The Global Seminar in Ghana/England
“The African American Atlantic: Modernity and the Black Experience” will be taught in Accra, Ghana, at New York Univeristy in Ghana Academic Center, and in London, England, at Queen Mary, University of London, from June 20 to July 31, 2010. Led by Simon Gikandi, Princeton University's Robert Schirmer Professor of English, the seminar offers students the opportunity to understand how the Atlantic Ocean, historically associated with the pain of slavery and the violence of enslavement, is now recognized as the conduit through which Africans encountered the modern world and set out to redefine the nature of modern identity itself. How did blacks in the new world conceive themselves as modern subjects? How have African, African American, and Caribbean writers and intellectuals imagined global citizenship? What is the meaning of Africa in the imagination of blacks in Britain and the United States? What is the relation between culture, history, and the politics of development?
For the first four weeks of the course, students will be based in Accra where they will explore the rich history and culture of the West African coast from the period of slavery to the present. In addition to seminar discussions, students will be immersed in the everyday culture of Ghana through visits to important institutions such as the W.E.B. Dubois Center, the National Theater, the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial, and Kumasi, the capital of the ancient kingdom of Ashanti. There will be regular lectures by experts on the history, literature, and politics of Africa and the Atlantic world. Tours to the slave forts at Elmina and Cape Coast will introduce students to debates about memory and remembering in the Atlantic world, changing notions of the past, and the impact of modernity on the black experience. Through community service and visits to important conservation sites, students will engage with issues of development, the environment, and public health.
The last two weeks of the course will be spent in London where participants will have an opportunity to meet scholars who have been instrumental in transforming our understanding of Atlantic history and culture, visit the museum of slavery at Liverpool, and discover how migrants from Africa and the Caribbean are transforming London and turning it into the quintessential multicultural city of the twenty-first century.
Click here for the course syllabus.
This course fulfills the Literature and the Arts (LA) general requirement. Check back to view the syllabus.
