ANTHRO 348B: Bodies, Technologies, and Natures in Africa (HISTORY 349, HISTORY 449A)

Course Description

This interdisciplinary course explores how modern African histories, bodies, and natures have been entangled with technological activities. Viewing Africans as experts and innovators, we consider how technologies have mediated, represented, or performed power in African societies. Topics include infrastructure, extraction, medicine, weapons, communications, sanitation, and more. Themes woven through the course include citizenship, mobility, labor, bricolage, in/formal economies, and technopolitical geographies, among others. Readings draw from history, anthropology, geography, and social/cultural theory. PhD Students in History completing the two-quarter graduate research seminar requirement should enroll in HISTORY 449A in Winter and 449B in Spring quarter.