CRN

94542

Distribution

C

Course No.

AADS / HIST 148

Title

Africa: Migrations, Cross-cultural Exchange and Historical Agency

Professor

Wilmetta Toliver

Schedule

Mon Wed 11:30 am - 12:50 pm PRE 128

This course offers a historical survey of sub-Saharan Africa from 1800 to the present. A primary aim of the course is to provide a foundation of knowledge upon which to build. The course has been designed to introduce the outlines of African history and to help cultivate an appreciation of Africa, its peoples, cultures, expressions, and experiences. Major themes include slavery in Africa: the decline of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, trade, African state formation, the Islamic revolutions of the 19th century; Mfecane; colonial rule; nationalism and contemporary issues in Africa. Within the context of each of these themes, we will consider the importance of factoring gender into historical analysis.

CRN

94543

Distribution

C

Course No.

AADS / HIST 208

Title

History from the Inside: West African History in the Novel

Professor

Wilmetta Toliver

Schedule

Tu Th 8:30 am - 9:50 am PRE 128

Why is the past so often a subject for contentious debate in the present? When and how does popular culture engage and represent the past without engendering controversy or debate? What is the relationship between popular presentations of the past and scholarly writings about history? The course introduces African novels as valid source material to understanding Africa's past. The novel in Africa is a pertinent source of information that can be used to both substantiate other historical records and to uncover themes that might have previously been underrepresented in African historiography. In order to answer the questions, this course begins with an examination of sources and methods used by historians of Africa and writings that suggest possible linkages between the novel and history and the novelist and the historian. Oral tradition and the role of the griot, or oral historian, will transition the class into the African novel and the role of the African author. Once we have formulated a theoretical outline of the relationship between history and the literary canon in Africa, we will examine selected novels from different historical periods in West Africa.