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Jul 01, 2025
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Fall 2025 Graduate Catalog
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AFS 616 - Twentieth Century African Political History
This seminar is an extensive exploration of African political history in the twentieth-century. It examines the major themes that have shaped the formation and the decline of the modern African state since the imposition of colonial rule in the late nineteenth century. Drawing from monographs and journal articles on twentieth century African social and political history, and the recent scholarship on state/society relations, the seminar will explore the interactions between state institutions and structures of society in colonial and post-colonial Africa. The seminar is broadly structured around key themes which are presented in chronological order. These themes are divided into three major sections. The first section which deals with the colonial period will examine the following themes: partition and conquest; African resistance to early colonialism; the historical processes of state formation in Africa; the colonial economy; and the interaction between the world religion (Christianity and Islam) and colonial rule. The second section on the postcolonial era examines the following themes: the historical processes of state formation in Africa; communal identities and social change since decolonization; the patriarchal society and the crisis of the state; and the new debates on democratization and civil society in the post-Cold War era. The final section examines the international politics of African states from both theoretically and historical perspectives. The relevant themes here include the impact of the major powers on African subregions in the Cold War and post-containment eras; the impact of multilateral agencies on African political, economic and social developments; regional organizations and African states. The structure of the course is intended to be coherent but flexible, so that we can identify some basic trends in the reading assignments and construct consistent themes on the interplay of political transformation in the twentieth century.
3 credits
Grading Letter graded (A, A-, B+, etc.)
Required Permission of advisor is required.
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