Courses

The study of Africa's pre-colonial past has produced a particularly wide variety of views and interpretations. Some writers have asserted, for example, that Africans possessed little political organization in the past, while others celebrate ancient African kingdoms. This course introduces students to the diverse histories of Africa, from the development of early African communities to the late 19th century. The course will offer a broad survey of the history of Africa, including its diverse cultures, belief systems, political complexities, statecraft, and the fluid nature of African societies. We will examine pre-colonial texts, ideas, cultures, institutions, geography, communities, arts, technologies, and commercial systems to explain the major dynamics of economic, social, and political change in Africa. The purpose of this course is to help students make their own judgments about competing claims and conflicting interpretations of the African past. We will acquaint ourselves with the various methodologies and sources that historians of pre-colonial Africa use in their craft, including archaeology, linguistics, oral traditions, historical anthropology, environmental history, and documentary evidence. As we will see, one of the most exciting aspects of African historical study is that it draws upon kinds of evidence which historians in other parts of the world rarely use, and so gives us an unusual perspective on the human past.