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World History since 1500

Semester: 

Spring

Offered: 

2016

How did we end up here? How did the world come to look as it does now? In 2015, we face multiple global crises: socioeconomic inequality, religious extremism, and climate change, to name just a few. But we can also see new possibilities for positive change, through new global social movements and transformative technologies. This course examines the roots of both the challenges and opportunities of the present through a survey of our past. We focus on the making of a modern world that is both unprecedentedly connected and deeply divided, through a survey of global events from the turn of...

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Women and Gender in African History

Semester: 

Spring

Offered: 

2016

“You strike a woman, you strike a rock!” Versions of this rallying cry have animated women’s movements against colonialism and postcolonial oppression around the African continent. This course examines the changing politics of gender across modern sub-Saharan African history, to understand changing forms of state power, private life, and public culture on the continent. We investigate four questions: How can we understand the history of gender in Africa before 19th century colonialism? What role did gender play in the rise and fall of...

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Colloquium: Apartheid and the Anti-Apartheid Movement

Semester: 

Spring

Offered: 

2016

This colloquium examines the rise and fall of apartheid (“separateness”), the infamous regime of racial separation and inequality that ruled South Africa from 1948 to 1994. We consider how apartheid built upon and differed from other regimes of colonialism and segregation in 19th and 20th century Africa. We focus on both popular resistance to oppression within South Africa and the making of a powerful international anti-apartheid movement. We examine anti-apartheid activism around issues of...

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The Making of Modern Africa

Semester: 

Fall

Offered: 

2015

Africa is a place of stunning size and diversity: the continent includes over a billion people, living in 54 countries, speaking some 2,000 languages. Yet most Americans know very little about it. News comes to us in bits and pieces, and the news is often bad: Ebola, Boko Haram, Cecil the Lion. More occasionally, the news is good: crowds at South Africa’s World Cup trumpet their vuvuzelas; The Economist exults that “Africa is rising”; President Obama receives a warm welcome in his father’s homeland of Kenya. Always, this news is confusing. Because even the most diligent students...

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