As a Social Engagement course, AAAS 20 will wed scholarly inquiry and academic study to practical experience and personal involvement in the community. Students will be given the opportunity to study Africans, their languages, and their cultures from the ground up, not only through textbooks and data sets but also through personal relationships, cultural participation, and inquisitive explorations of local African heritage communities. You will be invited to develop skills such as video production, ethnographic research, creative writing, “social-portraiture,” GIS mapping, and/or linguistic study as you engage with Africans, their languages, and their cultures. By examining linguistic debates and cultural traditions and interrogating their import in the daily lives of Boston-area Africans, we hope to bridge the divide between grand theories and everyday practices, between intellectual debates and the lived experiences of individuals, between the American academy and the African world. Ultimately, this course aims to bring Africans themselves into the center of the academic study of Africa.