2023-24 Academic Catalog

This course is a general survey of modern sub-Saharan African history from the 19th century to today through primary and secondary sources and works of fiction. The course will challenge recurring colonial stereotypes of modern Africa and its peoples as inherently chaotic, unchanging, poor, diseased, corrupt and conflict-ridden. It starts with an overview of the cultural developments in Africa before 1800, including African slave systems and the Atlantic Slave Trade. It then turns to European conquest of Africa and the dynamics of colonial rule, following which we explore how the rising tide of African nationalism, in the form of liberation movements, ushered out colonialism. Finally, we examine the problems of independent African nations as they grapple with neo-colonialism, China’s presence in Africa and a changing global epidemiology in the face of HIV/AIDS and the Covid-19 pandemic.