Peoples and Cultures of Africa

Spring 2009
50:070:356:01
Mondays & Wednesdays 1:20-2:40pm, Cooper Street 110

Professor Cati Coe

405-407 Cooper Street, Room 214
Office hours: Mondays 3-5pm or by appointment
phone: (856) 225-6455
email: ccoe@camden.rutgers.edu

Syllabus website: http://crab.rutgers.edu/~ccoe/courses/africa/syllabus.html

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. We will read five studies focusing on different regional areas (East Africa, Southern Africa, Central Africa, and West Africa) and on different topics (agriculture, ethnicity, gender, power, urban life, trade, art, and international migration) to gain a sense of Africa's variation and complexity. We will also examine media representations of Africa.

Through readings, films, and music, we will come to understand the historical and cultural conditions underpinning current predicaments facing African societies. These are readings to study and analyze, not simply skim over. Don't be discouraged if you find some readings difficult at first. A second reading will help (and is often necessary). The Rutgers course catalog states that students are expected to spend a minimum of two hours of out-of-class coursework for each hour of in-class work. To do well in this course, you will have to meet this minimum standard. Please plan accordingly.

Five books are available at the campus bookstore. One article (by Robert Kaplan) is on electronic reserve at the library http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/lib_servs/course_reserves.shtml. Four of the required books are also on reserve at the library and can be checked out physically for an hour at a time: Lee Cronk's From Mukogodo to Masai, Miriam Goheen's Men Own the Fields, Women Own the Crops, James Ferguson's Expectations of Modernity, and Paul Stoller's Money Has No Smell. Mugged can be downloaded at: http://www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/policy/trade/downloads/mugged.pdf

**Required Books**
Africa and Africans (1995, 4th ed) by Paul Bohannan and Philip Curtin	From Mukogodo to Masai by Lee Cronk	Men Own the Fields, Women Own the Crops by Miriam Goheen
Mugged (2002) by Oxfam	Expectations of Modernity (1999) by James Ferguson	Money Has No Smell (2002) by Paul Stoller

Class Schedule

January 21

Introduction
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.
Go to the bookstore to get the books.
Review Rutgers's policy on academic integrity.

Part I: Images and Realities of Africa

January 26 Images

Reading due:
1) Robert Kaplan. 1994. “The Coming Anarchy,” Atlantic Monthly, February 1994: 44-77. [on reserve]
2) Paul Bohannan and Philip Curtin, Africa and Africans (Long Grove: Waveland Press, 1995), Chapter 1, pp. 1-15.
Music: "Rhythms of Life, Songs of Wisdom: Akan Music from Ghana, West Africa" (Smithsonian, 1996)
Class Resources: Images of Africa powerpoint presentation
Media journal assignment given

January 28 Historical and Geographical Contexts

Bohannan and Curtin, Chapters 2-3, pp. 18-44
Music: "Highlife" (World Music Network, 2003)
Class Resources:History and Geography of Africa powerpoint, African Landcover (2000), ITCZ movement, Race & Human Variation
Map quiz

February 2 African History I

Bohannan and Curtin, Chapters 10-14, pp. 129-190
Music: "Brazilian Music" by Larry Crook (2005)
Class Resources: History of Africa, Part I

February 4 African History II

Bohannan and Curtin, Chapters 15-20, pp. 191-269
Music: "Toure Kunda" (Melodie, 198-)
Class Resources: History of Africa, Part II

February 9 African Institutions

Bohannan and Curtin, Chapters 4-9, pp. 49-125
Music: "Performing the Nation: Swahili Music & Cultural Politics from Tanzania" by Kelly Askew (Chicago, 2002)
Class Resources: African Institutions

Part II: The Myth of Ethnicity

February 11

Lee Cronk, From Mukogodo to Masai: Ethnicity and Cultural Change in Kenya (Boulder: Westview, 2004), Chapters 1-2, pp. 1-56. Note Glossary on pages 147-150 if you don't know a term.
Class Resources: Introduction to From Mukogodo to Masai
Music: "The Nairobi Beat" (Rounder, 1989)

February 16

Cronk, Chapters 3-4, pp. 57-110
Music: "Africa: Music from Rwanda" (Rounder, 1999)

February 18

Cronk, Chapters 5-6, pp. 111-143
Film: “Masai Women” (1981) by Melissa Llewelyn-Davis (52 minutes)
Music: Track 1: Eyuphuro (Mozambique) "Masikani" on "Unwired: Africa" (World Music Network, 2000)
Class Resources: Pastoralists and Agriculturalists in Africa

Part III: Gender and the Distribution of Resources

February 23

Miriam Goheen, Men Own the Fields, Women Own the Crops: Gender and Power in the Cameroon Grasslands (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996), Introduction and Background, pp. 3-46 (skip pages 9-17)
Class Resources: Introduction to Cameroon
Music: "Togo: Music from West Africa" (Rounder, 1992)

February 25

Goheen, Chapters 3 & 4, pp. 47-107
Class Resources: Highlights from Chapters 3 & 4
Music: "Yoruba Drums from Benin, West Africa" (Smithsonian, 1996)

March 2

Goheen, Chapter 5, pp. 107-140
Class Resources: Gendered Access to Land
Music: "Sound Time" by Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe and his Nigerian Soundmakers (IndigeDisc, 2001)

March 4

Goheen, Chapter 6-8, pp. 141-197

March 9

Film: “Faat Kine”by Sembène Ousmane (2000) (121 minutes)
Music: "Dimanche a Bamako" by Amadou & Mariam (Nonesuch, 2004)

March 11

Film: "Faat Kine" (continued)
Music: "Nothing's in Vain" by Youssou N'Dour (Nonesuch, 2002)
Class Resources: Introduction to Senegal
Mid-term exam due

SPRING RECESS

Part III: Africa in the Global Economy

March 23

Oxfam, Mugged: Poverty in Your Coffee Cup (2002) , Chapters 1-2, pp. 1-37
Film: "Black Gold" (2006) by Marc Francis and Nick Francis (77 minutes)
Music: "Dances of the World" (Nonesuch, 1987): Track 7: Acholi bwala dance

March 25

Oxfam, Chapters 3-4, pp. 38-51
Film: "Black Gold" (continued)
Music: "Sleeping in the market: Ethiopian Music and Sound from Amhara" (Latitude, 2004)
Powerpoint on the debt crisis and place of Africa in the global economy
Media assignment given

Part IV: Urban African Life

March 30

James Ferguson, Expectations of Modernity: Myths and Meanings of Urban Life on the Zambian Copperbelt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), Chapter 1, pp. 1-37
Music: Tracks 12-14: Oliver Mutukudzi, Spirit Talk Mbira, and Abdullah Ibrahim on "Unwired: Africa" (World Music Network, 2000)
Class Resources: Introduction to Zambia

April 1

Ferguson, Chapter 2, pp. 38-81
Music: "South African Gospel" (World Music Network, 2003)
Class Resources: Rural-Urban Migration in Zambia

April 6

Ferguson, Chapter 3, pp. 82-122
Music: "Global Divas" (Rounder, 1995) CD 2 track 8: Miriam Makeba
Class Resources: Cosmopolitan and Localist Styles

April 8

Ferguson, Chapter 4, pp. 123-165
Film: "La Vie Est Belle" (1991) by Ngangura Mweze and Benoit Lamy (83 minutes)
Music: "Tabu Ley Rochereau" (Rounder, 1996)
Class Resources: Papa Wemba

April 13

Ferguson, Chapter 5, pp. 166-206
Music: "Singing in an Open Space: Zulu Rhythm and Harmony" (Rounder, 1990)
Class Resources: The Risk of Modern Life

April 15

Ferguson, Chapters 6, 7 and Postscript, pp. 207-258
Music: "Unh!" by Philip Tabane and Malombo (Elektra/Asylum/Nonesuch, 1989)
Class Resources: Globalization & Neo-liberalism
Media Journal due

Part V: Africans Abroad

April 20

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: "Mande Music " by Eric Charry (University of Chicago Press, 2000)
Class Resources: African Migration Powerpoint

April 22

Stoller, Chapters 4-5, pp. 45-87
Music: "Badenya: Manden Jailya in New York City" (Smithsonian, 2002)
Class Resources: Kente powerpoint

April 24

12:30pm Trip to Baltimore Avenue, West Philadelphia

April 27

Stoller, Chapter 6, pp. 88-120
Film: “In and Out of Africa” (1992) by Gabai Baaré, Ilisa Barbash, Christopher Steiner, and Lucien Taylor
Music: "Wambara" by Oumou Diabate (Stern's Africa, 1999)

April 29

Stoller, 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)

May 4

Stoller, 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

Monday, May 11th, 9am

Final exam