African Civilizations up to 1870
As a survey course, the primary themes in this course concern the ways in which ancient African communities developed and interacted with others. After a continental overview and exploration of Africa, we consider a number of regional developments successively but not always in chronological order, beginning with early African civilizations and ending with initial European conquest. This course pays particular attention to the history and development of both Islam and Christianity throughout the continent, highlighting their economic and social impact.
African Civilizations, 1870—present
As a survey course, the primary goal of this course is to address the typical images of Africa by putting the continent’s contemporary situation into historical context. That is, we will try to understand how Africa’s current predicaments came about. In order to do so, this course will cover major themes of African history from the end of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade through the first years of the twenty first century, following a chronological narrative. The course will focus on the colonial and post-colonial periods, with attention to themes such as colonization and European colonial rule, resistance movements throughout the continent and decolonization in the middle of the twentieth century, and contemporary issues of violence, war, genocide, poverty, resistance movements, and racial and gender inequality. By focusing on specific case studies throughout the continent, students will be able to draw on historical examples to contextualize Africa’s most intractable problems, while also gaining a theoretical grounding of these issues through a confrontation with some of the most important African writers, musicians and artists of the colonial and post-colonial eras. The course is designed to encourage student participation and input in an open and collegial environment.
Arts & Cultures of Africa and the Diaspora
Through a variety of art forms and cultural movements, this course examines the arts and cultures of Africa and the African diaspora from a historical perspective. Emphasizing cultural diversity and complexity, we examine a wide range of peoples, ideas, and perspectives including major African art traditions; the spread and development of African and diasporic musical tradition; the religious movements of the diaspora; major cultural movements; and current literary and film perspectives. In doing so, this course spans large periods of time and geographic space in order to map and more fully comprehend the various dimensions of arts and cultures in Africa and the diaspora. By providing a more thorough understanding of artistic and cultural movements of Africa and the diaspora, this course analyzes efforts by individuals and communities to foster an understanding of a Black experience capable of reaching beyond divisions of language, ethnicity, and nationality in order to create a shared global identity. Structurally, the first half of this course is dedicated to sketching a broad history of arts and cultures of Africa and the Diaspora while the second half of the course focuses on specific genres and movements.
Ethnicity, Development, and the State in sub-Saharan Africa
Taking a theoretical and comparative historical approach to analyzing problems of development and ethnic conflict in sub-Saharan Africa, this course surveys a number of complex forces that have shaped African countries contemporary economic, political, and social realities. Through examining African society and culture, polity, and economy through an interdisciplinary perspective, this course will examine issues of nationalism, economic development, politics of aid, and ethnic politics to provide an understanding of the political and cultural contexts of development in sub-Saharan Africa. Grounded in understanding the present-day context of the African nation-state, this course primarily focuses on the 20th and 21st century, with particular emphasis on the late-colonial and post-colonial periods. In doing so, this class will utilize current events and developments like foreign aid, hip-hop, and current conflicts (DRC 2016; Northern Mali 2012; Marikana Massacre, South Africa 2012) to gather a larger understanding of development, the state, and ethnic politics.
Afterlives of Decolonization
This course studies the decolonization process through a transnational perspective—with emphasis on Africa and the African Diaspora—to examine the history of independence. Critically reflecting on the promises of independence and liberation, students will consider the ways in which political thinkers within Africa and the Diaspora envisioned questions of citizenship, civil society, and economic and political development. In reflecting on questions of liberation, independence, and freedom, we examine what, exactly, lies in the “afterlives” of decolonization. Students read broadly across the diaspora (Amilcar Cabral, Thomas Sankara, Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Frantz Fanon, Aimé Césaire, Léopold Senghor, Steve Biko, C. L. R. James) as literature from this course covers various countries including Algeria, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, Rwanda, Brazil, Trinidad, and Haiti.
Hip-Hop Cultures of the African Diaspora
The global dimensions of hip-hop are vast and varied. This course examines how youth within the African Diaspora use hip-hop to articulate their identities and sociopolitical realities. Historically contextualizing hip-hop within a broader global black history, this course is an exploration of hip-hop culture(s) as it takes shape in different locations around the world. Paying specific attention to the transnational, geopolitical, and popular cultural vibrancy of the network that hip-hop wields to build specific cultural communities in given national and global contexts, we will critically interrogate questions of gender, class, language, and intergenerational divides. The approach to this course is interdisciplinary, drawing upon works from Africana studies, music, history, and hip-hop studies. Additionally, this course will rely upon a mixed methods approach beyond scholarly texts to include film, video, and audio documents. We will critically examine scholarly texts and put them in conversation with different hip-hop artists around the world. The main focus of this course is hip-hop’s transnational history, understanding both hip-hop’s global roots and global routes. We will look at various hip-hop cultures in America, Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and South America. While this is an exploration of hip-hop within the African Diaspora, we will examine musical traditions such as Hiplife, Afrobeat, Bongo Flava, Rumba, Reggae, and Afro-Cuban jazz to better understand hip-hop’s transnational history. While this is organized as a semi-introductory course that will include a discussion of major historical events and contributions, some awareness and knowledge of Africana studies is recommended.