MODERN SUB-SAHARAN
History
295-01, Fall 2006
MWF
Elizabeth
Prevost
Mears
Cottage 210, x4958
Office hours: M
In
April 1994, the first democratic election in
It
would be impossible to cover the history of a continent which currently
encompasses 56 countries and 800 million people in any comprehensive
fashion. On the other hand, we need to
take seriously the limitations of treating “
Course
Requirements:
Contribution
to class discussions: 25%
Class
time provides our main opportunity to investigate the complexities of African
history in dialogue with one another.
Therefore, I really do evaluate class participation; if you do not
participate regularly, you will receive a lower grade. For each discussion session, you may earn
three potential points: one for being there, two for voicing an opinion, and
three for engaging meaningfully in the discussion in a way that draws upon the
reading. Online discussion threads and
panel preparation (see below) will also be factored into this grade. You should use the prompts noted on the
syllabus to direct your reading and prepare for discussion. Please contact me if a medical or pe
Panel
Presentations: 5%
Each
of you will be responsible for helping to lead the class in a discussion of a
historical problem. Panels will consist
of two, three, or four participants, each of whom should present for no more
than five minutes. Topics are noted
below and on a separate handout. I
strongly encourage you to meet with me as a group before your presentation.
On panel
days, those of you who are not doing a presentation should write a brief
paragraph that addresses the question and bring it to class.
Two
short papers (4-5 pages each), due Sept 11 & Nov
These
essays will require you to engage critically with a specific historical issue
or problem by analyzing a set of primary documents and secondary
scholarship. I will post the topics on
Pioneer Web about two weeks before each deadline. You need not be confined to these prompts,
however, so just talk to me ahead of time if you would like to explore an
alternative paper topic.
Two
take-home exams (6-7 pages each), due Oct 13 & Dec
The
exams will be in essay format and, like the papers, and will require you to
draw upon both primary and secondary source material to construct an
argument. However, the topics for these
essays will be more synthetic and will encompass a larger chronological span
and thematic/geographical scope. I will
distribute the essay questions one week before each deadline. The final exam will mainly cover material
since the midterm.
Late
assignments:
Late papers and midterms will receive a deduction of 1/3 of a letter grade per
day. Exceptions may be made for
legitimate medical or pe
Disabilities: If you have specific physical, psychiatric or
learning disabilities and require accommodations, please let me know early in
the semester so that your learning needs may be appropriately met. You will need to provide documentation of
your disability to the Associate Dean and Director of Academic Advising, Joyce
Stern, whose office is located in the lower level of the Forum (x3702).
Course
The
following required texts are available both at the college bookstore and on
reserve in Burling Library:
R.
Oliver & A. Atmore,
Frederick
Cooper,
Robert O. Collins, ed., Documents from the African Past (Markus
Wiener) – referred to in the syllabus as “Collins,” followed by individual
document number(s)
Ousmane
Sembene, God’s Bits of Wood
(Heinemann)
Adam
Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost
(Houghton Mifflin)
Donald
R. Wright, The World and a Very Small
Place in
Landeg
White, Magomero (
Additional readings are
available online, on E-reserve, or as handouts (as noted below)
Schedule of Meetings and
Assignments:
Introduction: “
Fri, Aug 25: Mapping colonial and postcolonial identities
Kwame Anthony Appiah,
“African Identities,” in Linda Nicholson and Steven Seidman, eds., Social Postmodernism (
Cooper, ch. 1
What does “identity” mean in a historical context?
Week 1: Social and
Ideological Transformations in the Nineteenth Century
Mon, Aug 28: From the slave trade to “Commerce and Christianity”
O&A, ch. 7 (skim)
White, ch. 1
Why did the mission at Magomero fail?
Wed, Aug 30: Christian revolutions
Jean and John Comaroff, “The
Colonization of Consciousness in
Pier M. La
PANEL: Why did Christianity become so deeply rooted in other communities? How do these two scholars diverge in their
analyses of the relationship between evangelization and power?
Fri, Sept 1: Islamic revolutions
Wright, ch. 5
O&A, ch. 5 & 6
Collins, #34, 36, 39, 47
What motivated the reform and spread of Islam in
Week 2: European Conquest
and Partition
Mon, Sept 4: Colonialism without colonies?
Collins, #31, 42, 45, 48
Film: Le
Malentendu Colonial (Jean-Marie Teno) – screening TBA
How do the documents illustrate the constraints upon both European and
African authority in the context of travel, commerce, and warfare? Does Teno’s concept of “colonial
misunderstanding” persuasively establish a causal relationship between earlier European
incursions and formal colonization?
Wed, Sept 6: The “Scramble for
Hochschild, ch. 1-6
O&A, ch. 9 & 10, up
to p. 140
What shifted
the balance of power in
Fri, Sept 8: Leopold’s
Hochschild, ch. 7-15
Collins, #54
How did so few Europeans impose Leopold’s brutal regime over so many
Africans?
Week 3: Solidifying and Negotiating
Colonial Rule
Mon, Sept 11: The principles and mechanisms of “Native Policy”
Collins, #58
G. L. Angoulvant, “General
instructions to civilian administrators,” in John D. Hargreaves, ed., France and West Africa: An Anthology of
Historical Documents (
Paper due
Wed, Sept 13: Colonial economies
O&A, ch. 11
Wright, pp. 157-200
Collins, #59
How did different systems of production shape the contours of colonial politics
and society?
Fri, Sept 15: The invention of tribes
O&A, ch. 12&13
John Iliffe, “The Creation
of Tribes,” from A Modern History of
Tanganyika (
PANEL: Were ethnic identities created by the colonial
state or by colonized peoples as a way of negotiating indirect rule?
Week 4: Contesting Colonial
Rule
Mon, Sept 18: Chilembwe
White, ch. 2
To what extent did Chilembwe’s rebellion undermine the ruling order?
Wed, Sept 20: Maji Maji
Collins, #61
John
Iliffe, “The Organization of the Maji Maji Rebellion,” The Journal of African History, Vol. 8, No. 3. (1967) – JSTOR link:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0021-8537%281967%298%3A3%3C495%3ATOOTMM%3E2.0.CO%3B2-0
What was the relationship between the means and motives of the rebels?
Fri, Sept 22: Gender, colonialism, and the Aba War
Judith
van Allen, “‘Sitting on a Man’: Colonialism and the Lost Political Institutions
of Igbo Women,” Canadian Journal of
Margery Perham, “The Aba
Market Women’s Riot in
How did
women’s access to political power change under colonial society?
Week 5: Settler Politics in
Mon, Sept 25: Land, statebuilding, and the “Mineral Revolution”
O&A, ch. 8
Collins, #38, 41, 43, 56
Moshoeshoe, “Letter to Sir
George Grey,” 1858: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1858basuto.html
“Diamonds” and “Cetshwayo
describes Zulu society,” in William H. Worger, Nancy L. Clark, and Edward A.
Alpers, eds., Africa and the West: A
Documentary History from the Slave Trade to Independence (Oryx, 2001) –
E-reserve
How did encounters
among Zulu, Basotho, Ndebele, and European groups both reinforce and challenge
prior frames of reference and terms of identity? How did the discovery of new natural
resources shift the balance of power in
Wed, Sept 27: War, union, and the roots of apartheid
O&A, pp. 140-5 & ch.
15
Jan Christian Smuts, “A
Century of Wrong,” in Robert O. Collins, ed., Central and South African History (Princeton: Markus Wiener, 1996) –
E-reserve
Land Act and the formation
of the SANNC:
http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/early/resolution161002.html
http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/const/constitution_sannc.html
Clements Kadalie on the ICU
and Charlotte Maxeke , “Social Conditions among Bantu Women and Girls,” in
Worger et al., Africa and the West –
E-reserve
Nelson Mandela, “A Country
Childhood,” from Long Walk to Freedom
(New York, 1995) – E-reserve
PANEL: Were formalized policies of segregation a foregone conclusion before
1948? How did ideologies of difference permeate
people’s lives, and what means did they have of contesting racialized
structures of power?
Fri, Sept 29: No class
(Please read ahead for the
following week)
Week 6: Labor, Society, and
the Tensions of “Tradition”
Mon, Oct 2: Invented traditions
Terence Ranger, “The
invention of tradition in Colonial Africa,” in Eric Hobsbawm and Terence
Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition
(
White, ch. 3
PANEL: Did “custom” function as a means of accommodation or resistance?
Wed, Oct 4: Workers and peasants
Cooper, ch. 2
Why was colonialism in crisis?
Fri, Oct 6: Urbanization, class, and gender
Ousmane,
God’s Bits of Wood, 1-108 (up to “
(see separate handout for
questions)
Mid-semester exam distributed in class
Week 7: African Nationalism
Mon, Oct 9: Labor militancy
Ousmane, 109-248 (from “
(see separate handout for
questions)
Wed, Oct 11: The postwar moment
Cooper, ch. 3
O&A, ch. 16
Wright, pp. 200-6
What options
were available to different groups for expressing political unity and imagining
social change? What were the limits of collective action?
Fri, Oct 13: New elites, new masses
Mid-semester exam due
FALL BREAK
Week 8: Liberation Struggles
and Decolonization
Mon, Oct 23: The road(s) to independence
Cooper, ch. 4
O&A, ch. 18 & 19
What made decolonization possible?
What were the biggest challenges facing the transition from European to
independent rule?
Wed, Oct 25: Mau Mau
Collins, #66
Jomo Kenyatta’s trial and Wambui
Waiyaki Otieno, “Mau Mau’s Daughter,” in Worger et al.,
Was armed insurgency effective in mobilizing anti-imperialism at a
popular level? To what extent did Mau
Mau contribute to decolonization?
Fri, Oct 27: Conceptualizing resistance, identity, and culture
Selections by Cesaire,
Fanon, Nyerere, Nkrumah, Achebe, & Sengor – handout
PANEL: Which set of ideologies offered a more
effective means of challenging colonialism and imagining independent African
polities, culture, and economies: nationalism, or supra-nationalist identities
like pan-Africanism?
Week 9: Challenges of
Independent Nationhood
Mon, Oct 30: Whose dream?
Michael Crowder, “Whose
dream was it anyway? Twenty-five years of African independence,” African Affairs, vol. 86, no. 342 (Jan
1987) – JSTOR link: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0001-9909%28198701%2986%3A342%3C7%3AWDWIAT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-K
Cooper, Interlude (pp.
85-90)
Was liberal democracy incompatible with African realities?
Wed, Nov 1: Postcolonial expectations and disappointments
Wright, pp. 207-33
Film: Mandabi (Sembene Ousmane) – screening TBA
Was colonialism an inescapable legacy in
Fri, Nov 3: Development
Cooper, ch. 5
O&A, ch. 22
PANEL: Has African “development” been successful?
Week 10: Identity and the
State
Mon, Nov 6: The gatekeeper state
Cooper, ch. 7
O&A, ch. 21
What defines a gatekeeper state?
Wed, Nov 8: Civil war and displacement
O&A, ch. 23
Francis M. Deng, “
Collins, #70
What makes
Fri, Nov 10:
Possible visit by Dr. Edwin
Gimode
Paper due
Week 11:
Mon, Nov 13: The apparatus of Apartheid
O&A, ch. 20
Collins, #67 & 68
“Hendrik Verwoerd explains
apartheid,” in Worger et al., Africa and
the West – E-reserve
Mandela, “Rivonia,” from Long Walk to Freedom – E-reserve
What were the
mechanisms by which the Nationalist Party implemented and maintained Apartheid?
Wed, Nov 15: Which path to equality?
“Freedom in our Lifetime”
and “The Freedom Charter,” in Worger et al., Africa and the West – E-reserve
ANC
Constitution, 1958: http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/const/const58.html
Collins, #69
As a black
South African, would you have been more inspired by a multiracial vision of
South African society espoused by Mandela and the ANC, or by the pan-African
ideology of Lembede, Biko, and
the Black Consciousness movement?
[Thurs, Nov 16: Convocation
address by K. Anthony Appiah]
Fri, Nov 17: Violence, reaction, and reform
Cooper, ch. 6
Collins, #71
Selections by Nkomo,
Sithole, M’Gabe, Ja Toivo – handout
“The ANC adopts a policy of
violence,” “The Rebellion Begins,” “Torture under Apartheid,” “A Task Which
Shook My Whole Being,” “Negotiating democracy in South Africa,” in Worger et
al., Africa & the West –
E-reserve
What factors ultimately
weakened white minority rule and enabled the move toward democracy? Was it more surprising that Apartheid
crumbled or that it stayed intact for so long?
Weeks 12&13: Genocide in
Mon, Nov 20: Historicizing ethnicity
(Review Cooper, ch. 1)
Robert Melson, “Modern
Genocide in Rwanda,” in Robert Gellately & Ben Kiernan, eds., The Specter of Genocide (Cambridge,
2003) – E-reserve
PANEL: Was
THANKSGIVING BREAK
This
week we will be watching three different film representations of the
genocide. I will post the screening
times and some questions for consideration on Pioneer Web. There will also be an online discussion
thread for each film. Please post your
thoughts by no later than
Mon, Nov 27
Film: Ghosts of
Wed, Nov 29
Film: Hotel Rwanda
Fri, Dec 1
Film: Sometimes in April
Week 14:
Mon, Dec 4: “Truth and reconciliation” in
Mahmood Mamdani, “A
Diminished Truth”; Van Zyl Slabbert, “Truth Without Reconciliation,
Reconciliation without Truth”;
Transcripts from TRC
testimonials – E-reserve
PANEL: Was the TRC successful in using “truth” to accomplish “reconciliation”?
Wed, Dec 6: The politics and aesthetics of memory
Cooper, ch. 8
Hochschild, ch. 19
Ciraj Rassool, Leslie Wiz,
and Gary Minkley, “Burying and Memorializing the Body of Truth: The TRC and
National Heritage,” in James and de Vijver, After
the TRC
Have public memorials helped to advance the process of reconciliation?
Fri, Dec 8: The next wave of globalization?
Wright, ch. 8
O&A, epilogue
Final exam distributed in class
Fri, Dec 15
Final exam due by