Africa before Colonialism

AAAS 317S

This undergraduate seminar considers the history of Africa south of the Sahara from the beginning of the Holocene era to 1800, focusing on processes of community formation and political and social change. Using a variety of sources and methods, it traces major debates and themes in the 'deep' African past across a number of regions and time periods. These themes include state formation, the dynamic reproduction of social structures through migration, the political meanings of health and healing, the development of ideas about gender, the relationship between Islam and Christianity and other cosmologies, and Africa's interaction with the wider world.
Curriculum Codes
  • CCI
  • R
  • W
  • CZ
  • SS
Cross-Listed As
  • HISTORY 341S
  • ICS 221S
Typically Offered
Occasionally