AFRO1009: History of Women in Africa: 1500 to the Present

This course examines the histories of women on African frontiers. The course will highlight the role of women in their relation with family, with other African/nonAfrican peoples, as well as the role of women of the border regions of Sahel-Savanna, SavannaForest, within the country of Morocco, and along the Indian Ocean-Swahili Coast and Atlantic Coast frontiers. AFRO 1009 will compare the roles of African women from specific regions to others in different times and places in Africa, as well as with their contemporaries in Asia, Europe, and the Americas. We will consider the ways in which the women under scrutiny played a critical role in the dynamic changes that transformed their worlds and the worlds around them. Indeed, the historical lens that informs and underpins this course is premised on the understanding that people make change and that change does not just happen in and of itself. In recognizing the process of change over time, AFRO 1009 emphasizes the significance of social and cultural context in shaping the extent and nature of women’s participation in these processes. Therefore, the course will seek to understand the cultural beliefs and the rich ethnic, economic, religious networks, which buttressed the women’s roles and examine their associated factors. In addition to stressing the importance of change over time, AFRO 1009 engages students in a reflection of the past in an attempt to understand those reflections within the continuum of past, present, and future. Accordingly, AFRO 1009 impels us to think about the long term effects of any change, however slight or insignificant it may seem.

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