Corsi di Studio del Dipartimento di Culture, Politica e Società

The course aims to provide the knowledge and the methodological and theoretical skills necessary to interpret the social, political and economic transformations that have crossed Africa during the 20th century. By focusing on the contemporary history of sub-Saharan Africa (from the late nineteenth century to the present day), concepts and methodological tools developed within African studies will be presented in order to demonstrate their relevance for making historical, geographical and cultural connections between Africa and the rest of the world.

The course is divided in three parts: the first part offers a general introduction to the most important methodological and theoretical issues of the Africanist debate (historiographical and anthropological); the second part deals with the main historical processes that took place on the continent in contemporary times; the third part proposes to observe the events that characterized the continent in the 20th century from a historical-ethnographic perspective, taking into consideration the case study of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING

• learning of basic skills to evaluate the 'historicity' of African peoples and societies;
• acquisition of knowledge to challenge and analyze critically stereotypes about societies and cultures of the continent;
• learning of the methodological and theoretical knowledge and skills necessary to interpret social, political and economic transformations that have crossed the African continent and determine its current position in the broader global economic and political context;
• acquisition of knowledge and skills to think on how concepts and tools developed within African studies can be used in various fields of work and social contexts;

INDEPENDENT JUDGEMENT

• developing skills to make autonomous assessment and to strength communication skills;

COMMUNICATION SKILLS

• acquisition of skills in reading, writing, and analyzing oral, photographic, audiovisual and musical sources;
• acquisition of skills in the construction of research paths and in-depth bibliography of concepts and themes addressed within the course.

The course is 36 hours length and includes lectures, students’ presentations, movies and documentaries projection.

1. General introduction: 6% (2h);
2. First part: 47% (17h)
3. Second part: 37% (13h)
4. Students’ presentations: 10% (4h)

For attending students, the assessment procedure includes presentation in class of an essay agreed with the teacher during the course (25% of the final grade) and a written exam (open-ended questions) in which the student will have to answer to three of the six proposed questions (75% of the final grade). For non-attending students, final evaluation will consist of a written exam in which four of the six proposed questions will have to be answered (100% of the final grade).

1. General introduction.

General introduction to the course and to the most important methodological and theoretical issues of the Africanist debate (historiographical and anthropological). Presentation of historiographical sources of various kinds and identification of theoretical methodologies and frameworks necessary to understand the long-term impact of historical processes:

• Oral History (J. Vansina);
• Immediate History (B. Veraghean);
• Postcolonial critic (V. Mudimbe; A. Mbembe);
• Perspectives “from below” (J.-F. Bayart);

2. First part: main historical processes of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries:

• slave trade;
• European imperialism;
• colonialism;
• liberation struggles;
• decolonization processes;
• post-independence development policies;
• impact of structural adjustment policies;
• contemporary processes of neoliberalization;

3. Second part: analysis of a case study. The Democratic Republic of the Congo:

• The time of loots (The Congo Free State / 1885-1908);
• Urbanization and industrialization of Katanga (1908-1960);
• Salesian missions and educational system in the 20th century (1911-1970);
• Pentecostal "awakening" and "economies of the occult" (1990 - our days);

The final exam will be based on the following reading materials:

• J. Reid, A History of Modern Africa: 1800 to the Present, Chichester, John Wiley & Sons, 2011.
• A collection of essays prepared by the teacher, which will be made available online (please contact the teacher via email to have access to it) (an essay for the presentation during the course):
  - V. Y. Mudimbe, The Invention of Africa. Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge, Bloomington-Indianapolis, Indiana University Press, London, James Currey, 1988, chap. I: “Discourse of Power and Knowledge of Otherness”, pp. 1-36.
  - T. Ranger, “The invention of tradition in colonial Africa”, in E. Hobsbawm, T. Ranger (eds.), The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983, pp. 211-262.
  - J.-F. Bayart, S. Ellis, B. Hibou, “From kleptocracy to the felonius state?”, in
The Criminalization of the State in Africa, Oxford, James Currey, 1999, pp. 1-31.
  - J. Stengers, “King Leopold’ Imperialism”, in R. Owen, B. Sutcliffe, Studies in the Theory of Imperialism, London, Longman, 1972, pp. 248-276.
  - J. Honke, “New political topographies. Mining companies and indirect discharge in Southern Katanga (DRC)”, Politique africaine, n. 120, pp. 105-128.
  - P. Boyle, “School wars: church, state, and the death of the Congo, Journal of Modern African Studies, vol. 33, n. 3, 1995, pp. 451-468.
  - J. Comaroff, J. Comaroff. 1999. “Occult economies and the violence of abstraction: Notes from the South African postcolony”, American ethnologist, vol. 26, n. 2, pp. 279-303.

Students who will not attend the course will have to add the reading of the following essays, which will be made available by the teacher in PDF version:

• J. Ferguson, "Of Mimicry and Membership: Africans and the New World Society", Cultural Anthropology, vol. 17, n. 4, 2002, pp. 551-569.
• J.-F. Bayart, “Africa in the world: A history of extravertion”, African Affairs, n.  99, 2000, pp. 217-267.

Suggested readings

Week I

• « Troisième partie. L’Histoire immédiate », in J. Tshonda Omasombo, Le Zaire à l’épreuve de l’histoire immédiate, Karthala, 1993.
• J. Vansina, « Afterthoughts on the Historiography of Oral Tradition », in B. Jewsiewicki, D. Newbury, African Historiographies, Sage, London, 1986, pp. 105-110.
• J. Vansina, Oral Tradition as History, Madison, The university of Wisconsin Press, 1985, in part. “Oral Tradition as a source of History”, pp. 27-32; “Oral Tradition Assessed”, pp. 186-199.
• A. Mbembe, “Provisional Notes on the postcolony”, in Africa, vol. 62, n. 1, 1992, pp. 3-37.
• N. Lazarus, “Representation and terror in V. Y. Mudimbe”, Journal of African Cultural Studies, vol. 17, n. 1, 2005, pp. 81-101;
• J.-F. Bayart, “Les Jalons d’une méthode”, in Bayart J.-F., Mbembe A., Toulabor C., Le politique par le bas en Afrique noire, Paris, Karthala, 2008.
• C. Meillassoux, The Anthropology of Slavery: The Womb of Iron and Gold, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1992, pp. 23-40 and pp. 43 – 66.
• S. Miers, I. Kopytoff, “Introduction: African ‘Slavery’ as an Institution of Marginality”, in S. Miers, I. Kopytoff (eds.), Slavery in Africa: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives, Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1977, pp. 3-21 and pp. 40-76.
• L. Brenner, “Reading Mudimbe as a historian”, Journal of African Cultural Studies, vol. 17, n. 1, 2005, pp. 67-80;

Week II

• J. Conrad, “An Outpost of Progress”, in Id., Heart of Darkness and other tales, Oxford-New York, Oxford University Press, 1990 [1898].
• J. Comaroff, J. Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution . Christianinty, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa, vol. I, Chicago-London, The University of Chicago Press, 1991, in part. chap. V “Through the looking glass. Heroic journeys, First Encounters” and chap. VI “Conversion and Conversation. Narrative, form, and Consciousness”.

Week III

• D. Laumann, Colonial Africa 1884-1994, Oxford-New York, Oxford University Press, 2013, chap. 2.
• B. Jewsiewicki, “The Great Depression and the Making of the Colonial Economic System in the Belgian Congo”, African Economic History, n. 4, 1977, pp. 153-176.
• G. Balandier, “The Colonial Situation: A Theoretical Approach”, in E. Wallerstein, Social Change : The Colonial Situation, New York, John Wiley, 1966. (also in French “La situation colonial: approche théorique”, Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie, vol. 11, 1951, pp. 44-79.
• R. Lemarchand, Political Awakening in the Belgian Congo, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London, University of California Press and Cambridge University Press, 1964, part II, chap. VI “The Influence of Christian Missions and Education”, pp- 122-143.
• T. Ranger, “Religious Movements and Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa”, in African Studies Review, vol. 29, n. 2, 1986, pp. 1-70.
• J. M. Lonsdale, “Some Origins of Nationalism in East Africa”, The Journal of Modern African History, vol. 9, n. 1, pp. 119 – 146, 1968.

Week IV

• F. Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, New York, Grove Press, 2004 [1961].
• J.-F. Bayart, The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly, Polity Press, 2009.
• M. Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars. The Merging of Development and Security, London-New York, Zed Books, 2001.
• P. Gibbon, “The World Bank and African poverty, 1973–1991” Journal of Modern African Studies, vol. 30, n. 2, 1992.
• J. Ferguson, "Of Mimicry and Membership: Africans and the New World Society", Cultural Anthropology, vol. 17, n. 4, 2002, pp. 551-569.
• J. B. Riddell, “Things fall apart again: structural adjustment programmes in sub-Saharan Africa,” Journal of Modern African Studies, vol. 30, n. 1, 1992.

Week V

• F. Andersen, The Dark Continent?: Images of Africa in European Narratives About the Congo, Aarhus, Aarhus University Press, 2016.
• A. F. Roberts, A dance of Assassins. Performing Early Colonial Hegemony in the Congo, Bloomington-Indianapolis, Indiana University Press, 2013.
• T. Jeal, Stanley. The Impossible Life of Africa’s Greatest Explorer, New Haven – London, Yale University Press, 2007.
• B. Rubbers, “The story of a tragedy. How people in Haut-Katanga interpret the post-colonial history of Congo, in British Journal of Sociology, vol. 60, n. 3, pp. 623-642.

Week VI

• S. Ellis, G. T. Haar, Worlds of Power: Religious Thought and Political Practice in Africa, London, Oxford University Press, 2004.
• V.S. Naipaul, A bend in the River, London, Picador, 2002 [1979] (romanzo);
• D. Van Reybrouck, Congo.: The Epic History of a People, New York, Ecco, 2014;

Films

Cobra Verde (W. Herzog, Germany, 1987, 111’);

Mobutu, King of Zaire (T. Michel, Belgium, 1999, 135’);

Katanga business (T. Michel, Belgium, 2009, 119’);

An Outpost of Progress (H. Vieira da Silva, Portugal, 2016, 121’);

Le Ministre des poubelles (Q. Noirfalisse, Belgium, 2017, 75’) http://leministredespoubelles.be/#;

Elephant’s Dream (K. Bilsen, Belgium, 2014, 54’) http://www.elephantsdream-film.com/;

Kinshasa Kids (M.-H. Wajnberg, Belgium, 2013, 85’) http://kinshasakids.com/

Mémoire de missionnaires (D. Wil, Belgium, 2017, 56’);

Félicité (A. Gomis, Francia, Belgio, Senegal, Germany, Lebanon, 2017, 123’);

Vivre riche (J. Akafou, Burkina-Faso, France, Belgium, 2017, 52’);

War Witch (Rebelle) (K. Nguyen, Canada, 2012, 90’);

Benda Bilili! (R. Barret, France, Congo, 2010, 85’);

The Congo Tribunal (M. Rau, Germany, Switzerland, 2017, 100’) http://www.the-congo-tribunal.com/;

Maki'La ( M. Ekwa Bahango, Congo, France, 2018, 78’);

Les maitres fous (J. Rouch, France, 1955, 28’);

Pungulume (S. Baloji, F. De Boeck, Belgium, 2016, 29’);

Cry Freedom (R. Attenborough, United Kingdom, South Africa, 1987, 157’);

Come back, Africa (L. Rogosin, South Africa, United States, 1959, 83’);

Cuba, an African Odyssey (J. El-Tahri, France, 2007, 118’);

12/04/2019

Lecture in African History and Development on Tuesday 16 April 2019 is canceled, it will be rescheduled on a date to be annouced.