This survey course is an introduction to the study of Africa's past through the story of urbanization. It begins with an overview of African cities around 1500—a time of increasing human migration and global trade. It considers the diversity of early African politics, religion, and family life through regional case studies. Special attention is afforded the social upheaval that came in the wake of the intercontinental slave trade and related growth of African city states.
The second half of the course addresses African cities in the modern period, focusing on the advent of European colonialism in the 1800s and its aftermath. Major themes include: everyday life under imperial rule, healing and religion, African nationalism, and development theories. The course concludes with historical dilemmas in contemporary Africa including immigration, the AIDS crisis, and transitions to democratic rule. Students will select an African city to study through independent research projects. Open to non-majors. This course satisfies History department pre-1800 requirement for history majors.
Readings chosen from:
1) “The Epic of Sara,” narrated by Sira Mori Jabaté and “The Epic of Askia-Mohammed,” narrated by Nouhou Malio (1997) from Oral Epics from Africa: Vibrant Voices from a Vast Continent , edited by Johnson, Hale and Belcher (Indiana University Press)
2) O. M. Dalton (1903), “Note on an Unusually Fine Bronze Figure from Benin,” Man Nos. 104-05
3) Kate Ezra (1992), excerpts from Royal Art of Benin (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
4) Robert Farris Thompson and Joseph Cornet (1981), excerpts from The Four Moments of the Sun: Kongo Art in Two Worlds (National Gallery of Art, Washington)
5) Ibn Battuta (1931), “The East African Coast” reprinted in Ibn Battatuta in Black Africa (Princeton: Mark Wiener Publishers, 1998)
6) Mark Dummet (2006), “India: Africans Absorbed,” BBC Focus on Africa Magazine, Oct-Dec
7) Apolo Kagwa (1971), excerpts from The Kings of Buganda (Nairobi: East African Publishing House)
8) Richard N. Hall (1905), “The Great Zimbabwe and Other Ancient Ruins in Rhodesia,” Journal of the Royal African Society, Vol. 4, No. 15
9) Peter Garlake (1982), from Great Zimbabwe Described and Explained (Harare, Zimbabwe: Zimbabwe Publishing House)
10) Andrew B. Smith (1993), from The Khoikhoi at the Cape of Good Hope: Seventeenth-century Drawings in the South Afrian Library (Cape Town: South African Library)
11) David Livingstone (1912), from Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa (London: John Murray)
12) Hilaire Belloc (1898), from The Modern Traveller (London)
13) E. D. Morel (1919), from Red Rubber; the Story of the Rubber Slave Trade which Flourished on the Congo for Twenty Years, 1890–1910 (Manchester, UK: National Labour Press)
14) Adam Hochschild (1998), “The Wood that Weeps” from King Leopold's Ghost: a Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa (NY: Mariner Books)
15) Albert Schweitzer (1933), from Out of My Life and Thought, an Autobiography (NY: Henry Holt and Company)
16) Nancy Rose Hunt (1999), “Dining and Surgery”, from A Colonial Lexicon of Birth Ritual, Medicalization and Mobility in the Congo (Duke University Press)
17) Jomo Kenyatta (1938), “The Gikuyu System of Land Tenure” from Facing Mount Kenya: The Tribal Life of the Gikuyu (London: Secker and Warburg)
18) Wambi Waiyaki Otieno (1998), “Early Days in the Mau Mau Movement” from Mau Mau’s Daughter: A Life History (London: Lynne Rienner Publishers)
19) Caroline Elkins (2005), “Britain’s Assault on Mau Mau” from Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britian’s Gulag in Kenya (NY: Henry Holt and Co.)
20) Excerpts from Safari: The Tourist Magazine for East Africa Jan/Feb 1973, vol. 3 no.10.
21) Henry Kyemba (1977), from A State of Blood: the Inside Story of Idi Amin (NY: Ace Books)
22) Newspaper articles (1972) from Ugandan Asian Expulsion: 90 Days and Beyond through the Eyes of the International Press, compiled by Z. Lalani (Expulsion Publications)
23) Marie Béatrice Umutesi (2004), “Descent into Hell,” in Surviving the Slaughter: The Ordeal of a Rwandan Refugee in Zaire (Univ. of Wisconsin Press)
24) Julie Flint and Alex de Waal (2005), “The Janjawiid” from Darfur: A Short History of a Long War (London, NY, Cape Town: Zed Books)
25) (1978) “Africa: Family Planning Acceptable for Spacing, Not to End Childbearing,” International Family Planning Perspectives and Digest, Vol. 4, No. 3
26) R.T. Ravenholdt (1968), “The A.I.D. Population and Family Planning Program—Goals, Scope, and Progress,” Demography Vol. 5, No. 2
27) Sam Mhlongo (2001), “Aids and poverty,” New African
28) Andrew M. Ivaska (2004), “ ’Anti-mini Militants Meet Modern Misses’: Urban Style, Gender, and the Politics of ‘National Culture’ in 1960s Dar es Salaam, Tanzania” from Fashioning Africa: Power and Politics of Dress (Indiana Univ Press)
29) Fela Kuti (1982), “The Birth of Kalakuta Republic;” “The Reunion;” “My Second Marriage;” “My Mother’s Death: ‘Coffin for Head of State;’ ” from Fela Fela: this bitch of a life (London: Alison & Busby)
Course Requirements:
Writing Exercise #1 (15 points)
Writing Exercise #2 (15 points)
Writing Exercise #3 + Presentation (20 points)
Map Quiz (5 points)
Exam (25 points)