African Intellectuals and the Modern Experience

3 credits · Undergraduate

African thinkers have long pondered the challenges of the modern era, and have established lines of thought with which African intellectuals now address Africa's profound problems. But this engagement with the modern world has moved through different phases, just as the social location of the African intelligentsia has changed over time. This course will explore this intellectual history by setting specific writers in context, and then examining their original writings to ponder such questions as: What were the roots of “African Christianity”? How did African intellectuals respond to “scientific” racism? What was the appeal of Pan-Africanism? What was Negritude? How socialist was African socialism? How do postmodern insights about the invention of identity affect the idea of being “African”? CROSSLISTED: HIST 5475.03; BAFD 4475 EXCLUSIONS: HIST 3475.03 FORMATS: Seminar