Courses :: CULS C701 Topic: Cultural and social history

Joint-listed with HIST H695/H795 African history colloquium/ seminar

This course surveys the literatures in the cultural and social history of Africa. Readings include work in all regions and eras (pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial) and reflect major conceptual orientations and thematic concerns. Student projects allow for the individual exploration of topics related to research projects or pedagogical interests. Students in African Studies, Cultural Studies, and the professional schools are welcome: there are no prerequisites.
The colloquium (H695) and seminar (H795) meet together and discussion occurs simultaneously, but the requirements for the two courses differ. Colloquium students will read more extensively and produce a series of short written assignments; seminar students will read more selectively, conduct research with relevant source materials, and write a seminar paper.
Readings include:
Timothy Burke, Lifebuoy Men, Lux Women: Commodification, Consumption, and Cleanliness in Modern Zimbabwe

Clifton Crais and Pamela Scully, Sara Baartman and the Hottentot Venus: A Ghost Story and a Biography

Jonathon Glassman, War of Words, War of Stones: Racial Thought and Violence in Colonial Zanzibar

Sean Hanretta, Islam and Social Change in French West Africa: History of an Emancipatory Community

Colleen Krieger,Cloth in West African History

Benjamin Lawrence, Emily Osborn, and Richard Roberts, eds, Intermediaries, Interpreters, Clerks: African Employees in the Making of Colonial Africa

J.D.Y. Peel, Christianity and the Making of the Yoruba

Derek Peterson and Giacomo Macolo, Recasting the Past: History Writing and Political Work in Modern Africa

Lynn Thomas, Politics of the Womb: Women, Reproduction and the State in Kenya