AFRC233 - Wrld Hist:Afrc/Mdl East

SPRING 2018: African cities in the past contributed to dynamic and prosperous civilizations. What happened? This course examines Africans' aspirations of modernity through the lens of African urban history using fiction, film and current scholarship in several disciplines. Each class will explore two temporalities--the precolonial history of African cities, and the colonial and postcolonial histories of economic, social and political progress which goes by the name of development. Grounded in the case studies of both ancient and modern cities, this course explores the emergence and decline of trading centers, the rise of colonial cities, and the dilemmas of postcolonial economies and politics.