Iberian Expansion and the "Discovery" of Africa in Travel Narratives and Art, 1420--1640
AFAM 310
Fall 2018 not offered
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| Crosslisting:
ARHA 300 |
| Course Cluster: African Studies, African Studies Minor |
This seminar is broadly centered on Atlantic history from the early 15th to the middle of the 17th centuries. The course addresses the origins of culture contact between Europe and Africa and the subsequent creation of mixed cultures. We will trace European expansion from the earliest Portuguese sea voyages along the African coast, shortly after 1420, to the opening of maritime commerce to West Africa and the origins of the transatlantic slave trade. We will examine evolving attitudes on the part of both Europeans and African peoples toward each other as documented in travel literature and in artistic representations of Africans by European artists and of Europeans by African sculptors. After Portuguese explorations of Africa began around 1420, the expansion of commerce and the settlement of Europeans, mostly Portuguese, on the West African coast led to a period of extensive métissage (mixture), both cultural and physical, and of remarkable fluidity in attitudes toward Africans. However, by the early 17th century, the Atlantic slave trade had begun to take on important dimensions, setting the stage for the increasingly racialist attitudes that would characterize European relations with Africa during the colonial period. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA AFAM, SBS AFAM |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (AFST-MN)(AMST) |
Major Readings:
REQUIRED READINGS ARE AVAILABLE THROUGH ELECTRONIC RESERVES FROM OLIN LIBRARY
Partial Reading List:
Francisco Bethencourt and Diogo Ramada Curto [& Norman Fiering] (eds.), Portuguese Oceanic Expansion, 1400-1800, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007
Toby Green. BROKERS OF CHANGE: ATLANTIC COMMERCE AND CULTURES IN PRE-COLONIAL WESTERN AFRICA. Oxford University Press for the British Academy
Walter Hawthorne, FROM AFRICA TO BRAZIL. IDENTITY AND AN AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE, 1600-1830. Cambridge Univbersity Press, 2010
Dienke Hondius. BLACKNESS IN WESTERN EUROPE. RACIAL PATTERNS OF PATERNALISM AND EXCLUSION. Transaction Publisher. ISBN: 978-1-4128-5418-4 (eBook)*
K. Lowe, and Earle. BLACK AFRICANS IN RENAISSANCE EUROPE, Cambridge University Press, 2005
Peter Mark and José da Silva Horta. THE FORGOTTEN DIASPORA: JEWISH COMMUNITIES IN WEST AFRICA AND THE CREATION OF THE ATLANTIC WORLD. Cambridge University Press, 2011
Malyn Newitt, THE PORTUGUESE IN WEST AFRICA, 1415-1670, A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY. Cambridge, 2010
John Thornton, AFRICA AND AFRICANS IN THE MAKING OF THE ATLANTIC WORLD
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Examinations and Assignments:
One exam, one research paper 15-20 pages based on original research (reading knowledge of Portuguese helpful but not essential). |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
This course is part of African American Studies newly developing focus on Atlantic History. The course will be housed in AFAM. |
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