Power, Prestige and Politics in African Societies

This seminar infuses a human dimension into the study of politics in Africa. Considering the 1800s to the present day, the seminar prompts students to creatively connect the political with the personal. We will examine how gender, intimate and romantic relationships, arguments between parents and children, attempts to access and harness the power of the sacred, and fights for status and authority of all kinds, were pivotal forces shaping the form that politics and political activism assumed on the continent.