Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Examines the diversity of environments, cultures and livelihoods in East Africa and the Horn in the context of long-term trans-regional influences, especially slave trade, cash cropping, colonization and post-colonial politics, and the expansion of the world religions into East Africa. Content may vary from offering to offering; see course outline for further information. HIST 344 may be repeated for credit only when a different topic is taught.

COURSE DETAILS:

Zamani: Eastern Africa’s Past

In this lecture and seminar class, students will be introduced to the major historical currents of eastern African people and politics through several case studies, chosen in part through student input. Eastern Africa extends from Mogadishu to northern Mozambique, and includes islands, archipelagos, and Madagascar. Through Indian Ocean trade and travel, people living in this region have singularly influenced, and been influenced by, the ideas, styles, technologies, and populations of other parts of Africa, Arabia, India, and later Europe and China. We will consider how people and ideas circulated in eastern African societies, and we will be curious about how the past has been recorded, recounted, and mobilized. These topics will be explored through lectures, discussions, scholarship, primary documents, fiction, film, and current news sources.

Hist 344 is offered as a blended class with one hour of lecture content or class activity offered asynchronously online, while two hours of lecture/workshop and one hour of tutorial will be delivered in person each week. Tutorials intentionally precede lecture to give students the opportunity to discuss the week’s readings; lecture prepares students for the following week.

 

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING: