| Call Number | 11973 |
|---|---|
| Day & Time Location |
R 2:10pm-4:00pm 101 Knox Hall |
| Points | 4 |
| Grading Mode | Standard |
| Approvals Required | None |
| Instructor | Elleni Zeleke |
| Type | SEMINAR |
| Method of Instruction | In-Person |
| Course Description | Through the study of a set of key theoretical and fictional texts that range from the late 1960s to the present we will attempt to understand the “pitfalls of national consciousness” within historically existing African emancipatory projects. The texts that we will read will help us comprehend the nature of race, racism, ethnicity, and class struggle within the struggle for African freedom. Overall, the course will unfold in four sequences. In the first sequence we will examine the new debates that have emerged from within the Afro-pessimist literature. Here we will be concerned with the assertion within this body of writing about the impossibility of a collective African emancipatory project in this world. Secondly, because the Afro-pessimist literature is primarily concerned with rethinking freedom in Africa through Frantz Fanon, the course will then turn to the most recent secondary literature on Fanon from Africa (broadly conceived). Our objective here is twofold: to stage a debate regarding stakes between this secondary literature and the Afro-pessimist literature and to pose the question more generally of what it has meant to think of freedom from within Africa. The third sequence of the course will then turn to a rereading of classic texts associated with African emancipatory projects including the writings of Fanon, Amìlcar Cabral, and Steve Biko as a way to ground our thinking within these debates. Lastly, we will turn to the novels of Ben Okri so as to potentially identify and rethink the limits of contemporary debates about the prospects for freedom in Africa today. |
| Web Site | Vergil |
| Department | Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies |
| Enrollment | 6 students (20 max) as of 8:10PM Friday, December 1, 2023 |
| Subject | Middle East |
| Number | GU4152 |
| Section | 001 |
| Division | Interfaculty |
| Campus | Morningside |
| Section key | 20231MDES4152W001 |