Peoples and Cultures of Africa

50:070:356:01
Mondays & Wednesdays 4:20-5:40pm
Cooper Street 109

Professor Cati Coe

405-407 Cooper Street, Room 214
Office hours: Mondays 1-3pm or by appointment
phone: (856) 225-6455
email: ccoe@camden.rutgers.edu

Course description

Africa is a diverse and large continent, with different regions (North Africa, the Sahel, the Horn of Africa, Central Africa, West Africa, East Africa, and Southern Africa), societies, histories, and cultures. We will focus on the part of Africa that is south of the Sahara desert (Sub-Saharan Africa). This course will provide an introduction to the history and ethnography of colonial and postcolonial African societies, providing a sense of its diversity and complexity. Media attention on Africa typically focuses on the tragedy and suffering of African peoples. In this course, we will come to understand the historical and cultural conditions underpinning current predicaments facing African societies, as well as the fact that tragedy is only one facet of African lives and experiences.

Four books are available at the campus bookstore and on reserve at the library. The other readings are on electronic reserve at the library: http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/lib_servs/course_reserves.shtml

Stoller

Paul Stoller
Money Has No Smell

Hutchinson

Sharon Hutchinson
Nuer Dilemmas

Grinker

Roy Grinker and Christopher Steiner
Perspectives on Africa

Mariama Ba
So Long a Letter

Class Schedule

January 23

Introduction
Media journal assignment given
Music: "King Sunny Ade" (IndigeDisc, 2003)

To do by Friday at the latest:

Get a NetID if you don't already so that you can access library resources online and from home: http://oit.rutgers.edu/services/account/quick.html
Update your email address if necessary at https://www.acs.rutgers.edu/studentdir. This is important for receiving course emails. Be sure to keep your registered email address current in order to receive important course information.
Get a Student Photo ID (available from the Impact Booth in the Campus Center) if you don't have one.
Go to the bookstore to get the books.
Print out all the readings on reserve so that you have them for the whole semester.
Review Rutgers's policy on academic integrity.

Part I: Images and Realities of Africa

January 28 Images

1) Robert Kaplan. 1994. “The Coming Anarchy,” Atlantic Monthly, February 1994: 44-77. [on reserve]
2) Jean and John Comaroff. “Africa Observed: Discourses of the Imperial Imagination.” Perspectives on Africa (hereafter GS) 689-703.
Music: "Rhythms of Life, Songs of Wisdom: Akan Music from Ghana, West Africa" (Smithsonian, 1996)
Class Resources: Images of Africa powerpoint presentation

January 30 Historical and Geographical Contexts

1) Jeffrey W. Neff, “Africa: A Geographic Preface,” Understanding Contemporary Africa, edited by April A. Gordon and Donald L. Gordon (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1992), pp. 7-20. [on reserve]
2) John Iliffe, “The Frontiersmen of Mankind” and “The Emergence of Food-Producing Communities,” Africans: The History of a Continent (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 1-17. [on reserve]
Music: "Mande Music " by Eric Charry (University of Chicago Press, 2000)
Class Resources:History and Geography of Africa powerpoint
Map quiz

February 4 African Kingdoms

John Iliffe, “Colonising Society in Eastern and Southern Africa,” Africans: The History of a Continent (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 97-126. [on reserve]
Music: "Swahili Music" collected by Kelly M. Askew (University of Chicago Press, 2002)
Class Resources: African History II powerpoint

February 6 The European Slave Trade and Colonialism

1) John Iliffe, “The Atlantic Slave Trade,” Africans: The History of a Continent (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 127-158. [on reserve]
2) Walter Rodney, “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa,” GS 585-596.
Music: "Caribbean Island Music: Songs and Dances of Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Jamaica" (Nonesuch, 1998)
Class Resources: The Atlantic Slave Trade and Colonialism Powerpoint

February 11 Concepts of Ethnicity

1) Aidan Southall “The Illusion of Tribe,” GS 38-50.
2) Leroy Vail, “Ethnicity in South African History,” GS 52-68.
3) Terence Ranger, “The Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa,” GS 597-612.
Music: "Singing in an Open Space: Zulu Rhythm and Harmony, 1962-1982" (Rounder, 1990)
Class Resources: Southall's Definition of Tribe

Part II: Ethnographies of Africa

February 13 Foragers in the Congo

1) Introduction,” GS 212-215.
2) Colin Turnbull, “The Lesson of the Pygmies,” GS 218-227.
Music: "Mbuti Pygmies of the Ituri Rainforest" (Smithsonian, 1992)
Class Resources: Mbuti Powerpoint
Ethnography book review assignment given

February 18

Roy Richard Grinker, “Houses in the Rainforest: Gender and Ethnicity among the Lese and Efe in Zaire,” GS 228-244.
Music: "Mbuti Pygmies of the Ituri Rainforest" (Smithsonian, 1992)
Class Resources: Colin Turnbull film on the blessing of the hunting nets , National Geographic film, The Efe and the Lese powerpoint

February 20

Mitsuo Ichikawa, "'Interest in the Present' in the Nationwide Monetary Economy: The Case of Mbuti Hunters in Zaire," In Hunters and Gatherers in the Modern World: Conflict, Resistance, and Self-Determination, edited by Peter P. Schweitzer, Megan Biesele, and Robert K. Hitchcock (New York: Berghahn Books, 2000), pp. 263-275. [on reserve]
Music: "Mokanda" by Bana Kin (Sunset-France, 2005)
Class Resources: Mbuti & Change powerpoint

February 25 Pastoralists in Sudan

Sharon Hutchinson, Nuer Dilemmas: Coping with Money, War, and the State (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), Prologue and Chapter 1, pp. 1-55
Class resources: A Short Introduction to Sudan powerpoint

February 27

Sharon Hutchinson, Nuer Dilemmas, chapter 2, pp. 56-102
Class resources: Discussion of Chapter 2 powerpoint

March 3

Sharon Hutchinson, Nuer Dilemmas, chapter 3, pp. 103-157
Music: "Escalay (The Water Wheel): Oud Music from Nubia" by Hamza El-Din (Nonesuch, 1998)

March 5

There will be class today and a film will be shown. However, Professor Coe will not be in class today as she has to attend a methodological workshop at CODESRIA in Dakar, Senegal.
Continue reading Sharon Hutchinson, Nuer Dilemmas, chapter 4, pp. 158-236
Film: “Masai Women” (1981) by Melissa Llewelyn-Davis (about herders in Kenya)

March 10

Sharon Hutchinson, Nuer Dilemmas, chapters 5 and 6, pp. 237-298
Class Resources: Hutchinson diagrams, chapters 5 & 6

March 12

Sharon Hutchinson, Nuer Dilemmas, chapter 7 and afterward, pp. 299-356
Class resources: Darfur powerpoint

SPRING RECESS

March 24 Religion

1) Igor Kopytoff, “Ancestors as Elders in Africa,” GS 412-421.
2) Karin Barber, “How Man Makes God in West Africa: Yoruba Attitudes Towards the Orisa,” GS 392-411.
Film: “Healers of Ghana” (1996) by Films for Humanities and Sciences (part 1: about 15 minutes)
Music: "Juju Roots" (Rounder, 1993)
Class Resources: An Overview of African Religions

March 26 Explaining Misfortune

1) “Introduction” to Part 4, GS 294-297
2) David Livingstone, “Conversations on Rain-Making,” GS 299-302
3) E. E. Evans-Pritchard, “The Notion of Witchcraft Explains Unfortunate Events,” GS 303-311
4) Peter Geschiere, “Kinship, Witchcraft and the Market,” GS 340-358
Film: “Healers of Ghana” (1996) (part 2: about 7 minutes)
Music: "Zimbabwe, The Soul of Mbira: Traditions of the Shona People" (Nonesuch, 1995)
Book review of an ethnography due
Media assignment given

March 31 Money and Exchange

1) Paul Bohannan, “Some Principles of Exchange and Investment among the Tiv,” GS 119-128
2) Parker Shipton, “Bitter Money: Forbidden Exchange in East Africa,” GS 163-189
Music: "Performing the Nation: Swahili Music and Cultural Politics in Tanzania" (CD accompanying book by Kelly Askew, University of Chicago Press, 2002)
Class Resources: Shipton powerpoint

April 2 Colonial Experience and Gender

1) Mona Etienne, “Women and Men, Cloth and Colonization: The Transformation of Production-Distribution Relations among the Baule (Ivory Coast),” GS 518-535
2) Judith Van Allen, “‘Sitting on a Man’: Colonialism and the Lost Political Institutions of Igbo Women,” GS 536-549
Music: "Togo: Music from West Africa" (Rounder, 1992)
Class Resources: Baule cloth powerpoint

April 7 Women, Men and Wealth in West Africa

1) Keith Hart, “Informal Income Opportunities and Urban Employment in Ghana,” GS 142-162
2) Ester Boserup, “The Economics of Polygamy,” GS 506-516
Music: "Nothing's In Vain" by Youssou N'Dour (Nonesuch, 2002)
Class Resources: Informal Economy powerpoint

April 9

Mariama Ba, So Long a Letter (London: Portsmouth, 1989), pp. 1-56
Film: “Faat Kine”by Sembène Ousmane (2000) (121 minutes)
Professor Coe will be at a conference on Childhood and Migration in Cork, Ireland, but you will be expected to be present in class and view the film, which will be the basis for our discussion on April 14th.

April 14

Mariama Ba, So Long a Letter, pp. 57-89
Film: “Faat Kine” (remainder)
Music: "Dimanche a Bamako" by Amadou & Mariam (Nonesuch, 2004)

April 16 African Aesthetics

1) Simon Ottenberg, “Humorous Masks and Serious Politics among Afikpo Ibo,” GS 433-449
2) David Coplan, “In Township Tonight! South Africa’s Black City Music and Theatre,” GS 482-495
Powerpoint: African Art
Music: Hugh Masekela's "District Six"
Film: "Amandla: A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony" (2002)
Media Journal due
Description of visit to African establishment given

Part III: Africans Abroad

April 21 Trade and Transnational Communities: West Africans in New York

Paul Stoller, Money Has No Smell: The Africanization of New York City (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), prologue, chapters 1-3, pp. vii-xi, 1-44.
Music: Kora music from Mali on "Unwired: Africa" (World Music Network, 2000)
Class Resources: African Migration Powerpoint

April 23

Stoller, Money Has No Smell, chapters 4-5, pp. 45-87
Music: "Badenya: Manden Jailya in New York City" (Smithsonian, 2002)

April 25

12:30pm Trip to Baltimore Avenue, West Philadelphia

April 28

Stoller, Money Has No Smell, chapters 6, pp. 88-120
Film: “In and Out of Africa” (1992) by Gabai Baaré, Ilisa Barbash, Christopher Steiner, and Lucien Taylor

April 30

Stoller, Money Has No Smell, chapter 7, pp. 121-143
Class resources: "Neighborhoods and Markets: Harlem, New York City, and West Africa" powerpoint
Music: "Behmanka" by Mamadou Diabate (Tradition & Moderne, Gmbh, 2003)

Thursday, May 1, free period, Campus Center

Poster session for the Departments of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice and Psychology

May 5

Stoller, Money Has No Smell, chapter 8 and epilogue, pp. 144-182
Music: "Jali Kunda: Griots of West Africa and Beyond" (Ellipsis Arts, 1996)
Description of a visit to an African establishment due

Final exam due Monday, May 12th at noon in Professor Coe's mailbox in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice (address given above)