The Aesthetics of Pan-Africanism
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General
Course Long Title
The Aesthetics of Pan-Africanism
Subject Code
CCST
Course Number
309
School(s)
Academic Level
UG - Undergraduate
Description
Aesthetics of Pan-Africanism
This course aims to critically evaluate the aesthetics of the Pan-African imaginary as expressed in literature, music, political writing, film and theory. Pan-Africanism is more than a political project. It is often championed by Africans and the descendants of Africa as a mode of survival in theMaafa, i.e. the massive trauma of slavery and colonialism that in many ways have defined African modernity. We aim to study sentiment and symbol in the Pan-Africanist idea. Its expressions of longing and loss and fantasies of often impracticable forms of unity. Our object is to discover value in its multiple modes of expression rather than the efficacy or prospects of its politics. We read thinkers such asKwame Nkrumah, Marcus Garvey,Amy Jacques Garvey, Bob Marley, Aime Cesaire, Ama Ata Aidoo, Vodun/Voodoo, Queen Ifrica, Muammar al-Qaddafi,Haile Gerima, Kamau Brathwaite, Sunni Patterson, Thomas Sankara, Assata Shakur etc. They will be read not for what they dreamed but how they dreamed - the poetics of their dreaming and the efforts to translate and crush centuries-old sentiment into the rigidity of modern institutions.
This course aims to critically evaluate the aesthetics of the Pan-African imaginary as expressed in literature, music, political writing, film and theory. Pan-Africanism is more than a political project. It is often championed by Africans and the descendants of Africa as a mode of survival in theMaafa, i.e. the massive trauma of slavery and colonialism that in many ways have defined African modernity. We aim to study sentiment and symbol in the Pan-Africanist idea. Its expressions of longing and loss and fantasies of often impracticable forms of unity. Our object is to discover value in its multiple modes of expression rather than the efficacy or prospects of its politics. We read thinkers such asKwame Nkrumah, Marcus Garvey,Amy Jacques Garvey, Bob Marley, Aime Cesaire, Ama Ata Aidoo, Vodun/Voodoo, Queen Ifrica, Muammar al-Qaddafi,Haile Gerima, Kamau Brathwaite, Sunni Patterson, Thomas Sankara, Assata Shakur etc. They will be read not for what they dreamed but how they dreamed - the poetics of their dreaming and the efforts to translate and crush centuries-old sentiment into the rigidity of modern institutions.