| Unit name | Pan-Africanism: ideas and archives |
|---|---|
| Unit code | MODLM0045 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | M/7 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
| Unit director | Professor. Ruth Bush |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None |
| Co-requisites |
None |
| School/department | School of Modern Languages |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
This unit will introduce students to the ideas and cultural expressions of Pan-Africanism. As a political ideology and influential cultural force, Pan-Africanism has had multiple meanings across different linguistic and geographic spaces and historical periods. These range from the powerful reverberations of the Haitian Revolution and the abolition of transatlantic slavery in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, to twentieth-century negotiations of Pan-African unity against the backdrop of decolonization and the Cold War, to what is sometimes termed ‘small p’ pan-Africanism, finding contemporary expressions of solidarity in festivals, music, art, literature and film.
Students will study a selection of foundational texts in Pan-African thought (in Portuguese, English and French – translations will be provided where necessary), complemented by a range of cultural objects (literature, film, festivals, music etc.) that encourage critical thinking about this complex and powerful idea through reflection on its archive. This archive includes: documents from the Pan-African Congresses held between 1900 and 1945; film of Pan-African Festivals held between 1966 and the present day; Pan-African print culture such as the journal, Présence Africaine; literary texts of the Harlem Renaissance and négritude movements; cultural material relating to Rastafarianism and Hip-hop; theoretical discussion of Afrocentrism and Afropolitanism, in relation to Pan-Africanism. The unit aims to provide a transnational and multilingual perspective on the plural manifestations and legacies of Pan-Africanism, drawing on this term’s connections to ideas of race, identity, political activism and decolonial thought
By the end of the unit, students will be able to:
1. Identify and discuss multiple ideas of Pan-Africanism, through engagement with primary source materials.
2. Respond critically on the intellectual legacies of Pan-Africanism in relation to ideas of race, identity, coloniality and decoloniality (with awareness of distinctions between the anglophone, francophone and lusophone worlds).
3. Evaluate and engage closely with a wide range of cultural objects, including printed archives, film, literature, performance, music, and photography.
4. Demonstrate critical awareness of the theoretical scholarship in this field of study and the ability to analyse this in written and verbal form.
5. Carry out independent research to a high level and present arguments supported by scholarship.
6. Evaluate the individual subjective experience of learning about Pan-Africanism
Teaching will be delivered online through a combination of synchronous sessions and asynchronous activities, including seminars, lectures, and collaborative as well as self-directed learning opportunities supported by tutor consultation.
1 x 5000-word essay (100%) testing ILOs 1-6
Sample list
BOOKS:
W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk
Marcus Garvey, Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey
Aimé Césaire, Notebook of a Return to my Native Land
C.L.R. James, Black Jacobins
George Padmore, Pan-Africanism and Communism
Cheikh Anta Diop, The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality
Elaine Brown, A Taste of Power
Manthia Diawara, African Cinema: Politics and Culture
Irele, Abiola, The African Experience in Literature and Ideology
Ali Mazrui, Africanity Redefined: Collected Essays of Ali A. Mazrui
J. Lorand Matory, Black Atlantic Religion: Tradition, Transnationalism, and Matriarchy in the Afro‐Brazilian
Candomblé
Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
Abdourahman Waberi, In the United States of Africa
FILMS:
William Greaves, The First World Festival of Negro Arts
William Klein, The Panafrican Festival of Algiers
MAGAZINES:
Présence Africaine
Tricontinental
Lotus
AWA: La revue de la femme noire
