University Bulletin
Undergraduate Degree Programs
AAA S 110
(GS;IL)
Introduction to Contemporary Africa (3) Consideration of influences and forces shaping modern African society; analysis of current local and global problems and issues facing Africa.
AAA S 110 Introduction to Contemporary Africa (3)
(GS;IL)
(BA) This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements.
This course will introduce students to the realities of contemporary Africa. Students need to study the history in order for them to understand the complexities of modern Africa. The first part of the course will deal with the history of the first encounters between Africa and Europe. The legacies of the Atlantic Slave Trade and colonialism on contemporary Africa will be analyzed.
Colonialism will be examined in its multifaceted experience. The difference between the settler states and the indirect rule states, the uniquely nationalist flavor of the various colonial powers -- England, France, Portugal, Italy, Germany, and Belgium and the resulting preparations for independence will be studied. Mau Mau and Algeria, the indigenous guerrilla wars of Africa, will be presented. The important African independence ideologies will be studied in great detail, with special reference to Pan-Africanism, Mkrumah's neo- colonialism, Nyere's African socialism and Cabral's African Marxism. We will look at the U.N. failures in Africa and the tragedy of Lubumba and the Congo. The creation of the Organization for African Unity and its effectiveness will be discussed.
Questions concerning leadership in Africa will be raised by studying several countries such as Kenya, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, and Zimbabwe. Zambia Civil wars have been a serious problem in post-colonial Africa. We will examine four of the civil wars of the last decade -- Congo, Rwanda, Liberia, and Sudan. Additionally, the politics of the Horn of Africa, particularly the revolutions in Ethiopia, the wars of liberation in Eritrea, and the civil war in Somalia, will be analyzed in some detail.
We will look at the entire history of South Africa, from the arrival of the Dutch to the Boer War, from Apartheid to Nelson Mandela. Development and economic problems plague contemporary Africa. The last part of this course will be devoted to the study of development in Africa. We will look at the different theories from Walter Rodney's How Europe Underdeveloped Africa to World Bank theories. Students will be required to analyze a particular development problem in an African country and find a solution as their final project.