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CS92PROD
Iberian Expansion and the "Discovery" of Africa in Travel Narratives and Art, 1420--1640

AFAM 310
Fall 2017
Section: 01  
Crosslisting: ARHA 300
Course Cluster: African Studies, African Studies Minor

This seminar is broadly centered on Atlantic history from the early 15th to the middle of the 17th centuries. The course addresses the origins of culture contact between Europe and Africa and the subsequent creation of mixed cultures. We will trace European expansion from the earliest Portuguese sea voyages along the African coast, shortly after 1420, to the opening of maritime commerce to West Africa and the origins of the transatlantic slave trade. We will examine evolving attitudes on the part of both Europeans and African peoples toward each other as documented in travel literature and in artistic representations of Africans by European artists and of Europeans by African sculptors. After Portuguese explorations of Africa began around 1420, the expansion of commerce and the settlement of Europeans, mostly Portuguese, on the West African coast led to a period of extensive métissage (mixture), both cultural and physical, and of remarkable fluidity in attitudes toward Africans. However, by the early 17th century, the Atlantic slave trade had begun to take on important dimensions, setting the stage for the increasingly racialist attitudes that would characterize European relations with Africa during the colonial period.
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA AFAM, SBS AFAM
Course Format: SeminarGrading Mode: Graded
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Major Requirement for: (AFST-MN)(AMST)
Past Enrollment Probability: 75% - 89%

Last Updated on MAR-28-2024
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