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DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2024/2025

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DRPS : Course Catalogue : School of History, Classics and Archaeology : History

Undergraduate Course: African Intellectual History, c. 1600-1970 (HIST10465)

Course Outline
SchoolSchool of History, Classics and Archaeology CollegeCollege of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) AvailabilityNot available to visiting students
SCQF Credits40 ECTS Credits20
SummaryAfrica has long been viewed by outsiders as the land without writing, a region of the world devoid of any intellectual traditions of its own. This course is a year-long refutation of that claim. Through close readings of works of political, economic and religious thought produced by African intellectuals, it will provide a grounding in some of the major debates around identity, sovereignty and racial, gender and sexual equality as they have played out on the African continent.
Course description This course centers the production of African scholars, thinkers, and political figures. By foregrounding literary production in non-European languages, it will be able to examine the long histories of reading and writing on the African continent. The broad subjects to be covered - political activism, economic policy, religious traditions, gender discourses - will be highly relevant to students who plan to work on the continent in any number of contexts. Readings will run from the 17th century to the near-present and cover West Africa, East Africa, southern Africa and the Maghreb.

Content note: The study of History inevitably involves the study of difficult topics that we encourage students to approach in a respectful, scholarly, and sensitive manner. Nevertheless, we remain conscious that some students may wish to prepare themselves for the discussion of difficult topics. In particular, the course organiser has outlined that the following topics may be discussed in this course, whether in class or through required or recommended primary and secondary sources: racial violence. While this list indicates sensitive topics students are likely to encounter, it is not exhaustive because course organisers cannot entirely predict the directions discussions may take in tutorials or seminars, or through the wider reading that students may conduct for the course.
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Students MUST NOT also be taking The Bandung Moment: Revolution, Anti-Imperialism and Afro-Asian Connections in the Global Twentieth Century (HIST10391)
Other requirements A pass in 40 credits of third level historical courses or equivalent.

Students should only be enrolled on this course with approval from the History Honours Programme Administrator
Course Delivery Information
Academic year 2024/25, Not available to visiting students (SS1) Quota:  0
Course Start Full Year
Timetable Timetable
Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) Total Hours: 400 ( Seminar/Tutorial Hours 44, Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 8, Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours 348 )
Assessment (Further Info) Written Exam 0 %, Coursework 80 %, Practical Exam 20 %
Additional Information (Assessment) Coursework, Semester 1: 2,000 word short historiographical essay (15%)
Non-Written Skills, Semester 1: Weekly participation, including at least one week of leading discussion along with instructor (10%),

Coursework, Semester 2: 2,000 word primary source analysis (15%)
Non-Written Skills, Semester 2: Weekly participation, including at least one week of leading discussion along with instructor (10%),

4-5,000 word research essay (combining secondary and primary sources) during the exam diet (50%)
Feedback Not entered
No Exam Information
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
  1. Demonstrate an understanding of major African intellectual traditions.
  2. Evaluate and utilise a variety of primary source material in order to conceptualise both written and non-written intellectual traditions.
  3. Develop and sustain scholarly arguments in oral and written form by formulating appropriate questions and utilising relevant evidence.
  4. Identify historical and contemporary questions that are not adequately addressed in the extant scholarship on African intellectual history.
  5. Demonstrate a base knowledge of African history and intellectual history apart from the specific intersection of "African intellectual history."
Reading List
Adom Getachew, Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination

Teodros Kiros, ed., Explorations in African Political Thought: Identity, Community, Ethics

Jessica A. Krug, Fugitive Modernities: Kisama and the Politics of Freedom

Daniel R. Magaziner, The Law and the Prophets: Black Consciousness in South Africa, 1968-1977

Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz, Kongo Graphic Writing and Other Narratives of the Sign Achille Mbembe, Critique of Black Reason

Thandika Mkandawire, "The Spread of Economic Doctrines and Policymaking in Postcolonial Africa," African Studies Review 57, no. 1 (April 2014): 171-98

Hlonipha Mokoena, Magema Fuze: The Making of a Kholwa Intellectual

Oyèrónke Oyewùmí, The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses

Abena Dove Agyepoma Osseo-Asare, Bitter Roots: The Search for Healing Plants in Africa

Alden Young, "African Bureaucrats and the Exhaustion of the Developmental State: Lessons from the Pages of the Sudanese Economist," Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development 8, no. 1 (2017): 49-75

E. Centime Zeleke, Ethiopia in Theory: Revolution and Knowledge Production
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills - The ability to accurately synthesise significant amounts of new information on unfamiliar topics.
- The ability to participate in scholarly debates by identifying and assessing competing lines of argumentation in both oral and written forms.
- The ability to work independently and as part of a group.
KeywordsNot entered
Contacts
Course organiserDr Jeremy Dell
Tel: (0131 6)50 4476
Email: jeremy.dell@ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMiss Annabel Samson
Tel: (0131 6)50 3783
Email: Annabel.Stobie@ed.ac.uk
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