ENGL 2057 - An Introduction to African Literature

Credits: 3
Hours/Week: Lecture None Lab None
Course Description: Africa’s literary backdrop is as vibrant and varied as the gamut of peoples, cultures, languages, and histories that make up the world’s second largest continent. In this course students will retrace the major developments of African literature from the oral to the written, thereby exploring the different themes and the diversely rich approaches used by the practitioners of these different forms. From the epic of Shaka Zulu to the enthralling novels of Linus Asong, African literature offers exciting insights to the interplays of orality and literacy, of the ancient and the modern.
MnTC Goals
6 Humanities/Fine Arts, 8 Global Perspective

Prerequisite(s): Course placement into college-level English and Reading OR completion of ENGL 0950  with a grade of C or higher OR completion of RDNG 0940  with a grade of C or higher and qualifying English Placement Exam OR completion of RDNG 0950  with a grade of C or higher and ENGL 0090  with a grade of C or higher OR completion of ESOL 0051  with a grade of C or higher and ESOL 0052  with a grade of C or higher.
Corequisite(s): None
Recommendation: ENGL 1020   with a grade of C or higher OR ENGL 1021  with a grade of C or higher.

Major Content

1. Modern African Literary traditions: The Colonial period Post colonial period Neo-colonialism
2. Oral traditions Oral tales Oral poetry The epic in Africa.
3. The Continent of Africa.

1. Analyze basic oral and literary elements found in works studied.
2. Analyze these works as expressions of individual, communal, and human values within a historical and social context.
3. Demonstrate an awareness of the scope and variety of works in African literature
4. Analyze international relations as seen through the readings of African literature from the oral traditions into era of modern African literature even in the 21st Century
5. Analyze political, socio-economic and cultural elements in African literature which influence societies, states, and the entire continent¿s relations with the rest of the world in their historical and contemporary dimensions.
6. Articulate an informed personal reaction to works in African oral and literary traditions.
7. Discuss Africa and its peoples through the body of literary works studied

06. 02. Understand those works as expressions of individual and human values within an historical and social context.

06. 03. Respond critically to works in the arts and humanities.

06. 05. Articulate an informed personal reaction to works in the arts and humanities.
Competency 2 (7-10)
08. 01. Describe and analyze political, economic, and cultural elements which influence relations of states and societies in their historical and contemporary dimensions.

08. 02. Demonstrate knowledge of cultural, social, religious and linguistic differences.

08. 03. Analyze specific international problems, illustrating the cultural, economic, and political differences that affect their solution.

08. 04. Understand the role of a world citizen and the responsibility world citizens share for their common global future.

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