Syllabus: World History 1500 to Present

Africa and Africans were essential to creating and shaping the Atlantic world; the circulation of people, goods, and ideas in the Atlantic had a profound impact on Africa. Together, these two concepts enrich our understanding of the emergence of our world, as the consequences of the changing relationships between Africa and the Atlantic continue to reverberate today. This course will examine the history of the connections between pre-colonial Africa—primarily West and West Central Africa—and the Atlantic, and their transformations from the mid-fifteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries. We will ground our exploration in the histories of specific regions (e.g. Senegambia, the Kingdom of Kongo, the Gold Coast) and track differences and changes over time between their relative ties with the Atlantic. We will also discuss advances made in the historical study of Africa and the Atlantic over the past twenty years. We will weigh and assess historians' different interpretations—and methods in developing these interpretations—on complex themes, such as developments of African creole cultures and the impact of the transatlantic slave trade and its long abolition on Africa. Above all, we will examine the lives, migrations, struggles, and ideas of Africans: traders, diplomats, religious leaders, rulers, and slaves, both within Africa and through their voluntary or forced circulation in the Atlantic world.

Course taught at Oberlin College, Spring 2014

2021

Introduction to the religion and culture of ancient Gandhara from the 3rd century bce to the 3rd century ce. Focus on themes of migration, cross-cultural interactions, religious synthesis, identity.