CHIST 3360 Africa in World History
This course examines the significant role that Africa has played in world history from premodern times to the present. Rather than succumbing to the historiographical and curricular tendency to depict Africa’s past as somehow peripheral, and its inhabitants as the passive victims of historical forces beyond their control, this course highlights the agency that Africans had in their commercial, political, and cultural encounters, both within the continent and with the outside world, while examining how Africa’s history was also greatly influenced by these interactions and relationships. Topics include: ancient Egypt and Kush; early Christianity in Ethiopia; the spread of Islam to medieval West Africa; the Swahili civilization and its place in the Indian Ocean world; Africa’s “discovery of Europe” in the early modern era; the Atlantic slave trade through African eyes; the nineteenth-century Scramble for Africa; the experiences of African soldiers in World War I; forms of colonial rule and African resistance; decolonization, independence, and postcolonial Africa; and twenty-first-century Africa in global perspective.
Prerequisite
CLITR 1100, OR one 1000- or 2000-level CHIST or CHUMS course. Fulfills Global Perspectives requirement