborone, then explore some key concepts from globalization and development studies, before moving into the basics of history for Botswana and southern Africa. This necessary background information then allows us to examine a series of environmental questions and themes. These topics include: 1) diamonds and development; biodiversity and conservation; community-based conservation; transnational parks; cattle, pastoralism and development; HIV/AIDS and Livelihoods; and water resources and livelihoods, from the Kalahari Desert to the Okavango Delta. There will be a mix of lecture, discussion, writing, and field exploration used as learning tools.
Youth Culture and Education in Botswana (Spring 2013)
Instructor: Sonja Darlington, Program Director
Required course (Spring 2013), 4 semester credits
Click here to see a course syllabus
Independent since 1966, Botswana is noted for its high economic growth and perceived western development, and has many distinguishing characteristics worth investigating. For example, Batswana people speak 28 languages and many speakers are trilingual; they speak the official language (English), the national language (Setswana), and a local language. By utilizing trifocal language patterns, Batswana people have advantages over monolingual Americans, but at the same time they may be at a distinct disadvantage when they try to negotiate the formal education system. While a few upwardly mobile Batswana have easy access to globalized geographical spaces, others, such as those in Francistown may face the same types of squatter issues as someone living in the gecekondu in Istanbul, Turkey. Why is this the case? In November 1994 a brutal murder of a 14-year old female in Mochudi, Botswana caused a cultural crisis that was debated in the newspapers. Subsequent to the event, there were riots, rumors, and outright denials, which suggest that Botswana society had a challenging time trying to come to terms with the changes in family structures, shifts in gender roles, differences in group status, and revolutions in youth culture. What is happening to the youth, and why has this population been targeted as problematic?
This course will address specific themes, which include township and rural spaces, student political movements, indigenous knowledge, media’s role in society, immigration issues, language and literacy education, and religion and gender in schools. The approach to investigating these topics will be based on concepts from sociology, anthropology, linguistics, history, the arts, political science, economics, and literature. Readings will often be provided by Botswana scholars, and a local/global analysis and interpretation will be developed through discussions, guest lectures, student presentations, writing, and field study. As the semester unfolds, the expectation is that we will be building a rich vocabulary of terms, which describe a wide range of theoretical positions, and will promote a full spectrum of opinions and interpretations among participants. The focus will be on expanding complexity and generating multiple conclusions to increase the depth of understanding, as participants are not expected to become definitive experts but rather thoughtful, careful, and respectful scholars. To this end, this course will include discussions that require participants to attend classes regularly, to be active conversationalists, and to engage as critical readers, listeners, and observers.
Elective at the University of Botswana
Instructor: University of Botswana faculty
Required course, 4 semester credits
Students will register for one elective course at the University of Botswana, taught by University of Botswana faculty. Students may select from a wide variety of electives offered at the university, though many students opt to choose a course addressing aspects of African political, cultural, or socio-economic life. ACM will provide a list of courses selected by students in previous programs, which includes classes such as:
- History of Christianity in Southern Africa
- Politics and Society in Southern Africa
- Contemporary African Philosophy
- Public Administration in Botswana
- Introduction to African Popular Theatre
- Growth, Policy and Poverty in Africa, Latin America, South and South-East Asia
- Social Structures of Southern African Societies
- African Traditional Religion
- Demographic Aspects of HIV/AIDS Epidemic
You may look at the 2010-11 University of Botswana undergraduate catalog, which contains course numbers and titles (Note: This PDF is quite large in size). Also, refer to the Spring 2009 course schedule to see which courses were offered that semester.
Independent Study Project
Required course, 4 semester credits
Each student plans and completes an independent study project under the direction of the ACM program faculty or a member of the University faculty. Projects are expected to emphasize interviews and field observation. Students prepare written reports and make an oral presentation to the group. Students are encouraged to formulate projects to fit their individual interests.