Postcolonial Africa

How did Africans remake state and society in the wake of empire? Picking up at the end of WWII, this course explores prolonged and varied transitions in postcolonial Africa. A range of political and economic reforms intended to promote authenticity or achieve modernity unfolded under the pressures of the Cold War and the intransigence of white settler societies. By engaging primary sources, we track conversations on Africa’s postcolonial experiments and gauge the effects on the quality of everyday life. Students will find, edit, and comment on primary sources of their own choosing for possible inclusion in a published work.