Africa in the Western Imagination

Africa is a vast continent of peoples, cultures, and histories that are central to a shared global past, present, and future. The continent's relationships with the United States and Europe (or, the West) are complex and full of stories that inform who we are and where we came from. As the cradle of humankind and deeply connected through the history of the transatlantic slave trade, twentieth-century colonialisms, and twenty-first century nation-states, stories of Africa and Africans matter greatly to our understanding of global exchanges of peoples, cultures, technologies, politics, and economies. But Westerners more often think about Africa as an exotic and undeveloped place of negatives that stands on the periphery of the modern world, badly in need of western help. Why? In the first part of this course, we introduce ourselves to some of the origins of negative western images of the continent of Africa. We also interrogate how popular culture and media coverage in the West perpetuates negative and often harmful stereotypes of Africa and Africans. In the second part of this course, students learn methods of writing and speaking about Africa that consider the diversity of Africa's histories, peoples, and cultures, while reflecting on our shared humanity, aspirations, and experiences. Much of this work in the second half of the course is generated by students' original research projects that explore Africa's dynamism through topics of their choosing.