Study abroad in Zanzibar!

Overview

On this four-week study abroad course, students will have the opportunity to explore Zanzibar’s natural beauty and cultural history. The course will be based in the city of Zanzibar’s historic Stone Town area, in collaboration with the Zanzibar Indian Ocean Research Institute (ZIORI). Students will be housed in a comfortable guest-house within walking distance of ZIORI and dozens of affordable restaurants. Students will enroll in two courses: AAAS 320/520 – Language and Culture of the Swahili Speaking Communities, and AAAS 501 – Regional History: Zanzibar and the Swahili Coast, 1698-2008 (both are described below). Students will be in class most days, with guest lectures from ZIORI’s founder, Zanzibar’s foremost historian, Prof. Abdul Sheriff, and other prominent local scholars. We will have several field course excursions (usually on weekends) from the base, to other parts of the Zanzibar islands. The beginning of the course coincides with the famous Zanzibar International Film Festival, providing students with a lively and valuable opportunity to understand the multi-cultural, cosmopolitan, and globalized character of Zanzibar today.

Setting

Zanzibar consists of two main islands (Unguja and Pemba) and dozens of small islets a few miles off of the East African coast, inhabited by a bit more than a million people. Almost all Zanzibaris are Swahili-speaking followers of Sunni Islam. The Zanzibar islands have been central to the emergence and expansion of the Swahili world’s sophisticated Islamic civilization over the course of the last 1500 years. The city of Zanzibar (2007 pop. est. 425,000) was the seat of power for a major commercial empire that dominated the East African (Swahili) coast from southern Somalia to northern Mozambique from the 1690s until the coming of British colonial rule to the islands in 1890. Scarcely a month after obtaining independence from Britain in December 1963, the islands’ Omani-dominated Sultanate was overthrown, in the January 11 Zanzibar Revolution. Four months after that, in April 1964, Zanzibar’s new government formed a union with the newly independent country of Tanganyika on the African mainland, and the new state became known as the United Republic of Tanzania. In the last 44 years, Zanzibar has retained a semi-autonomous status with its own President, House of Representatives, and government ministries. It has also emerged as a major destination for international tourism, capitalizing both on its natural beauty and extraordinarily rich cultural history as a meeting ground of diverse influences from Africa, Asia, and Europe.

Accommodations:
Students will stay in guest houses in Zanzibar.  Breakfasts will be included.

Courses Offered

AAAS 320/520: Language and Culture of the Swahili Speaking Communities
This three-credit hour course is designed to introduce students to the language and culture of the Swahili speaking communities of East Africa. The aim is to provide students an opportunity to build Swahili cultural competency and enhance their understanding and appreciation of the Swahili peoples’ ways of life. Using the socio-cultural landscape of East Africa as a case study, students will critically examine a variety of Swahili cultural aspects, and other behavior as embedded in culture. Through selected readings the class will explore a wide range of topics: general concepts of culture and language, the geographical features of Tanzania/Zanzibar, Kenya and Uganda, the history & origins of Swahili, the role that Swahili has played and continues to play today in religious, economical, historical, political and social terms for all East Africans, while in the cultural context of Zanzibar city.

AAAS 501: Regional History: Zanzibar and the Swahili Coast, 1698-2008
This is a field-based in-country survey of the major political, social, economic, and intellectual trends in the modern history and historical geography of Zanzibar. Political topics include Omani rule, Indian Ocean and African interior long-distance trading, the struggle for independence from British colonialism, the 1964 union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, the socialist period (1964-1992), and the contemporary transformation to multi-party parliamentary democracy and market-based economic development. Geographical themes include the impacts of colonialism on conservation, post-colonial struggles over natural resource management, and land conflicts from post-colonial urbanization.
(Note: graduate students may enroll in AAAS 690: Investigation and Conference, for 3 credit hours in this same course).

Program Directors
Ashford Njogu has a Masters in Social Planning and Development and is a lecturer in the African and African-American Studies department where he teaches KiSwahili language and culture. 
Garth Myers is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and director of the Kansas African Studies Center.  His research focuses on African political and cultural geography, development studies, urban studies, and environmental geography in Africa.

Dates:
Leave US:                June 30, 2008
Arrive Tanzania:      July 1, 2008
Leave Tanzania:      July 30, 2008

Eligibility: 
Open to students in good academic standing from any accredited US college or university.  Minimum 2.5 GPA required.

Credit:
University of Kansas undergraduate or graduate credit is granted upon successful completion of the program.
Financial Aid

KU students who qualify for summer financial aid in the form of Stafford and/or other loans, Pell or SEOG Grants, and scholarships may apply the aid to the cost of a Study Abroad Program.
Limited supplemental scholarships are available to KU undergraduates. Applications are available at the Office of Study Abroad. The scholarship application deadline is March 1.

Application Procedures
Final Application Deadline: March 1, 2008
Early application is strongly encouraged.
Applications are available in the KU Office of Study Abroad. You can also download the application on the web at
www.studyabroad.ku.edu.