CRN	93366	Distribution	C
Course No.	AADS / HIST 148
Title	African Encounters I: Culture, History, and Politics in Africa
Professor	Jesse Shipley
Schedule	Tu Th 11:30 am – 12:50 pm OLIN 201

Cross-listed: Anthropology, CCSRE, HR

This is the first half of a divisible, two-course sequence introducing a global socio-historical framework within which to consider both Africa and the African Diaspora. By considering Africa and its people, not as fixed entities, but rather as historical actors through which dynamic political, economic, and cultural encounters have taken place, this two semester series attempts to destabilize ideas of Africa--as either timeless, primitive, and exotic or tragic, "fallen," and degraded--that have dominated Western understandings of the continent. We will ask, How have ideas of "primitive" and "modern" been produced in the colonization and anthropological study of Africa itself? We will examine particular African cultures within the context of global political economic structures of inequality. The course will address West Africa and Southern Africa and pursue numerous types of encounters: pre-colonial African political empires, the impact of the Atlantic slave trade, the role of Islam, British colonial contact, trade and movements between South Asia and Africa. The main focus however, will be on the 20th century colonial and postcolonial manifestations of these deeply embedded historical legacies in terms of the formation of racial, national, Pan-African, class, and ethnic identifications. We will use historical accounts, ethnographic works, novels, and plays to offer an interdisciplinary approach to the study of contemporary African politics and culture. (The second half of the course in Spring 2004 will focus more on the African Diaspora, transnational African communities, and the movements of ideas, symbols, and practices between the African continent and African peoples around the globe. In this way we will examine labor, migration, global political economy, mass media, religion, and popular culture as crucial circuits within which we can understand Africa and its Diasporas.)

CRN	93275	Distribution	A/C
Course No.	AADS / ANTH 259
Title	Ethnographic Film and Visual Anthropology in Africa: Theory and Practice
Professor	Jesse Shipley
Schedule	Tu Th 4:30 pm – 5:50 pm OLIN 203

This course addresses the visual aspects of culture and cultural production with a particular focus on postcolonial Africa. How are the arts and the visual aspects of society made meaningful in and for contemporary Africa? We will look at how Africa has been represented through film and the display of African peoples and “primitive” art for Western audiences, showing the ways in which African enters global circuits of representation and mass media through its visual representation. We will examine the artistic and visual aspects of culture as they are made socially meaningful both within African cultural contexts as well as when they are displayed for art worlds and cinema audiences outside of the continent. Through these examinations we will introduce some of the basic concerns and paradigms of anthropology, in particular ideas of racial and cultural difference. This class is for those interested in historical/anthropological examinations of the visual as well as students producing film/videos, installations, and performance pieces especially in relation to the politics of representation. In terms of film production we will examine the political and social messages embedded within aesthetic decisions made by artists from choosing themes, to modes of narration, to editing decisions. For those interested in actually making films/videos previous experience is required.

Courses cross-listed with AADS:

ANTH 208C Africa and British Anthropology

ANTH 259 Ethnographic Film and Visual Anthropology in Africa: Theory and Practice

LIT 2371 20^th Century African-American Literature

LIT 238 Modern African Fiction

LIT 3118 Francophone African Literature

MUS 211 Jazz in Literature I

MUS 332 Jazz: The Freedom Principle II

MUS 344 Music & Culture of the African Diaspora I

PS 232 Social Movements/Political Change in US

PSY 235 Counseling from a Multicultural Perspective

SOC 208 Sociology of Whiteness