Africa and the U.S.

Catalog description

This course introduces students to the policies that the U.S. has taken toward Africa since the inception of the U.S. government in the late eighteenth to the twenty-first century. The course will used primary source documents and films to explore the narratives constructed in the U.S. and Africa about their relationships. While we will consider official government engagements between the U.S. and African governments, we will also explore the many individual actions taken by Americans and Africans to engage with one another. We will consider several larger questions in the course including how Americans and Africans identify themselves and one another; how Americans shifted their view of Africans from partners to pitiable people; and how historical narratives and racial politics in the U.S. have shaped dialogue between the two regions.