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- AFS 150 : Cultures of Africa, Lacy
- AFS 190 : Freshman Seminar in African Studies: Violence and Memory in Contemporary Africa, Scully
- AFS 190 : Freshman Seminar in African Studies: Sugar and Slaves, Mann
- AFS 221 : The Making of Modern Africa, Mann
- AFS 371 : Voodoo, Bay
- AFS 389 : Special Topics in African Studies: Violent Transformations in African States, Kabamba
- AFS 389 : Special Topics in African Studies: Political Economy of African Development, Streeb
- AFS 485 : Senior Seminar in African Studies: The Ethnographic Object: Critical Issues of Collection and Display, Kasfir, Taplin-Stephenson
AFS 150: Cultures of Africa
SAME AS ANTH 150
MWF, 3 - 3:50, Lacy
Content: To explore the great diversity of the numerous cultural traditions of Africa, we begin with the historiography of Africa from the dawn of humankind to creation of modern African nations. Then we will turn to regional case studies, African literature, film, and music to further explore several cultural traditions from the continent. In the final part of the course students will conduct original research on the cultural dynamics of critical issues facing contemporary Africans. The objective of this course is to introduce students to the rich diversity of African cultural traditions, and to equip students with the African Studies and Anthropology research skills necessary for further explorations into the Cultures of Africa.
Texts: TBA
Particulars: TBA
AFS 190: Freshman Seminar in African Studies : Violence and Memory in Contemporary Africa
SAME AS WST 190
TTH, 1 - 2:15, Scully
Content: This course seeks to engage us with the huge questions that have always faced people, but which seem even more pertinent in the world we live in today. How do we live an ethical life? How is it that people can perpetrate evil against family, friends and neighbors? How can governments and individuals stand aside and do nothing when genocide is occurring in other places in the world? What does it mean to be a good person in the twenty-first century? How might people reconcile with each other after experiencing awful violence?
We will come at these questions through an analysis of the 1980s in South Africa, when the Apartheid government visited terrible violence on black South Africans and anti-apartheid activists. We will also read testimonies from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the 1990s. We then move to Rwanda where we will try to make sense of the genocide that killed some 800,000 people from April through July of 1994, at the same time as the OJ Simpson Trial and the first democratic elections in South Africa. We will conclude with an attempt to understand the crisis in Darfur, and the world reaction or lack of reaction to it.
Texts: Edelstein, Truth and Lies; Readings from The Truth and Reconciliation Commission; Films: The Triumph of Evil, Living with Gaçaça
Particulars: TBA
AFS 190: Freshman Seminar in African Studies : Sugar and Slaves
SAME AS HIST 190 , AAS 190
TU, 2:30 - 5, Mann
Content: European expansion into the Americas after 1492 made possible increased production of sugar and other staples to satisfy changing patterns of consumption in the Old World. Production of many of these commodities took place on plantations and employed the labor of African slaves. This course draws on history, literature, film, and art history to probe the reasons for the rise of slavery in the New World and its impact on Africa and the Americas, focusing especially on the experiences of the slaves.
Texts: Mintz, Sweetness and Power; Eltis, et al., Slave Trade Database; Klein, The Atlantic Slave Trade; Northrup, The Atlantic Slave Trade; The Life of Olaudah Equiano; Schwartz, Slaves, Peasants, Rebels; Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery; Gomez, Exchanging their Country Marks; Amistad
Particulars: Students will keep a journal in which they record reactions to readings and reflections on them. Each will write multiple drafts of two critical papers. Class participation is expected. Grades: journal (25%), papers (25% each), class participation (25%).
AFS 221: The Making of Modern Africa
SAME AS HIST 221
TTH, 11:30 - 12:45, Mann
Content: This course traces the incorporation of Africa into an expanded world economy from the middle of the 19th century to the present and examines the impact of this incorporation on the history of African cultures and modern nation states. It is designed to provide an understanding of the economic, social, and political forces that have shaped Africa in recent times and continue to affect the lives of people throughout the continent.
Texts: A. Boahen, African Perspectives on Colonialism; W. Soyinka, Ake; W. Soyinka, Death and the King's Horsemen; O. Sembene, God's Bits of Wood; B. Davidson, Modern Africa; Ghana: The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah; F. Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth.
Particulars: Students will keep a journal in which they record reactions to readings and reflections on them. Each will write multiple drafts of two critical papers. Class participation is expected. Grades: journal (25%), papers (25% each), class participation (25%).
AFS 371: Voodoo
SAME AS IDS 371
TTH, 1 - 2:15, Bay
Content: An inquiry into the worlds most maligned religious and cultural system, more properly called vodou and vodun, this three-part multidisciplinary course begins with the study of vodou religious practice in Brooklyn, NY. It then moves to the cultures of vodou in the Caribbean and particularly in Haiti. Issues considered include the character of selected deities or lwa, altars and sacred paraphernalia, healing traditions, possession and sacrifice, magic and sorcery, and the so-called syncretism of African and Catholic spirits. The second portion of the course explores the African roots and relatives of vodou, with special attention to the Fon/Yoruba and Kongo cultural areas. The final third of the course considers the history of interaction between American and Haitian cultures, including the representation of vodou in American popular culture.
Texts: Readings are drawn from the work of anthropologists, folklorists, historians, novelists, art historians, dancers, and religious specialists. Several of the major authors read are Karen McCarthy Brown, Maya Deren, Edwidge Danticat, Linda Heywood, John Thornton, Joan Dayan, and Donald Cosentino.
Particulars: TBA
AFS 389: Special Topics in African Studies : Violent Transformations in African States
TU, 4:00 - 6:00 , Kabamba
Content: Key debates have shaped the study of Africa in the post-colonial scholarship. The class will give inside views of these debates. Many of these debates are ignored by the conventional Eurocentric narratives on Africa. The course will cover the following debates: (1) history before external impact; (2) agency and responsibility in different kinds of slave trade; (3) state formation (long distance trade, slavery, colonialism); (4) colonialism; (5) undervedelopment (colonialism, Pan-Africanism and globalization); (6) nationalism and the anti-colonial struggle; (7) citizenship and political violence in the post-colony.
Texts: W.E.B. Du Bois, The World and Africa, Cheik Anta Diop, The African Origin of Civilization, Samir Amin, Eurocentrism, Edward Said, Orientalism, J.F. Ade Ajayi, Tradition and Change in Africa, J.H. Speke, Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile, Patrick Manning, Themes in West Africas History, Ehud R. Toledano, The Ottoman Slave Trade and Its Suppression, J.F. Inikori, Forced Migration, Carolyn Hamilton, The Mfecane Aftermath&, Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject, Ifi Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female Husbands, Oyeronke Oyewumi, The Invention of Women, Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Mahmood Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers
Particulars: Student will be required to write two essays, each 8 to 10 pages length, in the course of the semester. Students will also be required to lead discussion at least once during the semester. Every student will be expected to write a full page on the readings every week and e-mail it to the instructor a day before the class meets. Grades: Two written essays (2 x 30% = 60), participation (15%), Weekly posting (10%), class presentation (15%)
AFS 389: Special Topics in African Studies : Political Economy of African Development
SAME AS POLS 385
TTH, 11:30 - 12:45, Streeb
Content: Content: A discussion of development in Sub-Saharan Africa frequently begins with the question: Why has Africa fallen behind? Too often the critics of African development fail to address equally valid questions such as: Which other regions in the world suffered the ravages of the slave trade? or, chaffed under colonial rule well into the 20th Century? or, witnessed their natural resources extracted by the developed powers? This course will seek to address these and other questions regarding development in Sub-Saharan Africa by examining the ways in which African economies have evolved from their colonial legacy -- only to be buffeted again by the Cold War. While Africa's current situation cannot be properly understood outside the historical perspective, most of the semester will be devoted to contemporary issues in Africa (HIV/AIDS, growth of cities, education reforms, drought, democratic governance). The basic question: Why are some countries succeeding and others failing? will be addressed through the study of the experience of selected countries with differing colonial legacies and representative of the several geographic/political regions of Africa. The instructor will provide practical examples from his thirty years of experience in the Foreign Service, which included tours in Mexico, India, and the United Nations and as ambassador to Zambia. In addition he served ten years at The Carter Center as the first director of the Global Development Initiative and then as director of peace programs whose extensive portfolio of programs throughout Sub-Saharan Africa covered health, participatory development, elections, conflict resolution and human rights.
Texts: Nnadozie, African Economic Development; Moss, African Development: Making Sense of the Issues and Actors; Additional readings on particular topics will also be assigned; contemporary issues will be introduced throughout the semester through access to African media (e.g., the web site allAfrica.com) and recent documentaries on Africa.
Particulars: Particulars:Grading: Two exams (20% each), Final Exam (30%), 10-page term paper (20%) and attendance and classroom participation (10%)
AFS 485: Senior Seminar in African Studies : The Ethnographic Object: Critical Issues of Collection and Display
SAME AS ARTHIST 485 , ARTHIST 789 , ILA 790
FRI, 9 - 12, Kasfir, Taplin-Stephenson
Content: This seminar examines two clusters of related issues: the first is the historical study of early collecting practices in Africa, Oceania and North America and their relation to Darwinian principles of specimen-collecting, an emerging anthropology of primitive society and later, avant-garde primitivism; the second is the burgeoning descriptive and critical literature on exhibitionary practice and audience reception. Parallel to these discussions the seminar members will participate in preliminary conceptual and spatial planning, as well as curatorial object research, for an upcoming exhibition, African Warriorhood, to open in 2011. The aim is to materialize some of the theoretical issues being discussed in the class through real-time experience of museum work.
Texts: H. Ling Roth, Great Benin: Its Customs, Art and Horrors; Enid Schildkrout and Curtis Keim, African Reflections; Leo Frobenius, The Voice of Africa; Emil Torday, On the Trail of the Bushongo; George Stocking, Jr, Objects and Others; Ivan Karp and Steven Lavine, Exhibiting Cultures; Ivan Karp and Corinne Kratz, Museum Friction's; Steven Nelson, From Cameroon to Paris: Mousgoum Architecture in and out of Africa.
Particulars: In lieu of the usual research paper, seminar members will write label text for individual objects they research as well as group wall texts, to be included in a portfolio of exhibition research and planning. In addition there will be one (1) 5-7 page critical paper on a temporary exhibition or permanent museum installation outside the Carlos Museum based on observation.
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