History 225 Introduction to Modern Africa Fall 1999

Prof. Watson

Lea 175; ph. 5119

This course will to introduce you to African history since about 1300. We will study some of the major changes that have affected Africans during the last 800 years as well as Africa’s place in the modern world.

We will view Africans reacting to situations all societies must face: securing material for survival, coping with change, and dealing with threats to their security. Doing this realistically is difficult because modern mass media have presented Africa in crude stereotypes: the supposed Africa of jungles, savages, economic and political chaos, and Tarzan is grimly familiar. I hope this course will reveal some of the distortions in these stereotypes.

I expect you to attend class regularly and punctually. Absence, lateness, and departure from class after it has begun will lower your class participation grade (see below).

You should write and speak proper standard English. The quality of your writing will influence your grade. To be able to express yourself clearly and effectively should be one of your prime objectives as a college student; I hope this course will help you reach it. If papers written outside class are very poorly written, they will be returned ungraded. Any re-written paper will receive a grade no higher than C.

The textbook is Kevin Shillington’s History of Africa. Assignments noted below are from this book, and class discussions will be based on them. In addition to the text, you should purchase two books, The River Between, by Ngugi wa Thiong’o and No Longer at Ease, by Chinua Achebe.

There will be two major tests, two papers on the books by Ngugi and Achebe, and a final exam. In addition, there may be as many as 10 unannounced quizzes, on Shillington readings and after the viewing of films. Final grades will be composed thusly: quizzes, 10%; tests, 15% each; final exam, 20%; papers, 15% each; and class discussion (mainly of chapters in the text), 10%. Make-up tests will be given only in cases of illness (which must be reported to the instructor at the first opportunity) or emergency.

The grade of late papers will be reduced by five points for each day they are late. There will be no make-up quizzes, but I will drop your two lowest quiz grades. Make-up tests will be given only in cases of emergency, and if you miss a test, you must contact me immediately. Cheating and plagiarism will be punished according to college policy, listed on p. 70-1 of the current college catalog.