| LEC # | TOPICS | READINGS |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction | No Reading |
| 2 | How Not to Talk about Africa |
Wainaina, Binyavanga. "How To Write About Africa." Granta. Achebe, Chinua. "An Image of Africa." Research in African Literatures 9, no. 1 (1978): 1–15. |
| 3 | Technology & Innovation—In 'Africa'? |
 Mavhunga, Clapperton. "Introduction." From Transient Workspaces: Technologies of Everyday Innovation in Zimbabwe. MIT Press, 2014. ISBN: 9780262027243. |
| 4 | Food Production in Africa | Carney, Judith A. "African Rice in the Columbian Exchange." The Journal of African History 42, no. 3 (2001): 377–96. |
| 5 | Textiles | Kriger, Colleen E. "Mapping the History of Cotton Textile Production in Precolonial West Africa." African Economic History, no. 33 (2005): 87–116. |
| 6 | Beer Brewing |
Carlson, Robert G. "Banana Beer, Reciprocity, and Ancestor Propitiation among the Haya of Bukoba, Tanzania." Ethnology 29, no. 4 (1990): 297–311. Davison, Patricia. "Southern African Beer Pots." African Arts 18, no. 3 (1985): 74–7 & 98. |
| 7 | Review | No Reading |
| 8 | Music | Johnston, Thomas F. "The Role of Music within the Context of an African Social Beer–Drink." International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 5, no. 2 (1974): 291–311. |
| 9 | The Climate Engineers: Making Rain in Africa? | Muguti, Tasara, and Richard Shadreck Maposa.  "Indigenous Weather Forecasting: A Phenomenological Study Engaging the Shona of Zimbabwe." (PDF) The Journal of Pan African Studies 4, no. 9 (2012). |
| 10 | The Crafts of Witches | Masquelier, Adeline. "Lightning, Death and the Avenging Spirits: 'Bori' Values in a Muslim World." Journal of Religion in Africa 24, no. 1 (1994): 2–51. |
| 11 | Mining & Metallurgy | Wright, Marcia. "Life and Technology in Everyday Life: Reflections on the Career of Mzee Stefano, Master Smelter in Ufipa, Tanzania." Journal of African Cultural Studies 15, no. 1 (2002): 17–34. |
| 12 | African Entrepreneurship | Henige, David. "John Kabes of Komenda: An Early African Entrepreneur and State Builder." The Journal of African History 18, no. 1 (1977): 1–19. |
| 13 | Pre–colonial African Cities |
Bent, J. Theodore. "The Ruins of Mashonaland, and Explorations in the Country." Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record of Geography, New Monthly Series 14, no. 5 (1892): 273–98. Video: Professor Gloria Emeagwali. "Innovation and Indigenous Technology in Great Zimbabwe." Vimeo. http://vimeo.com/112103461. |
| 14 | Biochemistry | Schapera, I. "Bows and Arrows of the Bushmen." Man 27 (1927): 113–17. |
| 15 | Ecology |
Mavhunga, Clapperton. "The Professoriate of the Hunt." From Transient Workspaces: Technologies of Everyday Innovation in Zimbabwe. MIT Press, 2014. ISBN: 9780262027243. |
| 16 | Medicine | Motlhanka, D. M. T., and G. P. Nthoiwa. "Ethnobotanical Survey of Medicinal Plants of Tswapong North, in Eastern Botswana: A Case of Plants from Mosweu and Seolwane Villages." European Journal of Medicinal Plants 3, no. 1 (2003): 10–24. |
| 17 | Leadership & Culture | Crowder, Michael. "Indirect Rule: French and British Style." Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 34, no. 3 (1964): 197–205. |
| 18 | Review | No Reading |
| 19 | The Horse | Fisher, Humphrey J. "'He Swalloweth the Ground with Fierceness and Rage': The Horse in the Central Sudan." The Journal of African History 14, no. 3 (1973): 355–79. |
| 20 | The Gun | Macola, Giacomo. "Reassessing the Significance of Firearms in Central Africa: The Case of North–Western Zambia to the 1920s." The Journal of African History 51, no. 3 (2010): 301–21. |
| 21 | Bibles | Chirenje, J. Mutero. "Church, State, and Education in Bechuanaland in the Nineteenth Century." The International Journal of African Historical Studies 9, no. 3 (1976): 401–18. |
| 22 | Books & Letters | Adeboye, Olufunke. "Reading the Diary of Akinpelu Obisesan in Colonial Africa." African Studies Review 51, no. 2 (2008): 75–97. |
| 23 | Media | Lekgoathi, Sekibakiba Peter. "You are Listening to Radio Lebowa of the South African Broadcasting Corporation: Vernacular Radio, Bantustan Identity and Listenership, 1960–1994." Journal of Southern African Studies 35, no. 3 (2009): 575–94. |
| 24 | The Cellphone in Africa | Hahn, Hans Peter, and Ludovic Kibora. "The Domestication of the Mobile Phone: Oral Society and New ICT in Burkina Faso." The Journal of Modern African Studies 46, no. 1 (2008): 87–109. |
| 25 | Review | No Reading |
| 26 | Wrap–up | No Reading |
