The African Diaspora: Black Internationalism Across Time and Space

3 units

This course is an introduction to the history of the African diaspora. It will engage the following questions: what constitutes a diaspora and what is the African diaspora in particular? Where is it? What were the conditions that led to the dispersal of Africans throughout the world? How have Africans in the diaspora constructed cultural and political identities across time and space? What were the circumstances that led to the dispersal of Africans? When the dispersal resulted from conditions of inequality, as was the case when the transatlantic slave trade led to the forced migration of Africans to the 'new world,' what were the legacies of that inequality? How has the African presence transformed the societies in question? Though the course will focus on readings from the United States, the Caribbean and South America, students will also be exposed to the African diaspora as a series of dispersals, with a view to placing the African diaspora in the 'new world' within the historic context of a longer history of African dispersal.