ClassInfo - Spring 2015 African Amer & African Studies Classes

Spring 2015 | AFRO 3431 Section 001: Early Africa and Its Global Connections (69595)

Instructor(s): Virgil Slade
Class Component:: Discussion
Credits:: 3 Credits
Grading Basis:: Student Option
Instructor Consent:: No Special Consent Required
Instruction Mode:: In Person Term Based
Class Attributes:: UMNTC Liberal Education Requirement
Meets With:: HIST 3431 Section 090
Times and Locations:: Regular Academic Session

01/20/2015 - 05/08/2015

Thu 06:20PM - 08:50PM

UMTC, West Bank

Blegen Hall 220
Also Offered:: (Tentative) Fall 2021

Course Catalog Description:: Socioeconomic, political, and cultural development in precolonial Africa, from ancient Egypt through era of trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Class Description:: Have you ever noticed which events in contemporary Africa make the headlines in the media? The Ebola outbreak in West Africa; civil war and famine in South Sudan; the mass kidnapping of Nigerian schoolgirls; an ongoing rape epidemic in the DRC. It seems that the way we ?know? Africa has been reduced to crisis and violence effectively normalizing these kinds of news reports. Does this mean that the oldest continent in the world has no other stories to tell? Utilizing lectures, discussion, films, readings and art this class will provide a corrective to this perception. Spanning from the earliest times to the Zulu Empire of the 1800s, we will uncover the dynamism of African societies. This focus highlights Africa's sophisticated trade systems and technologies, the complex political structures and spiritual beliefs of the continent, all of which offer another way of ?knowing?. Equally important, this course will critically examine Western images of Africa. It will pay specific attention to how the African was portrayed in order to justify the Atlantic Slave Trade and European imperial expansion and colonization. These representations continue to inform how we think about the continent and it is therefore imperative to place these depictions under scrutiny.
Textbooks:: https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/69595/1153
Instructor Supplied Information Last Updated:: 2 December 2014

ClassInfo Links - Spring 2015 African Amer & African Studies Classes

To link directly to this ClassInfo page from your website or to save it as a bookmark, use:: http://classinfo.umn.edu/?subject=AFRO&catalog_nbr=3431&term=1153
To see a URL-only list for use in the Faculty Center URL fields, use:: http://classinfo.umn.edu/?subject=AFRO&catalog_nbr=3431&term=1153&url=1
To see this page output as XML, use:: http://classinfo.umn.edu/?subject=AFRO&catalog_nbr=3431&term=1153&xml=1
To see this page output as JSON, use:: http://classinfo.umn.edu/?subject=AFRO&catalog_nbr=3431&term=1153&json=1
To see this page output as CSV, use:: http://classinfo.umn.edu/?subject=AFRO&catalog_nbr=3431&term=1153&csv=1

ClassInfo created and maintained by the Humphrey School of Public Affairs.

If you have questions about specific courses, we strongly encourage you to contact the department where the course resides.