This module provides a broad introduction to human geographical ways of ‘seeing’ and ‘knowing’ the world and, using these insights, explores a selection of nature-society interactions in and with Africa.

By the end of the module students should have some understanding of why and how geography matters; have some knowledge of geographical concepts and tools for studying nature and society; be capable of showing how everyday lives at the local level are intricately linked to those of distant people, places and times; and demonstrate how geographers approach the study of Africa and its place in a changing world.

Value: Available either as a 20 credit year-long module, or students may take either of the two constituent parts: Introduction to Geography and Africa/ Introduction to the Sociology of Africa, each worth 10 credits.

This is a student-led seminar course that takes on issues of immediate contemporary concern in Africa, focusing on the way they are debated in Africa itself and situating these debates in their global context. The emphasis will be on breaking news stories, and seminars will be based on material gathered by students from the media, internet, and recent publications. These findings will be analysed in the light of recent theoretical writing on Africa. Throughout the module, attention will be given to techniques of analysis and presentation, following on from work done in the first-year course Focus on African Studies. The second half of the module will be devoted to dissertation training in preparation for the final-year dissertation. Sessions will focus on research, writing, IT and presentations skills. All students will have the opportunity to discuss their research ideas with the module convenor, and, in order to take account of the multi-disciplinary nature of CWAS, students will have the opportunity to attend smaller-group sessions targeted at those interested in different disciplinary approaches.
Value: 20 credits

This module traces the emergence and changing nature as well as (development) significance of NGOs with reference to Africa. It explores the challenges and opportunities associated with the role of these organisations in African development policy, planning, implementation and evaluation. It also introduces students to the world of NGO work through organised visits to selected organisations and/or invited seminar presentations by NGO workers.
Value: 20 credits

The module deals with the development and consolidation of anthropology through looking at significant ideas and debates within the discipline. Historical and cultural context is key in the development of anthropology and we look at its theoretical development in Britain, the USA and France through the twentieth century and into the 21st concluding with contemporary debates.
Value: 40 credits

This module compares different anthropological approaches to African traditional religion and explores a number of key case studies of divination, witchcraft and rites of passage. Religion is considered both as a complex of ideas and as a form of social action. It can be a medium of political resistance, the focus of artistic activity, and a site in which ideas about the self, the person, and the past and future are crystallised. African thought systems are further explored through a study of oral literary genres such as incantations, praise poetry and divination verses. Finally we look at modern popular representations of ‘traditional religion’, and the survival and transformation of African religious ideas in the African Diaspora.
Value: 20 credits

The module looks at West African genres ranging from "traditional" oral performance arts to "modern" innovations of the colonial period such as concert party, travelling theatre, popular fiction and popular music, in the context of 20^th century cultural and political change. Topics covered in the second semester include theatre for development, protest genres and township culture in Eastern and Southern Africa, in the context of colonisation, apartheid and the liberation struggle Texts and video recordings are studied in order to gain a sense of the aesthetics of these forms and the way their messages are constructed.
Value: 20 credits

Beginning from an examination of stereotypical notions of the Caribbean and the West Indian people, this module examines themes in Caribbean fiction and drama which are both characteristic of the literature as a whole but also confront and challenge those prevailing stereotypes.

Broad issues like history, exile, race, childhood, identity and notions of gender are explored through the examination of particular texts in the context of an historical overview of Caribbean writing. Students will read some classic texts by such major writers as V.S. Naipaul, Wilson Harris, Sam Selvon, George Lamming and Jean Rhys. That canon of Caribbean fiction is contrasted with the work of a younger generation of writers like Caryl Phillips, Earl Lovelace, Olive Senior, Merle Collins, Erna Brodber, David Dabydeen and Lawrence Scott, for example, who bring other notions of storytelling and other visions of the Caribbean into their work.
Value: 20 credits

The first part of this module looks at Africa’s place in the global economy to provide a contemporary background for the study of the development of Africa’s towns and cities. Histories of the development of cities in Africa are discussed in the light of theories and concepts of urban life and living. The second part of the module includes discussions of contemporary urban life and work in relation to the constraints of policies and politics.
Value: 20 credits

Students focus on an area of specific interest. If fieldwork is involved, they may plan and carry out a project, researching it during a field trip, or work independently but under the broad direction of a departmentally appointed supervisor on an (approved) topic of interest to them. The development of appropriate research skills is encouraged and students are expected to present their work either in the form of extended essay or as a report, approximately 5000 words in length. 
Value: 20 credits

The course familiarises students with the significance of ‘gender' as an axis of social and economic differentiation in African societies. The first part focuses on empirical and theoretical studies of African lives and work (social and domestic organisation; production; reproduction; gendered divisions of labour and patriarchy). The second part focuses initially on policy - how gender issues are incorporated, or not, into policies in African societies (poverty, education, health, nutrition and fertility) - while the last three sessions examine the complexities of feminisms in cross-cultural contexts.
Value: 20 credits

This module traces the development of Social Anthropology as a discipline in Britain, the US and France by looking at its origins and growth; at the work of several of the past ‘greats’ of anthropology; and at current trends in anthropological thought. This module should not be taken by students who are already doing Anthropology: debates and controversies.
Value: 20 credits

Within the wider context of globalisation and modernity, and from a variety of conceptual and analytical perspectives, the module examines changing rural geographies of household, village and regional livelihood systems and processes during the colonial and post-independence periods in the first semester; and assesses 'development' interventions aimed at transforming the rural sector through the agency of state and non-state actors in specific geographical contexts during the second semester.
Value: 20 credits

This module has a strong focus on the practicalities of field research and will serve as a solid foundation for any student interested in using ethnographic methods in their final-year dissertation. This module familiarises students with different ethnographic techniques and enables them to carry out and report on a small-scale ethnographic research project. During the course of the module, students will prepare, carry out and reflect on participant observation, questionnaires, different interviewing techniques, research ethics and the production of field notes. They will also formulate a research proposal and research questions on an agreed topic, select (a) research site(s), carry out mostly independent research and produce a self-reflexive research report on their work, drawing on other relevant ethnographic research where appropriate.
Value: 20 credits

This module is an interdisciplinary examination of politics in contemporary Africa. Historical and anthropological perspectives and analysis of cultural production complement approaches from economics and political science. The focus is on the diversity of institutions and settings - from the international to the local - in which issues are debated and power is exercised and challenged. Case studies may be drawn from all parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Please note that this is not a lecture course. Session revolve around the discussion of questions and topics related to the week’s reading.
Value: 20 credits

This module looks at the relationship between the world religions and modernity in Africa. It examines the ways in which the spread of Islam and Christianity contributed to cultural, economic and political change in African societies, and also investigates how the world religions were transformed by African beliefs, ideas and practices. The first part of the course focuses on the social and political changes associated with the spread of Islam and Christianity in the pre-colonial and colonial period. At third-year level, students will engage critically with different sociological models of conversion. The second section of the course focuses on the expansion and transformation of the world religions since independence, which has often been linked to political and economic struggles affecting both the post-colonial state and African trans-national communities. At third-year level, students will critically analyse relevant popular religious material.
Value: 20 credits

This module takes an inter-disciplinary approach to the history, society, and the arts of the Yoruba people in Nigeria and the African diaspora. We look at the rise and fall of the great Yoruba states, the wars of the nineteenth century, the slave trade’s dispersion of Yorubas into the Caribbean and Brazil, and the transformation of Yoruba society in the modern era. Family and town organisation, chieftaincy and the operations of self-made men, and highly-developed trading and artisanal traditions form the background to an exploration of Yoruba oral and written literature, music and the visual arts. From the famous bronze and terracotta sculptures of the early civilisation of Ife, to modern travelling popular theatre and topical political poetry, Yoruba culture is famous worldwide for its richness and diversity, and its constant capacity to produce new things. We will look at the transformation of Yoruba religious ideas in Brazilian candomblé, and the recreation of Yoruba cultural forms across the Caribbean. The module includes an exploration of key Yoruba concepts and their use in literature and everyday life.
Value: 20 credits

This module considers developments in South Africa since the transition from apartheid in 1994. Topics include the institutional arrangements of the new state; the leadership styles of Mandela, Mbeki and Zuma, as well as the recent leadership struggles within the governing African National Congress and the direction of current politics more broadly; the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and contemporary ‘race relations’; South Africa’s economic prospects; the country’s foreign policy, including its geopolitical role in Africa; immigration and xenophobia; the politics of AIDS and health services provision; land reform and restitution; struggles for gender equality and gay and lesbian rights; new patterns of consumption; witchcraft and organised religion; and trends in media, sport and the arts.
Value: 20 credits

This module studies South Africa from the late 19th century to the end of political apartheid in 1994. The emphasis falls equally on the consolidation of settler domination and on the varieties of African initiative and resistance that shaped and challenged white rule and exploitation. Topics include the change from a predominantly rural and agricultural to an urban and industrial society; the causes and consequences of the Anglo-Boer War and their relationship to the gold mining industry; the segregationist institutions and policies of the settler dominion from 1910-1945; the meaning and making of apartheid after 1948; black nationalism at home and in exile; and the insurrections, states of emergency and negotiations that produced the new South Africa.
Value: 20 credits

This module focuses on the interactions of Africans and Europeans in pre-industrial South Africa. We consider (1) the forces that promoted both settler expansion and the consolidation of powerful African states, for example the Zulu Kingdom; and (2) the conflicts that ensued. Topics include the role of missionaries; the implications of land alienation and labour mobilisation; the cultural and social resources of African resistance; and assimilation and segregation as competing European approaches to incorporating Africans within colonial politics. The module concludes with the changes wrought by the discovery of diamonds and gold in the 1870s and 1880s.
Value: 20 credits

This module examines the contexts - literary, cultural and political - of African literature in English (and in translation) by considering the work of several of the continent’s major contemporary writers who might be said to represent `the canon’ of African literature as it is taught and studied in universities around the world. By the end of the module the student should be able to analyse and explain key texts and literary processes relevant to African literature; discuss these texts and their literary and cultural implications (including analysis of primary evidence where appropriate); and identify the main scholarly views on African Literature.
Value: 20 credits

This module explores the variety of approaches evolved by the continent’s writers in the past two decades to the business of making literature in the circumstances of contemporary Africa. We will look, for example, at writers’ responses to late and post-apartheid South Africa, examine the so called `magical realist’ strategies of some West African authors and consider the debates around the emergence of a distinctive `African women’s literature’. The problems of constructing adequate and appropriate critical tools for the discussion of such work will be considered.
Value: 20 credits

This module focuses on Caribbean poetry, asking whether traditional ideas of literary crafting are relevant to contemporary word culture from the Caribbean. We will look at the relationship between the themes and forms that writing has developed, and the kinds of societies that Caribbean and Black British writers have emerged from and engaged with during the post-colonial period. We will discuss issues of language - the debate between 'nation language' and 'standard English'; of style - the 'Caribbean sonnet' or the dub rant; of production - Faber & Faber or Island Records, and, underlying all of these, of audience - ways in which it/they/we are defined and respond to such writings. Poets to be discussed include Derek Walcott, Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Martin Carter, Claude McKay, Louise Bennett, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Mikey Smith, Jean Binta Breeze, Lorna Goodison and Grace Nichols.
Value: 20 credits

This modules provides an overview of the structure and volume of the transatlantic slave trade and the numbers of people it involved; describes the practices of slave-raiding, slave-trading and slave-owning in selected pre-colonial West African states; explains why the slave trade was abolished; analyzes slaves’ experience of the `middle passage’; explains the economics of plantation slavery, and explores the social and cultural life of slaves on selected Caribbean islands, including an analysis of slave rebellions.
Value: 20 credits

Students focus on an area of specific interest. If fieldwork is involved, they may plan and carry out a project, researching it during a field trip, or work independently but under the broad direction of a departmentally appointed supervisor on an (approved) topic of interest to them. The development of appropriate research skills is encouraged and students are expected to present their work either in the form of extended essay or as a report, approximately 5000 words in length.
Value: 20 credits

In this module, students will identify a topic that is of interest to them and which is appropriate to their chosen degree subject. With the support of a supervisor, they will plan and execute work that culminates in a dissertation of 10,000 words. Students are required to demonstrate a high level of learner independence, as the dissertation is the culmination of the enquiry-based learning that has been developed in the course of their degree programme. By writing a dissertation, students will have the opportunity to practise and consolidate the following transferable skills: project planning; time management; information selection, retrieval and storage (using ICT where appropriate); responding positively to feedback; written communication; and editing and presenting a substantial piece of work (using ICT where appropriate). Please note that students wishing to write a final-year dissertation in CWAS should take the module Perspectives on Africa in their second year.
Value: 40 credits