Course Description
This course will explore the history, theory and ethnography of the African postcolony. What global connections, circuits and migrations have shaped African worlds in the aftermath of empire? What forms of political and economic power have emerged since independence from colonial rule? How have Africans remembered, represented and grappled with the colonial past, both at the level of high politics and in their everyday lives? What sentiments, solidarities and expressive cultures have become possible in the spaces of the postcolony?
Topics will include:
- the politics of infrastructure
- artists and intellectuals in postcolonial Africa
- NGOS and governmentality
- Reconfigurations of gender and sexuality in the postcolony
- the possibilities and pitfalls of “development”
- the rise of “global health”
Enrollment Details
History 861: The African Post Colony
1-3 credits, graduates or instructor consent
Thursday 11:00am-12:55pm
Spring 2017
About the Instructor
Emily Callaci is an historian of modern East Africa, with a research focus on twentieth century urban Tanzania. She is currently at work on a book about urban migration and cultural politics during Tanzania’s socialist era, from 1967 through 1985. Building on her exploration of the politics of race, decolonization, and sexuality in urban Africa in the 1960s and 1970s, she has begun research for a second project on the transnational history of the family planning movement in twentieth century Africa.
Dr. Callaci’s teaching interests include urban African history, gender and sexuality, popular culture, Islam in Africa, and African intellectual history.