This course examines the implication of literature in the colonial encounter and the literary representations of this event. We will read classical texts of European colonialism in dialogue with postcolonial texts from Africa, the Caribbean and Asia. We will begin with an exploration of the literature of empire and look at the ways in which colonialism shaped some canonical European texts. We will then study the range of literary responses emerging from French and British colonies in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. Our study will be organized around the themes of representation, identity, power, race, gender, and resistance. Readings include Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, Joyce Cary's Mister Johnson, Aime Cesaire's A Tempest, William Shakespeare's The Tempest, Maryse Conde's Windward Heights, Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, and Zadie Smith's White Teeth. Distrib: INT or LIT; WCult: CI.
Multidisciplinary in scope, the course will survey critical social change in African cultures and civilizations through a study of history, art, literature, religion, economy, and politics, paying particular attention to the cultural impact of colonial rule on contemporary societies and states. Dist: SOC; WCult: NW.
This course is a continuation of History 16. Among the topics to be discussed are Black Reconstruction, segregation and disfranchisement, migration, nationalism, Blacks and the New Deal, the impact of war on Blacks, and the 1960s. Open to all classes. Dist: SOC; WCult: W.
This course will examine the social and economic history of Africa to 1800. Several interrelated themes of social organization, the expansion of trade, rise of new social classes, the emergence and disintegration of various states and European intervention will be discussed. Through our readings, we will visit every major historical region of Africa (north, east, central, west and south) at least once during the semester to illuminate the various themes. Open to all classes. Dist: SOC; WCult: NW.
The Spanish discovery and conquest of this continent created Latin America and the Caribbean out of the diverse and complex realities of the pre-Columbian world. Since colonial times Latin American and Caribbean cultures have developed against a background of cultural repression, racial conflict, political domination, colonial exploitation, and gender inequality. And yet, in the midst of all this turmoil, Latin America and the Caribbean have produced an extraordinary variety and wealth of artistic creations, ranging from literature to the visual arts, from music to film. In this course we will turn to some of the works by Latin American and Caribbean artists and writers in an attempt to illuminate and explore some of the wonders of the cultural dynamics that shape the many faces of what we call Latin America and the Caribbean. Dist: LIT; WCult: NW.
Throughout the history of the United States, African Americans have offered alternative visions of their nation’s future and alternative definitions of their nation’s progress. Not limited to reforming the worst social ills, these discourses have called for a fundamental restructuring of our political, economic, and social relations. A radical tradition provided the intellectual continuity and ideological coherence of these critiques, and it allowed African Americans to cultivate and pass on a legacy of social resistance. Open to all classes. Dist: SOC; WCult: W.
African American Fiction Since 1990 (Identical to African and African American Studies 36). This course will explore African American prose fiction published since 1990 in an effort to probe the complicated question “What is Black fiction?” We shall also read extensively in African American literary criticism and theory with an eye toward learning how they have shaped the canon of African American literature. We will study novels by Morrison, Charles Johnson, Whitehead, Sienna, Octavia Butler and Beatty and examine how they challenge the paradigms of Black literature. Dist: LIT; WCult: CI, pending faculty approval.
This interdisciplinary course explores the constructions of gender identities in different African sociocultural contexts. The emphasis is on contemporary Africa, although we will discuss some of the historical frameworks of these identities. We will read historical accounts of gender in some pre-colonial African societies, investigate the impact of colonialism, and examine gender in some anticolonial movements. We will also analyze gender in urban and rural contexts, and address such questions as homosexuality and gay rights. WCult: CI.
This course focuses on processes, relationships, and experiences that have shaped, and continue to shape, the lives of Africans in many different contexts. These include issues of ecology and food production, age, gender, ethnicity, exchange, colonialism, apartheid, and development. We will then embark on in depth readings of ethnographies that engage these issues and themes. In the processes we will move beyond prevailing stereotypes about Africa, to engage the full complexity of its contemporary realities. Prerequisite: One introductory course in anthropology or in AAAS or by permission. Dist: SOC; WCult: CI.
This course is intended as an introduction to contemporary political, economic, social, and environmental issues in Sub-Saharan Africa. It will begin with a brief historical overview, focusing on the legacies of the colonial era. It will then look critically at a number of modern-day concerns, including agriculture and food security, environmental degradation, health and disease, urbanization, economic aid and restructuring, and the politics of ethnicity and democratization. While we will examine each subject by way of select case studies, emphasis throughout will be on the diversity and changing nature of the African continent. This course will also consider how Africa’s problems are portrayed and understood (and often misunderstood) by the rest of the world. Dist: SOC or INT; WCult: NW.
This course contrasts the most important approaches to development in Africa as they are used to explain the structure of political economy and politics in specific African countries. Special attention is paid to the consequences of external agencies, including external relations with industrialized countries and the World Bank, and the internal relations based on the interaction of the African state, ethnicity, patronage, class and local capitalism. Selected countries will be analyzed in detail. Prerequisite Government 4, or permission of the instructor. Dist: SOC or INT: WCult: NW.
This course offers an introduction to the history of North Africa from its conversion to Islam to its current, transnational political and social formations. Focusing on religion and conversion, Sufism and mysticism, French and Italian colonialism, trade and economic history, environment, the region’s engagement with the Sahara, literature and culture, and migration, assignments will emphasize major themes in the social, political, economic, and cultural history of the region. Open to all classes. Dist: SOC; WCult: NW.
This course aims to introduce students to the formation of Islam in the Maghrib, Saharan Africa, and Africa south of the desert. Assignments will address continuities with and differences from the practices of Muslims in other parts of the world while emphasizing the central role the religion has played in the unfolding of history in various parts of Africa. Topics covered will include conversion, popular religion and mysticism, cultural formations, and social organization. Open to all students. Dist: SOC; WCult: CI.
In this course we will explore the emergence of Black feminism(s)/womanism(s) in twentieth- and twenty-first-century U.S. popular culture. We will specifically address how the work of African-American women artists-scholars critiques sexism, racism, classicism, ethnocentrism and heterosexism within the U.S. context. In order to examine Black feminism(s) and womanism(s) in popular culture from myriad perspectives, the required readings for this course reflect a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, as well as a range of genres. Open to all students. Dist: SOC; WCult: CI.
This course explores how the experience of slavery and abolition in Brazil has formed a major theme for Brazilian authors from the nineteenth century to today. Key literary texts will be paired with period art, historical writings, films, and music. We will examine how the Brazilian Empire was part of the larger Atlantic world yet its history of slavery and abolition was distinct from tht of the U.S. Dist. Lit: WCult: NW, pending faculty approval.
This course examines the environmental history of Africa and Asia, focusing on the period of European colonialism and its aftermath. Topics include deforestation and desertification under colonial rule; imperialism and conservation; the consequences of environmental change for rural Africans and Asians; irrigation, big dams and transformations in water landscapes; the development of national parks and their impact on wildlife and humans; the environmentalism of the poor; urbanization and pollution; and global climate change in Africa and Asia. Open to all students. Dist: INT or SOC; WCult: NW.
Providing students with a specific and global view of the diversity of literatures from the African continent, we will read texts in English or translated from French, Portuguese, Arabic and African languages. Through novels, short stories, poetry, and drama, we will explore the colonial encounter, conflict between tradition and modernity, negotiation of African identities, post-independence disillusion, gender issues, apartheid and post-apartheid. Discussing this variety of literatures from a comparative context, we will assess similarities and differences apparent in the cultures and historical contexts from which they emerge. Readings include Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Naguib Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley, Calixthe Beyala’s The Sun Hath Looked Upon Me, Camara Laye’s The African Child, and Luandino Vieira’s Luanda. Dist: LIT or INT; WCult: NW.
In this course, we will develop an understanding of masculinity as a construct which varies in time and space, and is constantly (re)shaped by such factors as race, class, and sexuality. The contexts of the colonial encounter and its postcolonial aftermath will set the stage for our examination of the ways in which social, political, economic, and cultural factors foster the production of specific masculinities. Texts include Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Lafferiere’s How to Make Love to a Negro, and additional writings by Irish, Indian, and Australian authors. Our study will be organized around the questions of the production of hegemonic and subaltern masculinities, the representation of the colonial and postcolonial male body, the militarization of masculinity, and the relation between masculinity and nationalism. Theoretical material on masculinities will frame our readings. Dist: LIT.
With special emphasis on the speeches and public work of Martin King, this course will consider how black religious culture, practices, and institutions helped to shape the black freedom movement of the 1950s and 60s. We will explore other figures including Fannie Lou Hamer, James Baldwin, and Malcolm X and consider how they shaped and challenged the role Afro-Protestant culture had in determining the moral language and political strategies associated with the Civil Rights Movement. Open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors, and to first-year students by permission. Dist: SOC; WCult: CI.
This course proposes to examine literature written by US citizens of African and Spanish- Caribbean ancestry. This growing group of writers represents new perspectives that are challenging while broadening the scope, definition and imaginary conception of “American literature,” specifically in North America. Laden with neo-cartographies of the home-space, the works of writers such as Marta Vega, Loida Maritza Perez, and Nelly Rosario challenge institutionalized notions of space, place, location, home, nation, culture, citizenship and identity. Dist: LIT.
In this advanced seminar we will closely examine a substantial selection of Douglass’s writings: all three autobiographies, his novella, and significant speeches and essays. Ad-ditional readings in literature, history, and literary theory will help students to contextualize the aesthetic, philosophical, and socio-political significance of Douglass’ contribution to nineteenth-century transnational abolitionism and evolving notions of black identity and American citizenship. Although we will strive for a nuanced understanding of Douglass’s iconic stature in the nineteenth century, we will end by considering Douglass’s legacy in the age of Obama. Dist: LIT.
Available to students who wish to independently explore aspects of African and African American Studies which are not included in courses currently offered at Dartmouth. Open to qualified students with permission of the course instructorand the Chair. (Obtain Proposal Form in the program office.) No student may take more than two such courses without the approval of the program. Open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors.
For senior African and African American Studies majors toward the culminating experience, with permission of selected instructor and the Chair. (Obtain Proposal Form in the program office.)
The honors student will pursue the project under guidance of selected faculty member and with permission of the Chair. See "A Guide to Honors in African and African American Studies" in the program office.
