Announcing a NEW Millsaps Program in Tanzania!

Spend 4 weeks in Tanzania in June/July 2011 and earn 4 semester hours credit.

This course will offer the students the opportunity to gain a deep and rich firsthand understanding of life, history, economics, and culture in East Africa. The course will begin on the Millsaps College campus with a three-day introduction to Tanzanian history and culture as well as the Swahili language. However, the main part of the course will be comprised of a four-week study trip to Tanzania that will allow students to engage the contemporary realities of Tanzanian culture and economics. In Tanzania, we will move between Dar es Salaam on the Indian Ocean and the interior of the country in the Southern Highlands. As we move, we will consider the effects of agriculture, industry, tourism, and the global economy on the daily lives of Tanzanians.

Through a series of daily ethnographic exercises, students will gain experiences in urban and rural areas. Students will be asked to spend time in places like marketplaces and religious institutions and to think about what role these spaces may play in the lives of Tanzanians today. Tanzanians have a strong appreciation for their traditional cultures, but they also participate fully in modern and postmodern culture. How do Tanzanians negotiate questions about cultural change and cultural preservation. In this program, we will ask questions, for example, about whether there are problems or contradictions that arise in a country overrun by cell phones, but where many Tanzanians still lack reliable access to electricity with which to charge those phones.

	We will spend time in the city of Dar es Salaam, the island of Zanzibar, national game parks, and the southern part of the country.
The program will cost approximately $1,700 (not including tuition and airfare). Spaces are limited.
For a pdf copy of the course syllabus (tentative), click here.	To download a pdf copy of the schedule for this program, click here.

For more information, contact Julian Murchison (murchjm@millsaps.edu)

Watch for an upcoming information session