African Narratives

The peoples, philosophies, arts, and cultural resources of Africa have made and continue to make fundamental contributions to every society on earth - particularly to visionings of humanity, justice, liberation, and community. Yet, from the imperial United States, Africa is often the least considered continent, its diverse peoples and realities obscured by racist stereotypes rooted in the long and ongoing history of European colonialisms and empire. This introduction to African narratives, focused on key historical, modern and contemporary African texts of different genres, unfolds in three parts. Through early epic poems, we encounter precolonial African kingdoms; next, we engage anti-colonial texts and confront European imperialism in Africa; we end the semester by engaging contemporary fictions and philosophy. Works we may consider include: Sundiata and Mwindo, Fanon, Cesaire, Diop, Kenyatta, p'Bitek, Lumumba, wa Thion'go, Achebe, Ba, Biko, el Sadawi, Rugero,Tadjo and Sarr. Keywords:Africa, Africana, colonialism, decolonization, literature, film The content of this course deals with issues of race and power.