Contemporary Issues in African Politics and Culture: Thinking Africa Differently

Using an interdisciplinary methodology this course will examine three current issues in African societies: War, Violence and Sovereignty; the Politics of Gender in the African postcolony and the meanings of History, Trauma and Public Memory in some African societies. We will undertake this examination by "thinking about Africa differently," that is by thinking about these three issues outside of the dominant set of images, tropes and ideas that have conventionally constructed a particular version of Africa.