Technology and Innovation in Africa

Readings

LEC #	TOPICS	READINGS
1	Introduction	No Reading
2	How Not to Talk about Africa	Wainaina, Binyavanga. “How To Write About Africa.” Granta. Achebe, Chinua. “An Image of Africa.” Research in African Literatures 9, no. 1 (1978): 1–15.
3	Technology & Innovation—In ‘Africa’?	Mavhunga, Clapperton. “Introduction.” From Transient Workspaces: Technologies of Everyday Innovation in Zimbabwe. MIT Press, 2014. ISBN: 9780262027243.
4	Food Production in Africa	Carney, Judith A. “African Rice in the Columbian Exchange.” The Journal of African History 42, no. 3 (2001): 377–96.
5	Textiles	Kriger, Colleen E. “Mapping the History of Cotton Textile Production in Precolonial West Africa.” African Economic History, no. 33 (2005): 87–116.
6	Beer Brewing	Carlson, Robert G. “Banana Beer, Reciprocity, and Ancestor Propitiation among the Haya of Bukoba, Tanzania.” Ethnology 29, no. 4 (1990): 297–311. Davison, Patricia. “Southern African Beer Pots.” African Arts 18, no. 3 (1985): 74–7 & 98.
7	Review	No Reading
8	Music	Johnston, Thomas F. “The Role of Music within the Context of an African Social Beer–Drink.” International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 5, no. 2 (1974): 291–311.
9	The Climate Engineers: Making Rain in Africa?	Muguti, Tasara, and Richard Shadreck Maposa. “Indigenous Weather Forecasting: A Phenomenological Study Engaging the Shona of Zimbabwe.” (PDF) The Journal of Pan African Studies 4, no. 9 (2012).
10	The Crafts of Witches	Masquelier, Adeline. “Lightning, Death and the Avenging Spirits: ‘Bori’ Values in a Muslim World.” Journal of Religion in Africa 24, no. 1 (1994): 2–51.
11	Mining & Metallurgy	Wright, Marcia. “Life and Technology in Everyday Life: Reflections on the Career of Mzee Stefano, Master Smelter in Ufipa, Tanzania.” Journal of African Cultural Studies 15, no. 1 (2002): 17–34.
12	African Entrepreneurship	Henige, David. “John Kabes of Komenda: An Early African Entrepreneur and State Builder.” The Journal of African History 18, no. 1 (1977): 1–19.
13	Pre–colonial African Cities	Bent, J. Theodore. “The Ruins of Mashonaland, and Explorations in the Country.” Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record of Geography, New Monthly Series 14, no. 5 (1892): 273–98. Video: Professor Gloria Emeagwali. “Innovation and Indigenous Technology in Great Zimbabwe.” Vimeo. http://vimeo.com/112103461.
14	Biochemistry	Schapera, I. “Bows and Arrows of the Bushmen.” Man 27 (1927): 113–17.
15	Ecology	Mavhunga, Clapperton. “The Professoriate of the Hunt.” From Transient Workspaces: Technologies of Everyday Innovation in Zimbabwe. MIT Press, 2014. ISBN: 9780262027243.
16	Medicine	Motlhanka, D. M. T., and G. P. Nthoiwa. “Ethnobotanical Survey of Medicinal Plants of Tswapong North, in Eastern Botswana: A Case of Plants from Mosweu and Seolwane Villages.” European Journal of Medicinal Plants 3, no. 1 (2003): 10–24.
17	Leadership & Culture	Crowder, Michael. “Indirect Rule: French and British Style.” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 34, no. 3 (1964): 197–205.
18	Review	No Reading
19	The Horse	Fisher, Humphrey J. “‘He Swalloweth the Ground with Fierceness and Rage’: The Horse in the Central Sudan.” The Journal of African History 14, no. 3 (1973): 355–79.
20	The Gun	Macola, Giacomo. “Reassessing the Significance of Firearms in Central Africa: The Case of North–Western Zambia to the 1920s.” The Journal of African History 51, no. 3 (2010): 301–21.
21	Bibles	Chirenje, J. Mutero. “Church, State, and Education in Bechuanaland in the Nineteenth Century.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 9, no. 3 (1976): 401–18.
22	Books & Letters	Adeboye, Olufunke. “Reading the Diary of Akinpelu Obisesan in Colonial Africa.” African Studies Review 51, no. 2 (2008): 75–97.
23	Media	Lekgoathi, Sekibakiba Peter. “You are Listening to Radio Lebowa of the South African Broadcasting Corporation: Vernacular Radio, Bantustan Identity and Listenership, 1960–1994.” Journal of Southern African Studies 35, no. 3 (2009): 575–94.
24	The Cellphone in Africa	Hahn, Hans Peter, and Ludovic Kibora. “The Domestication of the Mobile Phone: Oral Society and New ICT in Burkina Faso.” The Journal of Modern African Studies 46, no. 1 (2008): 87–109.
25	Review	No Reading
26	Wrap–up	No Reading