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History 350-364, African and Latin American History
HIS 350/Topics in African or Latin American History
(periodically)
Focuses on differing topics of historical significance having to do with African or Latin American history. This course may be repeated for credit when the topic changes. May fulfill departmental distribution requirements.
Liberal Learning:
- SOCIAL CHANGE IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
HIS 353/African History in Film, Literature and Music
(periodically)
Explores the ways that African novelists, musicians, and filmmakers have memorialized Africa’s past. In the films of Mweze Ngangura, in the songs of Lomwe plantation workers, in the creative writing of African novelists, students will learn how trained artists and ordinary people alike use the arts to think through history. How art comments on political relations in the present is also an enduring theme.
Liberal Learning:
- GLOBAL; RACE & ETHNICITY
- SOCIAL CHANGE IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
HIS 354/South African History
(periodically)
This survey course explores the politics of culture in colonial-era and apartheid South Africa. It begins by studying the legal, religious, sexual and political history of colonialism, then delves into the history of African popular culture. How miners, beer brewers, women, musicians, gangsters, and journalists created cultures of resistance is an enduring theme. In the second half of the semester, students will create research papers about topics in South African history.
Liberal Learning:
- GLOBAL; RACE & ETHNICITY
- SOCIAL CHANGE IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
HIS 355/East African History
(periodically)
East Africa is probably the most politically, ecologically, and religiously diverse place on earth. This topical course compares different East African histories. It explores three thematic questions: 1) Faced with East Africa’s inherent diversity of thought, how did African innovators create wider political communities? 2) How far did Arab elites dominate political life in the towns along the Indian Ocean coast, and how did African slaves, workmen, and other non-elites challenge their Arab overlords? 3) How did rural peasant communities reformulate their own political thought to deal with a changing world? Students will create research papers about topics in East African history.
Liberal Learning:
- GLOBAL; RACE & ETHNICITY
- SOCIAL CHANGE IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
HIS 356/State and Slavery in West Africa
(periodically)
This topical course studies West African history through the lens of slavery. It studies the impact of the Atlantic slave trade on African political life during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. It also explores indigenous forms of inequality, documenting how African social and political hierarchies were transformed out of their interaction with the Atlantic commerce.
Liberal Learning:
- SOCIAL CHANGE IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
HIS 357/Religion and Politics in Africa.
(periodically)
This course explores aspects of Africa’s religious and political history. Topics include: Africans and the making of African Christianity; African Traditional Religion and its history; sorcery and political critique in post-colonial Africa; and Islam in Africa. Students will create research papers about Africa’s history of religion.
Liberal Learning:
- SOCIAL CHANGE IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
HIS 359/Modern Latin America
(periodically)
Social, economic, cultural and political history of Latin America during the past two centuries.
Liberal Learning:
- GLOBAL
- SOCIAL CHANGE IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
