First-Year Courses in Afroamerican and African Studies (Division 311)

Winter Term, 2000 (September 8 - December 22, 1999)

Introductory Courses

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Yaw Twumasi (yawt@umich.edu)

Credits: (4; 2 in the half-term).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

Contemporary Africa has certain striking cultural, social, political, and economic characteristics. These characteristics range from cultural diversity and creativity, colonially-created national boundaries, high rates of population growth, and economic underdevelopment to passion for development and political stability. This course is designed to address the basic question: Why and how did African countries acquire these characteristics? We will seek to provide, in a broad and wide-ranging survey, a coherent explanation for the transformation of African cultures, societies, politics, and economies, in relation to internal developments and to the effects of external forces. Special emphasis will be placed on major historical and social processes and their relation with one another. The historical evolution of Africa will be traced, but this will be done as a means of shedding light on the conditions and circumstances of contemporary Africa. The underlying approach is to seek to integrate whatever is known of the pre-colonial and colonial past (as revealed by archaeology, anthropology, history, etc.) with an understanding of post-colonial societies and politics.