African 203 (Section 2): Africans in Motion ‒ Migration, Identity & Representation

This course will cover a wide range of topics that show how identity is influenced by movement within and outside the continent. We will critically engage cultural productions by African writers and intellectuals from different African regions that discuss the movement of Africans. This course is divided into three sections: textual, audio, and visual literature. In this course, we will look at traditional cultural productions and other textual forms like memoir, spoken word poetry, novels, short stories, and films. Each week, we will focus on a genre and discuss how discussions on migration and identity are scaffolded. By focusing on different visual and textual forms, we will examine how these forms portray migration and how to analyze different cultural productions. At the end of this course, students will be able to answer the following questions: What is African Migration literature? How are African migrants’ identities reflected in African cultural production? How has the discourse of migration changed over the years?