African Political Thought

It will be the key Africanist contribution to the new and wide-ranging MSc in Comparative Political Thought, mounted by the Department of Politics and International Studies.

African Political Thought

Objectives and learning outcomes of the module

• Understanding of African political thought and debate throughout the period leading to decolonisation, the years of independence, and reflective thought some 50 years after independence.
• Application of learning to the understanding of contemporary African politics.
• Appreciation of different strands of political thought in different parts of Africa, their relationship to distinct histories and cultures, and their efforts towards a unified body of thought in the face of analyses and diagnoses of contemporary globalisation.
• The ability to problematise African political thought by means of both critique and contextualisation.

Workload

Two lectures and one tutorial per week for 10 weeks.

Method of assessment

• Assignment 1: 30%
• Exam: 70%

Suggested reading

• Edmond Wilmot Blyden, Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race, Baltimore: Black Classic, 1994
• WEB du Bois, The Souls of Black Folks, New York: Penguin, 1996.
• CLR James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, New York: Random House, 1963.
• John Henrik Clarke with Amy Jacques Garvey (ed.), Marcus Garvey and the Vision of Africa, New York: Random House, 1974.
• Patrick Chabal, Amilcar Cabral: Revolutionary Leadership and People’s War, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

Disclaimer

Important notice regarding changes to programmes and modules