Topics in African History

This course is an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the African continent and its peoples. Materials and methods from anthropology, archaeology, geography, linguistics, musicology, art history, political science and other disciplines will contribute to our study of the African past. The traditional, documentary methods of the historian will be complemented by extensive use of oral tradition. The course begins with the origins of man in eastern Africa more than 6 million years ago and in roughly chronological order particularly considers developments over the last two thousand years. We will pay special attention to those elements of African cultures which have made their way across the Atlantic Ocean. The interests of Europeans in Africa from Roman times to the present will be of concern but the course will examine Africa from an African perspective.