18
Archaeology of African Thought
ANT324L;AFR 374;ANT380k
Spring 2006
Instructor: Prof. J. Denbow;
Email:
Office: 1.118 Schoch Hall
Office hours: MW 11:30-12:30 and by appointment
OVERVIEW
This course uses archaeological, anthropological and historical works to examine the development and transformation of African societies from the Neolithic through the slave trade and the beginning of the colonial period. The course will discuss the historic and prehistoric foundations of contemporary African societies south of the Sahara, focusing especially on equatorial and southern Africa. The intention is to develop an understanding of the cultural dynamics of Bantu societies and traditions, and their transformations through time. This provides an interpretive framework from which to examine emerging archaeological perspectives on the slave trade and its impact on the development of new traditions in the New World.
REQUIREMENTS
This course meets the requirements for substantial writing component classes. Grades will be based upon two short 4-5 page typed, double-spaced papers, a 5 page mid-term paper, and a final 10 page paper and class presentation on an African country, with a focus on the historical context of a problem of the student’s choosing. The first two papers will count for 15% and 20% respectively. The mid-term paper will account for 25% of the grade, with the final paper and presentation making up 40% of your grade. One class period will be devoted to showing students how to make their own Powerpoint presentations. Students should purchase a copy of Microsoft Office, which includes Powerpoint. This is available to students for $5.00 at the Campus computer store. The classroom is equipped to with both Windows and Macintosh machines.
Initial sources for country information can be found by searching by country in UTCAT. On the web you may find resources such as Africa Daily at ica-news.com. Many African countries also have online newspapers and, in some cases, even television news broadcasts (eg. Botswana Daily News: .bw/cgi-bin/news.cgi ) Government sources may simply reproduce the “party line”, however, so you may also look out for independent news media in some countries that may be more critical. For Botswana,forinstance,seegi.bw/2006/January/Friday13/index.html (do ro this page, which will be updated every day/week). Summary information can also be found in the annual supplements to the print edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica in the library. Paper grades will be based both upon comprehension of course content and written expression in the papers. A guide to writing is included at the back of this syllabus. The following rubric will be used as a guide to grading papers:
ORGANIZATION (10%)
Were the basic sections (Introduction, Conclusion, Literature Cited, etc.) adequate?
Did the writer use subheadings well to clarify the sections of the text?
Was the material ordered in a way that was logical, clear, easy to follow?
CITATIONS (20%)
Did the writer cite sources adequately and appropriately?
Were all the citations in the text listed in the Literature Cited section?
GRAMMAR AND STYLE (20%)
Were there any grammatical or spelling problems?
Was the writer’s writing style clear? Were the paragraphs and sentences cohesive?
CONTENT (50%)
Did the writer adequately summarize and discuss the topic?
Did the writer comprehensively cover appropriate materials available from the standard sources (e.g. readings, appropriate books and other sources)?
Did the writer make some contribution of thought to the paper, or merely summarize data or publications?
TEXTS
1. Ehret, Christopher. 2002. Civilizations of Africa: a history to 1800. University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville.
2. Leyland Ferguson. 1992. Uncommon Ground: Archaeology and Early African America 1650-1800. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC.
3. A class reader for this class is available at Abel's copies. Most of the readings come from this reader -- you cannot do without it. Digitized CD versions may be available. Discuss this with the people at Abel's if you think this will suit your needs better.
COURSE OUTLINE
Week 1: 18, 20 Jan.
Course overview and introduction to the physical geography of Africa
Readings:
1) Bohannan and Curtin (1995). In Africa and Africans. Waveland Press, Prospect Heights. Chapter 1. Myths and Facts pp. 6-15.
2) Ehret. Chapter 1, pages 3-17. Stop at “Africa and Human Origins.”
3) Saul Dubow (1995). Chapter 1: Introduction. Chapter 2: Physical anthropology and the quest for the ‘missing link.’ In Scientific racism in modern South Africa. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Pp 1-65.
Film: Africa: Different but Equal. Vidcass 1663, Vol. 1a
Assignment: Choose a sub-Saharan African country that you will become familiar with and use to illustrate your short papers. This country will also be the subject of your final paper.
Week 2: 23, 25, 27 Jan.
African climates, rainfall, vegetation and economic resources
Readings:
1) Bohannan and Curtin (1995). Chapter 2. The African Continent, pp. 18-32.
2) John Reader (1998). Building a Continent. pp. 9-17.
3) John Reader (1998). Chapter 11. On Home Ground. pp. 99-104.
4) John Reader (1998). Chapter 24. Disease and Affliction. pp. 239–248.
5) Ehret, Chapter 2, pp. 26-55 (stop at section on Afrisan civilization).
Short paper #1: write a brief but formal paper outlining the physical geography, climate and natural resources of your chosen country. Include one major problem facing your country in terms of its natural resources or climate. (Due Jan. 27th)
Week 3: 30 Jan.; 1, 3 Feb.
Distribution and characteristics of African languages. Social context: gender, age, household, family, lineage, clan and marriage.
Readings:
1) Bohannan and Curtin. Chapter 3. Mapping Africa. pp. 34-45.
2) Harold Schneider (1981). The Africans: an ethnological account. Chapter 4, Marriage, descent, and association, pp. 82-119.
3) Bohannan and Curtin. Chapter 5. African Families, pp. 64-75.
4) Bohannan. (1966). Shakespeare in the bush. Natural History.
Film: Africa: Mastering a Continent. Vidcass 1663, Vol. 1b.
Week 4: 6, 8, 10 Feb.
Tribes and Tribalism: imposed or indigenous? Historical tradition, situational construction, western rationalization?
Readings:
1) John Reader. 1998. Chapter 44. The Afrikaners. pp. 487–498.
2) Adrian Southhall (1970). The illusion of Tribe. In Perspectives on Africa, edited by Roy Grinker and Christopher Steiner, Blackwell: Oxford.pp. 38-51.
3) Leroy Vail (1988).Ethnicity in southern African history. In Perspectives on Africa, pp. 52-68.
4) Terence Ranger (1983). The invention of tradition in colonial Africa. In Perspectives on Africa, pp. 597-612.
Short paper #2. Summarize the linguistic and ethnic diversity of your chosen country. What is the difference between ethnicity and tribalism? What problems facing your country are commonly framed in the international press in terms of ethnicity or tribe? Is this point of view shared or contested by local people? In what ways? (Due Feb. 13)
Egypt, North Africa and Ethiopia
.Week 5 and 6: 13, 15, 17, 20, 22, 24 Feb.
Ancient Egypt and North Africa, Afro-centrism and the cultures of sub-Saharan Africa
Readings:
1) Ehret, Chapter 3, pp. 59-81. (stop at Agricultural Invention).
2) Martin Bernal. 1987. Black Athena: the Afroasiatic roots of classical civilization. pp. 1-38; 433-438
3)Diop, Cheikh . The Meaning of our Work. In Perspectives on Africa, pp. 724-7.
4)Appiah, Kwame. Europe Upside Down: Fallacies of the New Afrocentrism. In Perspectives on Africa, pp. 728-31.
Film: Egypt: Gift of the Nile
Film: Akenaten
Film: Roman Africa-Tunisia
Film: Arc of the Covenant
Sub-Saharan Africa
Week 7: 27 Feb.; 1, 3 March
Contemporary Hunter-gatherers as windows on the Pleistocene and Neolithic? Evolutionary constructs and ethnographic essentialism.
Readings:
1) Ehret, Chapter 3, pp. 82-106. Chapter 4, pp. 107-118. (Stop at Civilization and Herding…).
2) Bailey, R., Jenike, M., Owen, B., Rechtman, R., Zechenter, E. (1989). Hunting and Gathering in Tropical Rainforest: Is it Possible? American Anthropologist 91:59-82.
3) Saul Dubow, 1995. Chapter 3: Bantu origins and racial narratives. In Scientific Racism, pp. 66-119.
4) James Denbow (1990). Congo to Kalahari: data and hypotheses about the political economy of the western stream of the Early Iron Age. African Archaeological Review 8: 139-175.
Film Clips from Spencer Wells
Week 8: 6, 8, 10 March
Metalworking and metaphysics
Readings:
1) Eugenia Herbert (1993). Iron, Gender and Power: rituals of transformation in African societies. Indiana University, Bloomington. pp. 1-40.
2) Ehret, Chapter 4, pp. 146-143. (Stop at Lands and States).
SPRING BREAK
Week 9: 20, 22, 24 March
African religion: status, authority and power.
Readings:
1) Paula Ben-Amos (1994). The Promise of Greatness: women and power in an Edo spirit possession cult. In Religion in Africa, edited by T. Blakely, W. van Beek and D. Thomson. Heinemann: Portsmouth, pp. 119-134.
2) John Janzen (1994). “Drums of Affliction" real phenomenon or scholarly chimaera? In Religion in Africa, edited by T. Blakely, W. van Beek and D. Thomson. Heinemann: Portsmouth, pp. 161-181.
3) Wyatt MacGaffey (1986). Religion and Society in Central Africa: the baKongo of lower Zaire. University of Chicago, Chicago. pp. 1-102.
4) Pierre de Maret (1994). Archaeological and other prehistoric evidence of traditional African Religious expression. In Religion in Africa, edited by T. Blakely, W. van Beek and D. Thomson. Heinemann: Portsmouth, pp. 183-195.
5) James Denbow (1999). Heart and Soul: glimpses of ideology and cosmology in the iconography of tombstones from the Loango coast of the Congo. Journal of American Folklore 112 (445):404-423.
(5 page mid-term paper due 29 March)): Using examples from your readings and lectures, discus how authority and power, gender, and religion are situational dimensions that come together to inform situations of everyday action in sub-Saharan Africa. In what ways is an understanding of these relations essential to understanding Africa, both in the past and in the present? In what ways does this “matrix of relations” compare or contrast with your own experiences in the United States?
Week 10: 27, 29, 31 March
Emergence of Chiefdoms in southern Africa
Readings:
1) Ehret, Chapter 6, pp. 238-289.
2) James Denbow. 2001. James Denbow (2002). Stolen Places: archaeology and the politics of identity in the later prehistory of the Kalahari. Africanizing Knowledge: African Studies across the disciplines, edited by T. Falola and C. Jennings. Summerset: Transaction Publishers Rutgers: 345-374.
Week 10: 3, 5, 7 April
Prehistoric States: Great Zimbabwe.
Readings:
1) Thomas Huffman, 1996. Snakes and Crocodiles: Power and Symbolism in Ancient Zimbabwe. Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg. Chapters 2, 3, 4 and 5, pp. 17-174
2) Webber Ndoro 2001. Your Monument our Shrine: the preservation of Great Zimbabwe. Chapters 3, 4 , 7 and 8; pp. 21-51; 93-120.
Week 11: 10, 12, 14 April
Central African States and the origins of the European Slave trade. Commodity production and indebtedness. The African side of the trade.
Readings:
1) Ehret, Chapters 8 and 9, pp. 349-445. (Stop at Eastern Africa …)
2) Joseph Miller (1988). Way of Death: merchant capitalism and the Angolan slave trade, 1730-1830. James Currey, London: Chapters 1-4, pp. 3-139.
Film: The Bible and the Gun, Vidcass 1663, Vol. 3a
Week 12: 17, 19, 21 April
The New World: Uncommon ground or dialectic?
Readings:
1) Leyland Ferguson (1992). Uncommon Ground: Archaeology and Early African America, 1650-1800. Smithsonian, Washington, DC.
2) Mark Leone and Gladys-Marie Fry (1999). Conjuring in the Big House Kitchen: An interpretation of African American belief systems based on the uses of archaeology and folklore sources. Journal of American Folklore 112: 372-403.
3) Brian Thomas (1998). Power and Community: the archaeology of slavery at the hermitage plantation. American Antiquity 64(4): 531-551.
4) Maria Franklin (1995). “Rethinking the Carter’s Grove Slave Quarter Reconstruction: A Proposal”. In The Written and the Wrought: Complementary Sources in Historical Anthropology, edited by M. D’Agostino et al. Kroeber Anthropological Papers, Vol. 79, pp. 147-164.
5) Maria Franklin (2004). Chapter 9, “Archaeological and Historical Interpretations of Domestic Life at Rich Neck, ca. 1740s-1770s. In An Archaeological Study of the Rich Neck Slave Quarter and Enslaved Domestic Life. Colonial Williamsburg Archaeological Reports. Colonial Williamsburg Fouindation, Richmond, pp. 207-230.
Extra credit paper # 3: a 3 page paper. Due date will be announced in class. Rather than arguing for a complex dialectic between “master” and “slave,” Ferguson proposes that two distinct “sub-cultures” are represented on New World plantations which, “shared many aspects of culture; but for the most part, slave quarters and the “big house” were on separate ground.” Critique Ferguson’s perspective from the perspective of your readings on African philosophy and regional and local scales of colonial discourse.
Weeks 13 and 14: 14, 16, 18 April; 1, 3, 5 May
Class Presentations and discussion of final papers
Final papers due on Wednesday, May 5th. These 10 page papers will summarize student research into the country of their choice: its peoples, cultures, languages, history and problems. You may incorporate elements of earlier essays in this final paper. Students will sign up to present a 10 minute summary of their country and its problems during the final two weeks of class. Facilities will be available for Powerpoint presentation and overhead projections. Two minutes will be reserved after each paper for other students to ask questions of the presenters.
There will be no final exam in this course
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Archaeology of African Thought:
A Brief Guide to Writing Good Essays
Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.
–Mark Twain
One of the purposes of this course is to give you some experience in writing papers and essays. A large proportion of your grade will be based on how well you express your ideas and thoughts on paper. This presents several difficulties. First, because African peoples and cultures are likely to be new to you, you will be learning and digesting new material - some of which may contradict stereotypes and assumptions you presently hold. It will take time to get a grasp on this material, and you may have to work at expressing yourself. Secondly, you will have to organize and structure your essays so that they present your thoughts, ideas, and feelings clearly.
There are three levels that you should pay attention to when you write an essay: overall organization; paragraph structure; and sentence structure. If you check for clarity at each of these levels, you will write an effective essay. The result you want to strive for is a series of paragraphs that flow together, giving the reader a sense of being carried along smoothly and quickly from point to point in the paper. This is not "easy" for anyone, including Mark Twain, and most authors go through a painful process of rewriting and clarifying many times before they have a satisfactory product. It is not always easy to see where your thoughts do not "flow," or where you have been wordy or vague. One thing I have found useful is to read aloud what I have written, either to myself or to a friend. Often just trying to say a sentence out loud will make it clear where it goes on too long, or loops back on itself.