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Courses for SPRING 2008
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The Field of African Studies
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Interdepartmental Program in African Studies
Images and descriptions in the popular press suggest that the African continent is a troubled land where corruption, ethnic warfare, poverty, hunger, environmental destruction and pestilence prevail. Some have even suggested that Africa is a lost cause, asserting that the continent be "written off" by international development organizations. Meanwhile, commercial tour operators also hawk the region as a place of high adventure and exoticism. Even quasi-scholarly publications such National Geographic Magazine often promote a vision of a primitive or wild Africa. What these popular and commercial descriptions hold in common is level of superficiality and one-sidedness. Yes, bad things do happen in Africa and there is beautiful scenery to be seen, but this is only one side of a complex and highly varied picture. It is the apparent unwillingness (or laziness) of popular commentators to provide a more nuanced view of an enormous continent that is often frustrating to scholars of Africa (or Africanists).
Africa is, after all, a place of extraordinarily diverse, vibrant, and dynamic cultures. Since the early 1990s, no other continent has seen more dramatic improvements in human rights, political freedom, and economic development - from the overthrowing of apartheid in South Africa to the revitalization of economies in countries such as Ghana and Uganda. Although environmental threats are real, African societies have proven their capacity, when given a chance, to use resources sustainably. Some conservation efforts in Africa even have become models for progressive community-based resource management in western societies. The importance of human relations, family and good neighborliness in many African societies also stands in stark contrast to the more closed and individualistic tendencies in a number of western settings.
Macalester Interdepartmental Program in African Studies seeks to prepare students to go beyond the superficial media interpretations of the vast African continent by developing a multidisciplinary perspective on the region. It offers a concentration in African Studies that consists of six Africa-related courses (see African Studies Curriculum and Courses). The broad theme of the African Studies concentration is continuity and change in recognition of the faculty’s desire to instill students with an understanding of the internal and external forces ensuring continuity and change on the African continent. Students are encouraged to take courses that help them place the region in its proper historical and global political economic context while understanding its internal intellectual, cultural and biophysical energies. Given that students and faculty approach African Studies from an array of disciplinary perspectives, the program allows students to begin this concentration area of study from a variety of entry points. The program promotes breadth by requiring courses in several departments, and promotes depth by requiring a lengthy Africa related paper in an existing senior seminar or independent study.
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