Global African History

To study Africa is to study the world. Whether as a cradle of Homo Sapiens or as a contemporary site of cut-through geopolitical and economic competition among the world’s most powerful, Africa has increasingly been gaining attention as a gateway to world history. The forced and voluntary dispersion of Africans and African heritage across the globe has also rendered the study of Africa an inherent global phenomenon. There have accordingly been significant methodological innovations and epistemic breakthroughs in – and through – the study of the African past. This course is an advanced methods seminar that focuses on global African history from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean and their respective African diasporas. It will cover the major trends in historiography; explore epistemological controversies in history in general and African history in particular; and examine how trade, warfare, population movement, and the environment (both social and physical/maritime) are substantive and methodological avenues for the study of history.