Panama PapersTeaches students how to apply historical thinking to present day problems. Each version starts with contemporary headlines about a current issue, moves to an investigation of its historical roots and legacies, and pivots back to the present to assess the impact of past history on present reality and to capture those relationships in a collaborative student project. It aims to show, in short, how and why history matters NOW.

Section A: Africans in the global world of Islam 

An integral part of the Global World of Islam is the African continent, now a staple of contemporary news due to the prominence gained in the past ten years by Islamist movements such as Boko Haram in Northern Nigeria, AQMI in the Sahara and the Sahel, and Shabab in the Horn and East Africa. The course will explore the history of the emergence of such movements in Africa, paying attention to local and global dynamics. The course will also offer comparative perspectives between different forms of Islam on the African continent that will help students in critically engaging such a contemporary phenomenon, which is very often misunderstood in more general settings, such as newspapers and TV news.

Section B: Century of Revolutions

How people and diverse settings have challenged the way societies treat and value human lives through a century of crises and revolutionary movements. Beginning with Black Lives Matter, the course will work backward in time toward the culminating exploration of the 1917 Russian revolutions.

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