Africa and World History
Spring 2010
HIAF 3091 explores “world history” from the perspective of Africa, for advanced undergraduates.
The Department of History at the University of Virginia has offered courses placing Africa in broader “Atlantic” frameworks, mostly in the modern era but ha not otherwise considered Africa’s place in the long-term history of the human race – even though genetic and other evidence establishes that all modern humans descend from ancestors who lived in Africa. Conversely, “world history”, a very recent addition to the UVa history curriculum, characteristically finds only the most marginal of roles for Africa – mostly as a continent victimized and colonized by others, Muslims and modern Europeans. Hegel, founding philosopher of the modern historical discipline, specifically excluded Africa from his schema of universal history as the continent lacking meaningful change.
HIAF 3091 tackles all these challenges: (1) to historicize an African past (all 50,000 years of it) still commonly seen in static, quasi-ethnographic terms; (2) to place this narrative of the challenges Africans faced and the changes they made in the broader story of human history throughout the world; and (3) to take their perspectives, strategies, and experiences as a basis for a fresh look at the familiar narrative of world “civilizations”. Additionally, historicizing Africa presents a rich opportunity to consider what makes history historical, among the many ways of contemplating the past. If you want to think again about what you thought you knew, about any part of the world (including the modern US), this should be the course for you. I hope to leave no one in the room unchallenged.
HIAF 3091 provides the narrative framework of Africa’s past through reading a current text (John Reader, Africa: A Biography) but develops significantly different interpretive emphases; the contrast will reveal the assumptions underlying the way that historians think – or should think, since surprisingly few of them actually do. We will also read a recent world-history text (Armesto, The World: A History) and critique its narrative through the argument to be developed in the course. We will also read technical articles on concepts and processes integral to understanding Africa and history. You need not have taken either HIAF 2001 or 2002 (Introductions to early and modern Africa), but if you have not you will need to take responsibility for grasping the basic narrative of Africa’s past from which the course will build.
Students will write short analytical “take-home points” at the conclusion of every class. Frequent, short map quizzes will encourage useful awareness of the geographical contexts of all human history. Written requirements will include periodic short “position papers” reflecting on the course content as it develops. There will be no in-class examinations. All student writing will be considered intensely and analytically. The final exercise will be a take-home essay responding to a single question: “Having spent a semester looking at the history of the world from the perspective of Africa, and vice versa, how do you now see the similarities and the differences between Africans’ experiences and those of other people elsewhere around the globe?”
The Department of History at the University of Virginia has offered courses placing Africa in broader “Atlantic” frameworks, mostly in the modern era but ha not otherwise considered Africa’s place in the long-term history of the human race – even though genetic and other evidence establishes that all modern humans descend from ancestors who lived in Africa. Conversely, “world history”, a very recent addition to the UVa history curriculum, characteristically finds only the most marginal of roles for Africa – mostly as a continent victimized and colonized by others, Muslims and modern Europeans. Hegel, founding philosopher of the modern historical discipline, specifically excluded Africa from his schema of universal history as the continent lacking meaningful change.
HIAF 3091 tackles all these challenges: (1) to historicize an African past (all 50,000 years of it) still commonly seen in static, quasi-ethnographic terms; (2) to place this narrative of the challenges Africans faced and the changes they made in the broader story of human history throughout the world; and (3) to take their perspectives, strategies, and experiences as a basis for a fresh look at the familiar narrative of world “civilizations”. Additionally, historicizing Africa presents a rich opportunity to consider what makes history historical, among the many ways of contemplating the past. If you want to think again about what you thought you knew, about any part of the world (including the modern US), this should be the course for you. I hope to leave no one in the room unchallenged.
HIAF 3091 provides the narrative framework of Africa’s past through reading a current text (John Reader, Africa: A Biography) but develops significantly different interpretive emphases; the contrast will reveal the assumptions underlying the way that historians think – or should think, since surprisingly few of them actually do. We will also read a recent world-history text (Armesto, The World: A History) and critique its narrative through the argument to be developed in the course. We will also read technical articles on concepts and processes integral to understanding Africa and history. You need not have taken either HIAF 2001 or 2002 (Introductions to early and modern Africa), but if you have not you will need to take responsibility for grasping the basic narrative of Africa’s past from which the course will build.
Students will write short analytical “take-home points” at the conclusion of every class. Frequent, short map quizzes will encourage useful awareness of the geographical contexts of all human history. Written requirements will include periodic short “position papers” reflecting on the course content as it develops. There will be no in-class examinations. All student writing will be considered intensely and analytically. The final exercise will be a take-home essay responding to a single question: “Having spent a semester looking at the history of the world from the perspective of Africa, and vice versa, how do you now see the similarities and the differences between Africans’ experiences and those of other people elsewhere around the globe?”
