FYSP 058 - African Politics and Society Through Literature

FC ARHU CD WINT

4 credits
This course uses literature to examine politics and society in Africa from the dawn of colonial rule to the present. From Peter Abraham’s Mine Boy (1946) to Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958) to Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus (2003) and novels between them, we use literature as a window into the issues that have concerned African novelists over generations. The advent of colonialism in Africa, the rise of nationalism, the often violent liberation struggles and the defeat of colonialism, military coups and political instability as well as authoritarianism and civil wars of the post-colonial era, are of particular interest in this course.