Africa and the Politics of Knowledge

Readings and Films

SES #	TOPICS	READINGS AND FILMS
Part 1: Being
Week 1: Introduction
1	What does it mean to study “the idea” of Africa?	No readings or films assigned
2	Making knowledge, ordering the world (I)	Readings Zeleza, Paul Tiyambe. “Africa, Idea of.” In New Dictionary of the History of Ideas. Encyclopedia.com. 2015. Pierre, Jemima. “Africa/African.” Chapter 1 in Critical Terms for the Study of Africa. Edited by by Gaurav Desai and Adeline Masquelier. University of Chicago Press, 2018. ISBN: 9780226548975. [Preview with Google Books]
Weeks 2 and 3: Geography
3	Making knowledge, ordering the world (II)	Readings Wainana, Binyavanga. “How to Write About Africa.” Granta 92, 2005. Ferguson, James. “Introduction: Global Shadows: Africa and the World.” In Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order. Duke University Press Books, 2006. ISBN: 9780822337171. [Preview with Google Books]
4	Maps, power, and knowledge	Readings Turnbull, David. “Tricksters and Cartographers: Maps, Science and the State in the Making of a Modern Scientific Knowledge Space.” Chapter 3 in Masons, Tricksters and Cartographers. Routledge, 2000. ISBN: 9789058230010.  Harley, J. Brian. “Maps, Knowledge, and Power.” (PDF - 3.7MB)  Chapter 8 in Geographic Thought: A Praxis Perspective. Edited by George Henderson and Marvin Waterstone. Routledge, 2008. ISBN: 9780415471701.
5	Mapping Africa	Readings Mudimbe, V.Y. “Symbols and the Interpretation of the African Past.” Chapter 1 in The Idea of Africa. Indiana University Press, 1994, pp. 26–30. ISBN: 9780253208729. [Preview with Google Books] Lydon, Ghislaine. “Saharan Oceans and Bridges, Barriers and Divides in Africa’s Historiographical Landscape.” (PDF) Journal of African History 56 (2015): 3–22. Bassett, Thomas J. “Cartography and Empire Building in Nineteenth-Century West Africa.” (PDF) Geographical Review 84, no. 3(1994): 316–35. ———. “Indigenous Mapmaking in Intertropical Africa.” Chapter 3 in The History of Cartography Volume 2, Book Three: Cartography in the Traditional African, American, Arctic, Australian, and Pacific Societies. Edited by David Woodward and G. Malcolm Lewis. University of Chicago Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780226907284.
Weeks 4 and 5: History
6	Historicizing Africa	Readings Brizuela-Garcia, Esperanza. “Africa in the World: History and Historiography.” (PDF) Oxford Research Encyclopedias. 2018. Peterson, Derek R., and Giacomo Macola, eds. “Introduction: Homespun Historiography and the Academic Profession.” In Recasting the Past: History Writing and Political Work in Modern Africa. Ohio University Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780821418796.
7	Restoring African histories: Afrocentrism	Readings Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. The Philosophy of History (PDF - 1.6MB), pp. 109–17. 1830. Diop, Cheikh Anta. “Preface: The Meaning of Our Work.” In The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality. Edited and translated by Mercer Cook. Lawrence Hill Books, 1989. ISBN: 9781556520723.  Asante, Molefi Kete. “Dancing between Circles and Lines.” In The Afrocentric Idea. Temple University Press, 1998. ISBN: 9781566395953.  Appiah, Kwame Anthony. “Europe Upside Down: Fallacies of the New Afrocentrism.” Chapter 44 in Perspectives on Africa: A Reader in Culture, History, & Representation. Edited by Roy Richard Grinker and Christopher B. Steiner. Wiley-Blackwell, 1991. ISBN: 9781557866851.
8	Guest presentation and workshop by professional Vodou dance practitioner and Vodou priest, Jean-Sébastien Duvilaire	No readings or films assigned
9	Remembering	Readings Blier, Suzanne. “Vodun: West African Roots of Vodou.” Chapter 2 in Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou. Edited by Donald J. Cosentino. UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, 1995. ISBN: 9780930741471.  Rush, Dana. “Introduction.” In Vodun in Coastal Bénin: Unfinished, Open-Ended, Global. Vanderbilt University Press, 2017. ISBN: 9780826519085.  ———. “Vodun’s Rhizome.” Chapter 2 in Vodun in Coastal Bénin: Unfinished, Open-Ended, Global. Vanderbilt University Press, 2017. ISBN: 9780826519085.  ———. “Notes.” In Vodun in Coastal Bénin: Unfinished, Open-Ended, Global. Vanderbilt University Press, 2017, pp. 159–62. ISBN: 9780826519085.  Film A Memory in Three Acts. Directed by Inadelso Cossa. Color, 64 min. 2016.
Weeks 6 and 7: Race
10	Blackness and Otherness	Readings Fanon, Frantz. “The Fact of Blackness.” Chapter 5 in Black Skin, White Masks. Translated by Constance Farrington. Grove Press, 1994. ISBN: 9780802150844.  Mbembe, Achille. “The Subject of Race.” Chapter 1 in Critique of Black Reason. Translated and with an introduction by Laurent Dubois. Duke University Press Books, 2017. ISBN: 9780822363439. [Preview with Google Books] Senghor, Léopold Sédar. “Négritude: A Humanism of the 20th Century.” Chapter 1 in Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader. Edited and introduced by by Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman. Columbia University Press, 1994. ISBN: 9780231100212. [Preview with Google Books]
11	Blackness in Africa	Readings Pierre, Jemima. “Preface,” “Introduction,” and Chapter 1, “Of Natives and Europeans: Colonialism and the Ethnicization of Racial Dominance.” In The Predicament of Blackness: Postcolonial Ghana and the Politics of Race. University of Chicago Press, 2012. ISBN: 9780226923031. [Preview with Google Books] For those of you who read French (and want more on Négritude): Senghor, Léopold Sédar. “Qu’est-ce que la Négritude?” Études françaises 3 (1967): 3–20. Optional de Sá, Celina. “Becoming Diasporically African: The Cultural Politics Of West African Capoeira.” Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. Scholarly Commons. Penn Libraries, University of Pennsylvania. 2018.
12	The Black African body (I)	Reading Sharpley-Whiting, T. Denean. “Writing Sex, Writing Difference: Creating the Master Text on the Hottentot Venus.” Chapter 1 in Black Venus: Sexualized Savages, Primal Fears, and Primitive Narratives in French. Duke University Press Books, 1999. ISBN: 9780822323402. [Preview with Google Books] Film Maids and Madams. Directed by Mira Hamermesh. Color, 54 min. 1986.
13	The Black African body (II)	Readings Kant, Immanuel. Excerpt from “Of National Characteristics, so far as They Depend upon the Distinct Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime." Section 4 in Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime. Translated by John T. Goldthwait. University of California Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780520240780.  Oyěwùmí, Oyèrónkẹ́. “Visualizing the Body: Western Theories and African Subjects.” Chapter 1 in The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses. University of Minnesota Press, 1997. ISBN: 9780816624416. [Preview with Google Books] Pierre, Jemima. “‘I Like Your Colour!’ Skin Bleaching and Geographies of Race in Urban Ghana.” Feminist Review 90 (2013): 9–29.
Part 2: Becoming
Week 8: Africa and / in the world after independence
14	Africa and / in the world after independence (I)	Reading Wallerstein, Immanuel. “Africa and the World.” Chapter 8 in Africa: The Politics of Independence and Unity. University of Nebraska Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780803298569.  Audio Kwame Nkrumah - Address at Conference of African Freedom Fighters - Accra. YouTube.
15	Africa and / in the world after independence (II)	Reading Sankara, Thomas. “Freedom Must be Conquered in Struggle.” In We Are Heirs of the World’s Revolutions: Speeches from the Burkina Faso Revolution 1983–1987. 2nd ed. Pathfinder Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780873489898.  Film Lumumba: La mort du prophète. Directed by Raoul Peck. Color, 69 min. 1990.
Week 9: Modernization theory and Africa
16	Modernization theory and Africa	Readings Matunhu, J. “A Critique of Modernization and Dependency Theories in Africa: Critical Assessment.” (PDF) African Journal of History and Culture 3, no. 5 (2011): 65–72. Ferguson, James. “Decomposing Modernity.” Chapter 7 in Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order. Duke University Press Books, 2006. ISBN: 9780822337171.  Film “TOUKI BOUKI, A VIAGEM DA HIENA (Touki-bouki, Djibril Diop Mambéty 1973) LEGENDADO.” YouTube.
Week 10: Development and Structural Adjustment Programs
17	Development and structural adjustment programs	Readings The World Bank. “Introduction.” Chapter 1 in Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Agenda for Action, pp. 2–5. 1981. ———. “Basic Constraints.” Chapter 2 in Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Agenda for Action, pp. 9–12. 1981.  Geo-Jaja, Macleans A., and Garth Magnum. “Structural Adjustment as an Inadvertent Enemy of Human Development in Africa.” Journal of Black Studies 32, no. 1 (2001): 30–49. Film “Bamako (Abderrahmane Sissako, 2006).” YouTube.
Week 11: African Renaissance / Africa Rising
18	The New Africa	Readings Ferguson, James. “Chrysalis: The Life and Death of the African Renaissance in a Zambian Magazine.” Chapter 5 in Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order. Duke University Press Books, 2006. ISBN: 9780822337171. Nothias, Toussaint. “‘Rising’,‘Hopeful’,‘New’: Visualizing Africa in the Age of Globalization.” Visual Communication 13, no. 3 (2014): 323–39.
19	Africa as the future	Readings McKenna, John. “6 Numbers that Prove the Future is African.” World Economic Forum. May 2, 2017. UNESCO. African Futures: Towards a Sustainable Emergence? United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 2015, pp. 5–37. ISBN 9789231001734.
Week 12: Rwanda: An African Miracle?
20	In-class research and discussion	Readings Nkusi, Alphonse. “The Rwandan Miracle.” UNESCO Courier, 2019-2. Mugenzi, Rene.“The So-called ‘Rwandan Economic Miracle’ is a Mirage.” Pambazuka News, 2014. Twagiramungu, Noel, and Joseph Sebarenzi. “Rwanda’s Economic Growth Could Be Derailed by its Autocratic Regime.” The Conversation, April 8, 2019. “Reconstruction of Rwanda: ‘Miracle’ or Mirage?” iD4D. April 25, 2019.
21	In-class research and discussion	No readings or films assigned
Week 13: New Africans?
22	Telling stories of African pasts, presents, futures Guest visit by Mozambican filmmaker Inadelso Cossa	Films A Memory in Three Acts. Directed by Inadelso Cossa. Color, 64 min. 2016. “An African City, Season 1.” YouTube. (*Watch a few episodes) “Pumzi.” YouTube.
23	Afropolitanism and its discontents	Readings Selasi, Taiye. “Bye-Bye Babar.” The LIP, March 3, 2005. Balakrishnan, Sarah. “Pan-African Legacies, Afropolitan Futures: A Conversation with Achille Mbembe.” (PDF) Transition 120 (2016): 20–37. Musila, Grace A. “Part-Time Africans, Europolitans, and ‘Africa Lite’.” Journal of African Cultural Studies 28, no.1 (2016): 109–13.
Week 14: Final paper presentations
24	Final paper presentations	No readings or films assigned
25	Final paper presentations	No readings or films assigned