Michael Joseph Mulvey

Introduction: African studies is—much like the idea of Western or Asian studies—a generalization that obscures the multiplicity of cultures, societies, and historical experiences across a diverse continent at the crossroads of global interaction. In the United States, there is a tendency to view Africa as an extreme “Other.” Americans only hear about Africa when something suddenly comes to media attention: Somali pirates, the North African uprisings, the Lord’s Resistance Army, a coup in Mali, miners shot in South Africa, or a Kenyan mall taken hostage. Typically, journalists provide little context for contemporary African events, which leave Americans assuming they came out of nowhere.

This class aims to help you to make sense of Africa’s recent events, predicaments, and accomplishments in relation to Africa’s past. You will learn how colonialism, anti-colonial resistance, nationalism, independence, modernization, post-colonialism, and neo-colonialism impacted Africa thereby placing yourself in the unique position to understand what Americans too often consider another world. One way to see and understand a reality is by engaging multiple aspects of that reality through the eyes of Africans and outside observers. We will turn to authors, scholars, and directors to help offer us a critical perspective on African historical experiences. More broadly, you will leave this class prepared to contextualize and communicate contemporary events in Africa to your family, friends, and future professional peers.