AFRC710 - AFRO-LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS

This course provides the opportunity for students to investigate the relationship between the emergence of African peoples as historical subjects and their location within specific geopolitical and economic circumstances.


SPRING 2017: This jointly taught course is designed to introduce students to scholarship on the politics of Africa and the African diaspora in the period after World War II. The major themes of the 19th and 20th century congeal during this period: colonialism and anti-colonial movements toward national liberation, anti-apartheid and civil rights movements ranging from black movements in Brazil , Jamaica and the United States to South Africa, Britain and France. Readings and lectures will cover the politics of several African nation-states and diaspora populations, with an emphasis on the continuities and tensions between territorial nationalist movements with internal ethno-national tensions (African politics), to civil rights movements within plural societies where black populations have been characterized as minority populations. Students will read across several disciplines: history, sociology, political science, comparative literature, cultural studies, as well as Africana Studies, in the exploration of concepts and phenomena of sovereignty and citizenship, identity and identification, networks across nation-state and regional boundaries linking diverse African-descended populations, all within the context of the nation-state system.