Undergraduate Course: African Intellectual History, c. 1600-1970 (HIST10465)
Course Outline
| School | School of History, Classics and Archaeology |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 40 |
ECTS Credits | 20 |
| Summary | Africa 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.
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Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2026/27, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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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 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
80 %,
Practical Exam
20 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Coursework:
Semester 1
2,000 word short historiographical essay (15%)
Semester 2:
2,000 word primary source analysis (15%)
4,000 word research essay (combining secondary and primary sources) during the exam diet (50%)
Non-Written Skills:
Semester 1: Weekly participation, including at least one week of leading discussion along with instructor (10%),
Semester 2: Weekly participation, including at least one week of leading discussion along with instructor (10%),
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| Feedback |
Not entered |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate an understanding of major African intellectual traditions.
- Evaluate and utilise a variety of primary source material in order to conceptualise both written and non-written intellectual traditions.
- Develop and sustain scholarly arguments in oral and written form by formulating appropriate questions and utilising relevant evidence.
- Identify historical and contemporary questions that are not adequately addressed in the extant scholarship on African intellectual history.
- Demonstrate a base knowledge of African history and intellectual history apart from the specific intersection of "African intellectual history."
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Reading List
Rudolph T. Ware, The Walking Qur'an: Islamic Education, Embodied Knowledge, and History in West Africa
José Lingna Nafafé, Lourenço Da Silva Mendonça and the Black Atlantic Abolitionist Movement in the 17th Century
Bruce S. Hall, A History of Race in Muslim West Africa, 1600-1960
Barbaro Martinez-Ruiz, Kongo Graphic Writing and Other Narratives of the Sign
Derek R. Peterson, Emma Hunter, and Stephanie Newell, eds., African Print Cultures: Newspapers and Their Publics in the Twentieth Century
Oludamini Ogunnaike, Deep Knowledge: Ways of Knowing in Sufism and Ifa, Two West African Intellectual Traditions
Robyn D'Avignon, A Ritual Geology: Gold and Subterranean Knowledge in Savannah West Africa
Nana Osei Quarshie, African Pharmakon: The Asylum as Shrine from Slavery to the Return
Adom Getachew, Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination
Daniel R. Magaziner, The Law and the Prophets: Black Consciousness in South Africa, 1968-1977
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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. |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Jeremy Dell
Tel: (0131 6)50 4476
Email: jeremy.dell@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Annabel Samson
Tel: (0131 6)50 3783
Email: Annabel.Stobie@ed.ac.uk |
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