TWENTIETH CENTURY AFRICA
Spring 2008
HIST-23200-01
Monday, Wednesday, Friday: 11.00 – 11.50 a.m.
Taylor 104
Marc C. Goulding
Office: Kauke 118
Phone: 330-263-2025
mgoulding@wooster.edu
Office hours:
Friday and Wednesday 3.30 – 5.00
Or by appointment
Course Description:
Africa and Africans – the heterogeneous societies, cultures, and histories of the continent
– have played central and active roles in world events of the twentieth century. Nevertheless,
many in the United States and elsewhere mistakenly understand the continent as peripheral, an
undifferentiated and amorphous mass passively acted upon by the forces of the “modern” world.
The popular press and popular culture bombard with images of supposedly inescapable strife,
victimization, and chronic instability. In this class, we specifically reject such views as
inaccurate and dismissive, and seek to understand the manners in which Africans themselves
have forged their own histories during the course of the last century.
Here, we are mindful of the caution leveled by scholar Valentine Mudimbe that “African
discourses have been silenced radically or, in most cases, converted by conquering Western
discourses.” In other words, we strive to approach the history of the continent in African terms,
and challenge the misrepresentations of Euro-American stereotypes.
This course introduces students to major developments and concerns, conflicts and
achievements of African history during the twentieth century. We take a somewhat long view of
this time period, and begin at the end of the nineteenth century with European powers’ so-called
“scramble” to seize imperial territory on the continent. Over a two-week period, particular
attention will be paid to Gold Coast/Ghana and Kenya to illustrate some of the divergent means
by which Africans achieved independence from imperial/colonial rule. Central themes addressed
in this course will include anti-imperialism and nationalism, concepts of “development,” statebuilding, and post-independence governance.
Assignments:
In addition to midterm and final exams, students are required to complete three writing
assignments. The document analyses (4 – 5 pages) allow students to engage with a text,
formulating their own questions and drawing their own conclusions. The historiographical essay
(6 – 8 pages) gives students the opportunity to examine in greater detail some facet of African
history, through critical readings of secondary source materials outside of the course reading list.
Throughout the semester, students will periodically be asked to complete short writing
assignments – these assignments will be either brief response paragraphs based on the readings,
or analytical questions to be prepared before class discussion of a given reading.
All writing assignments must be submitted in Times New Roman 12 point font, double
spaced, with one inch margins. All assignments must follow the conventions of the Chicago
Manual of Style. Your name and page number should appear in the header after page one, and
papers must be stapled. No other formatting will be accepted.
Grading:
2 X Document analysis – 10 % (each)
Midterm exam – 20 %
Historiographical essay – 20 %
Final exam – 30 %
Attendance and participation – 10 %
Final Exam Date: Thursday, May 8, 2008 – 11.00 am
Required Texts:
Available at the Wilson bookstore,
Frederick Cooper, Africa Since 1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart [orig. 1959]
Caroline Elkins, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya (New
York: Henry Holt, 2005)
Additional assigned readings will be available for students to print out via EReserve
(http://library.wooster.edu/), and/or the course Woodle site.
Internet Sources
The following websites feature news and information on regions throughout the
continent, as well as links to online editions of a variety of African newspapers.
www.africaaction.org
www.allafrica.com
Attendance
Participation is a critical aspect of this course. Students are expected to attend each class
meeting, arrive having read the assigned materials, and take an active part in class discussions.
Attendance and participation will factor as part of the final grade.
Electronics
Devices such as cell phones, mp3 players, etc. may not be used in the classroom. Please
make sure you turn off your phone before class begins. Laptops may not be used in the classroom
unless you first get my permission.
Recording Classroom Activities:
No student may record or tape or photograph any classroom activity without my express
written consent. If a student believes that he/she is disabled and needs to record or tape
classroom activities, he/she should contact the Office of the Secretary to request an appropriate
accommodation.
Academic Integrity:
The College’s understanding and expectations in regard to issues of academic honesty are
fully articulated in the Code of Academic Integrity as published in The Scot’s Key and form an
essential part of the implicit contract between the student and the College. The Code provides a
framework at Wooster to help students develop their own personal integrity.
While you are a student at this college, you will be treated as an adult. You are expected
to know and abide by the rules of the institution as described in The Scot’s Key and the Handbook
of Selected College Policies (www.wooster.edu/policies). Particular attention should be directed
to the appropriate use of materials available on-line through the Internet. It is important that you
read and understand the ethical use of information. Whether intentional or not, improper use of
materials can be considered a violation of academic integrity.
Cheating in any of your academic work is a serious breach of the Code of Academic
Integrity and is grounds for an F for the entire course. Such violations include turning in another
person’s work as your own, copying from any source without a proper citation, crossing the
boundary of what is allowed in your group project, and lying in connection with your academic
work. You will be held responsible for your actions. If you are unsure as to what is permissible,
please contact me.
Accommodations:
Any student with a documented learning disability needing academic accommodations is
requested to speak with Pam Rose, Director of the Learning Center (ext. 2595), and the instructor,
as early in the semester as possible. All discussions will remain confidential.
Week 1 – Introduction
V.Y. Mudimbe, The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge
(Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1988)
Chapter 1, “Discourse of Power and Knowledge of Otherness,” 1-23.
Achille Mbembe, On the Postcolony (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001)
Introduction, “Time on the Move,” 1-23.
Week 2 – Imperialism and Colonialism
Robert O. Collins and James M. Burns, A History of Sub-Saharan Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2007)
Chapter 18, “The European conquest of Africa,” 265-279
Chapter 20, “European colonial rule in Africa,” 296-308
Oyeronke Oyewumi, The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender
Discourses (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1997)
Chapter 4, “Colonizing Bodies and Minds: Gender and Colonialism,” 121-156
Week 3 – Things Fall Apart
Monday: Document analysis (1) on Achebe’s Things Fall Apart due
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (1959)
Week 4 – World War I and After
Collins and Burns, A History of Sub-Saharan Africa
Chapter 21, “The Colonial Legacy,” 309-327.
Cooper, Africa Since 1940
Introduction, 1-19.
Gregory Mann, Native Sons: West African Veterans and France in the Twentieth Century
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006)
Chapter 2, “Ex-Soldiers as Unruly Clients, 1914-40,” 63-107.
Primary source documents:
John Chilembwe, “The Voice of African Natives in the Present War”
in J. Ayo Langley, ed., Ideologies of Liberation in Black Africa 1856 – 1970: Documents
On Modern African Political Thought from Colonial Times to the Present (London: Rex
Collings, 1979).
Anonymous, “Appeal to the Black Soldiers of France,” The International Negro Workers’
Review, vol. 1, no. 1 (January 1931).
Week 5 – Interwar: Economic Transformations and Political Mobilizations
Cooper, Africa Since 1940
Chapter 2, “Workers, Peasants, and the Crisis of Colonialism,” 20-37.
Barbara Bush, Imperialism, Race and Resistance: Africa and Britain, 1919-1945 (London:
Routledge, 1999)
Chapter 4, “‘Whose dream was it anyway?’ Anti-colonial Protest in West Africa, 192945,” 101-128.
Primary source documents:
Kobina Sekyi, “The Future of Subject Peoples” (1917).
J.E. Casely Hayford, “The Future of West Africa” (1919).
in Langley, ed., Ideologies of Liberation in Black Africa.
Kobina Sekyi, Extracts from “The Anglo-Fanti.”
Johnstone Kenyatta, “Kenya.”
in Nancy Cunard, ed., Negro Anthology, 1931 – 1933 [orig. 1934] (New York: Negro
Universities Press, 1969).
Week 6 – Possibilities and Challenges After the Second World War
Wednesday: Document analysis (2) on Césaire and Fanon due
Cooper, Africa Since 1940
Chapter 3, “Citizenship, Self-Government, and Development: the Possibilities of the
Post-War Moment,” 38-65.
Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism [orig. 1955], trans. Joan Pinkham (New York: Monthly
Review Press, 1972), 31-46, 74-78.
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth [orig. 1963], trans. Constance Farrington (New York:
Grove Press, 1968)
“The Pitfalls of National Consciousness,” 148-205.
Week 7 – Midterm Exam
Monday: Midterm review discussion
Wednesday: Midterm examination
Friday:
Film – “Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask” (1995)
Week 8 – Decolonization and Political Imagination
Cooper, Africa Since 1940
Chapter 4, “Ending Empire and Imagining the Future,” 66-84.
“Interlude: Rhythms of Change in the Post-war World,” 85-90.
Chapter 5, “Development and Disappointment: Social and Economic
Change in an Unequal World, 1945-2000,” 91-132.
Primary source documents:
“Nkrumah on pan-Africanism as an Answer to Neo-colonialism” (1961)
“Julius Nyerere Argues for African Democracy, Self-reliance, and Socialism” (1961, 1967)
in William H. Worger, Nancy L. Clark, and Edward Alpers, eds., Africa and the West:
A Documentary History from the Slave Trade to Independence (Phoenix, AZ: Oryx
Press, 2001).
Week 9 – South Africa: Consolidation of the Apartheid State
William Beinart, Twentieth-Century South Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)
Ch. 5, Ch. 6: 114 – 169.
Primary source documents:
“The ANC Programme of Action” (1949).
“The Nationalist Party Native Minister Explains Apartheid” (1950).
“Nelson Mandela Explains the ANC Struggle” (1964).
in John A. Williams, ed., From the South African Past: Narratives, Documents, and
Debates (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
Note: Begin reading Elkins.
Week 10 – Anticolonial Rising in a Settler Colony: Kenya
Caroline Elkins, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya (New York:
Henry Holt, 2005).
Week 11 – The Politics of Independence: Ghana
Monday:
Film – “Africa, The Story of a Continent: No. 7, The Rise of Nationalism.”
C.L.R. James, Nkrumah and the Ghana Revolution (Westport, CT: Lawrence Hill, 1977)
Ch. 1, “The Myth,” 27 – 39.
Ch. 6, “The People and the Leader,” 92 – 124.
Ch. 7, “Positive Action,” 125 – 135.
Ch. 9, “The Tip of the Iceberg,” 149 – 158.
Akwasi P. Osei, Ghana: Recurrence and Change in a Post-Independence African State (New
York: Peter Lang, 1999)
Ch. 4, “The Nkrumah Years,” 35 – 69.
Primary source document:
Kwame Nkrumah, The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah (London: Thomas Nelson, 1957)
Preface, vii – xi.
Ch. 7, “Arrest and Detention,” 79 – 87.
Ch. 9, “The Birth of My Party,” 102 – 109.
Ch. 12, “Leader of Government Business,” 137 – 146.
Ch. 24, “The Final Test,” 265 – 280.
Ch. 25, “The Hour of Triumph,” 281 – 290.
Week 12 – Persistent Struggles and Fragmentation
Cooper, Africa Since 1940
Ch. 6, “The Late Decolonizers: Southern Africa 1975, 1979, 1994,” 133 – 155.
Ch. 7, “The Recurrent Crises of the Gatekeeper State,” 156 – 190.
Selections from: Human Rights Watch, Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda.
Farah Stockman, “The People’s Court: Crime and Punishment in Rwanda,” Transition 9, no. 4
(2000): 20 – 41.
Week 13 – South Africa II: Liberation Movements and the Demise of Apartheid
Beinart, Twentieth-Century South Africa
Ch. 8, Ch. 9, Ch. 10, 201 – 285.
Week 14 – Into the New Millenium
Cooper, Africa Since 1940
Ch. 8, “Africa At Century’s Turn: South Africa, Rwanda, and Beyond,” 191 – 204.
John Illife, Africans: The History of a Continent (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)
Ch. 13, “In the Time of AIDS,” 288 – 315.
Wednesday: Historiographical essay due.
Summary discussions and final exam review.