TIP Seminar Leader and Students Record Oral Histories of African Jewish Community March 28, 2025 – Posted in: Uncategorized

Peter Decherney, who led the TIP seminar “History of Hollywood,” brought students to Uganda this past fall as part of a Penn Global Seminar. The Penn professor and TIP Advisory Council Member taught “Global Jewish Communities” with Sara Byala, in which students learned about the Abayudaya, an African Jewish community in Uganda. As the semester concluded, the seminar traveled to Mbale, a city in eastern Uganda, where the students conducted video interviews with the Abayudaya people.

Decherney’s TIP seminar, “History of Hollywood,” gave an overview of film from Edison to the internet. It covered the technology of filmmaking, the nature of the entertainment industry, and how aspects of politics and culture industry translate into film.

The students in “Global Jewish Communities” worked independently to produce a documentary, combining technical skills with their understanding of the ethics of conducting visual fieldwork. This was an important aspect of the seminar, as Decherney and Byala hold respective titles as director and associate director of the Penn Global Documentary Institute. “Global Jewish Communities” was offered in partnership with the University of Southern California’s Shoah Foundation, an organization dedicated to preserving the history of Holocaust survivors. A recent Penn Today article gives more information about the seminar.