Africa: Peoples & Culture
SYLLABUS for FALL 2008
Optional readings appear in italics. The book icon indicates longer-than-normal assignments -- don't wait till the last minute.



Africa and Us
  Thur, Augt 28   Music: Mbube Introduction & Overview  
 
Tue, Sept 02
Music: Fred Onovwerosuoke;
Lenses Through Which We See Africa ppt Conrad, Heart of Darkness (web);
Kaplan 1994, The Coming Anarchy (web);
Stone and Stone 1996, Out of Africa (web).
Wainaina 1992, How to Write about Africa (web)
OPT: Richburg 1995, Continental Divide; Harrison & Palmer 1986:79-92, News Out of Africa
 
Thur, Sept 04

"Language You Cry In"
Music: Orchestra Baobab; Djembe drumming 		A Story of Americans and African Roots Gullah-Mende handout (web)


Geography
 
Tue, Sept 09
Quiz 1

 		Physical Geography ppt McNulty 1995, Contemporary Map of Africa (Eres);
Africa maps (web)
 
Thur, Sept 11
Music: Boubacar Traore (Mali) Resources, Language and the Culture map ppt Lamphear & Falola 1995:86-94 (part of Aspects of Early African History on the Bantu expansion) (Eres)

First Citizens and Modernity: Two Key Case Studies
  Tue, Sept 16
html Kalahari film Smith et al. 2000, The Bushmen of Southern Africa, Chaps 1, 4 (web)
  Thur, Sept 18 Music Boubacar Traore
(Malian), Kongo Magni 		 Kalahari Peoples (& history of people "without history") (ppt)
Lee 1968, excerpt from What Hunters Do for a Living (Eres);
Mail & Guardian 1998, The Tribe Germany Wants to Forget (web); BBC 2003, Boynton 1997, Search for Authenticity (Eres)
OPT: Smith et al. 2000, The Bushmen of Southern Africa, Chaps 5-10 (web); Gordon 1992 (The Bushman Myth) (Eres); Kalahari cactus (web)
  Tue, Sept 23 Ladysmith Black Mambazo & surprise guest Kalahari (con't)
  Thur, Sept 25


Music: Babenzele Pygmies Hindewhu in Western rock & jazz

 Ituri ethnology (html) Appiah on Turnbull (web);
Grinker 1994:1-13, Houses in the Rain Forest (web)
  Tue, Sept 30
Red Rubberand the Fair (html)
 Bradford & Blume 1992, Ota: The Pygmy in the Zoo (whole book on Eres)
OPT: Harms 1975, The End of Red Rubber; Grinker 2000, In the Arms of Africa (web)
  Thur, Oct 02

Midterm I

Colonialism, Tribalism, and the African State
 
Tue, Oct 07

Music:
Alhaji Haruna-Ishola Bello (Yoruba). Buy a Yoruba drum!

 Tribalism and Colonialism: Tiv and Hausa html Dorwood 1969, Development of British Colonial Admin. among the Tiv ( Eres) (see note on Dorwood)
 
Thur, Oct 09
Music:Fela Kuti, Expensive Shit Postcolonial Africa and States: Nigeria case study html Soyinka, A Flawed Origin (Eres -- listed under "Flawed Origin")
OPT: French 1997, A Century Later, Letting Africans Draw Their Own Map (web)
 
Tue, Oct 14
Music: Babatunde Olatunji, Drums of Passion Colonial and postcolonial Rwanda: Hutu and Tutsi ppt Human Rights Watch 1999, Leave None to Tell the Story, pp. 6-37 (up to "The Single Party State") (pdf)
Bowen 1996, Myth of Global Ethnic Conflict excerpt (web)

African Agrarian Societies
 
Thur, Oct 16

Second Nature

Music: Toumani Diabate (Mali) & Taj Mahal, "Kulanjan"

 Introduction to population & agriculture in Africa; Kissi case study
(html)

Stone 1991, What is Agricultural Intensification? (web)
Fairhead and Leach 1995 (Local Agro-Ecological Management) (Eres)

 
Tue, Oct 21

Music: Taj Mahal and Toumani Diabate, "Kulanjan"

Quiz 2

 African Population & Agric Change (html)

Is Overpopulation a Problem for Africa? (web)
 
Thur, Oct 23
Music: Babatunde Olatunje, Drums of Passion Crowded agricultural societies: Kofyar (ppt) Stone, Kofyar Slide (web);
Stone 1996, Social Organization of Agriculture (web)
Stone 1998, Keeping the Home Fires Burning (pdf)
OPT: Netting et al 1989, Kofyar Cash-Cropping: Choice and Change (web)
 
Tue, Oct 28
King Sunny Ade Tiv: Culture, Agriculture and Conflict (ppt) Stone 1997, Predatory Sedentism
  Thur, Oct 30 Music: Ali Farka Toure (Mali) and Ry Cooder, "Talking Timbuktu" Sahelian Land-Use and Desertification (html) Batterbury and Warren 2001 (Desertification) (web)
OPT: see refs in lecture notes
 
Tue, Nov 04
AFRICAN FEAST
meet in McMillan cafe!		 African foodways food pages
Thur, Nov 6

Midterm II

Religion, Philosophy and Witchcraft
  Thur, Nov 11

Music: Fela Kuti, Black President; syncretic Zap Mama

 Religious Traditions (html)

Karp 1995, African Systems of Thought (Eres)
OPT: Hanson, Islam and African Societies (Eres)

  Tue, Nov 13 Music: Ethiopiques jazz Witchcraft and Religion

Kopytoff 1971, Ancestors as Elders in Africa (pdf)
OPT: Evans-Pritchard on Second Spear

Crisis in Darfur
  Tue, Nov 18   Darfur (ppt) de Waal 2007, Darfur - The Crisis Explained (pdf)
OPT: Eric Reeves' Sudan website

Medicine, the Body, and Culture
 
Thur, Nov 20

Female Genital Cutting Parker 1995, Rethinking Female Circumcision;(Eres)
Leonard 2000, 'We Did It for Pleasure Only' (Eres)
NYT 2004, Most Private of Makeovers
OPT: Charles 1994, An Open Wound; Obermayer 2003: 401-408 Health Consequences of Female Circumcision
 
Tue, Nov 25

Female Genital Cutting (html)
  Tue, Dec 02

HIV/AIDS; Health, and Economy (ppt) pop density map and data table

  
  Thur, Dec 4

FINAL EXAM in class