The two thousand miles of African coast from Casablanca to the shores of Tripoli are barely known to most Americans, but for the last hundred and fifty years they have been intimately linked to Europe. In this course, we will consider the encounter of Europe and North Africa--the Maghreb (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya)--from the French assault on Algiers in 1830 up to the present. The story we will study is one of extremes: violent wars of conquest, palace intrigues, colonial projects, stilted attempts at modernization, imperialist schemes, nationalist dreams, and a brutal war of independence. Special attention will be given to the ways in which North Africans and Europeans have thought about each other and this clash of cultures in art, literature and film.
Since the early nineteenth century, North Africa has played a special role in the European imagination. It has stood for the exotic, the picturesque, the sensual, and the barbaric. This kind of imagining went hand in hand with a vigorous campaign to dominate and colonize North Africa, an effort led by the French, but common to much of western Europe. North Africans have thus been forced to think about Europe. And they have done so in deeply ambivalent ways, portraying Europe as home to violence and Enlightenment, greed and high culture. One of the aims of this course will be to relate these issues of culture and perception to the violence of this colonial history. Is there any connection between Gêrome's portraits of languid oriental beauties and the French military campaign to dominate Algeria? Is there any contradiction in the use of the French language by Maghrebi writers to articulate an anti-French nationalist agenda? We will multiply such questions. But we shall also seek to explore the aspects of the cultural encounter of North Africa and Europe that cannot be reduced to violence or domination. What did Muhammad as-Saffar (Moroccan scholar, emissary for the Sultan) find in his 1845-6 journey to Paris? What did the French painter Delacroix find in his 1832 travels to North Africa? We, as travelers in time and space, will follow them both in order to uncover the worlds they inhabited.
This course is a writing course. It fulfills the English Composition Board first-year requirement. The goal will be to learn how history is written and to learn how to write about history. From the beginning, I insist that students distinguish the argumentative essay from the report. Class sessions and assignments are designed to help students recognize good, subtle, and weighty arguments. A series of short writing assignments will cultivate the varieties of writing that college-level history courses require. Students will learn: how to research a topic; how to write about a secondary work of history; how to develop an interpretation out of a primary text; how to read for the assumptions or ideas that underlie an essay, a painting, a short story. A longer paper will ask students to develop a historical interpretation of a particular cultural artifact.
This course is: an introduction to the tumultuous history of colonial North Africa; an introduction to the cultural history of colonialism; a practical course on writing about history. It is also a discussion seminar. Aside from occasional lectures offered for background information and your own presentations, class sessions will consist of discussion of the works and issues at hand. If this is going to be successful, it is essential that you do the reading well and come to class with something to say: a question, a comment, a disagreement, or some connection you have made.
The following texts are required reading for the course:
The books are available from Shaman Drum Books, the coursepack from Michigan Document Service. All of these will be on reserve at the Undergraduate library.
There are two required films for the course.
There will be an optional film showing at the end of the course.
The following are a few historical works that are useful reference for the study of the Arab world, the Maghreb, and colonialism. These books are available on reserve in the Undergraduate library.
NB: All writing exercises and papers are due on the scheduled date. Late papers will only be accepted by special arrangement and they will be penalized. I give the day of the week for those papers due outside of class. Turn these in to my mailbox at the history department by 4 p.m.
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Ex. # 1. Keywords. Define and analyze a key term (1 pp.) |
SEPT. 10 |
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Ex. # 2. Close reading of a primary source (2 pp.) |
SEPT. 19 |
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Paper # 1. Short Paper - On Fantasia (4 pp.) |
SEPT. 26 |
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Paper # 2. Short Paper &emdash; Interpreting a Primary Source (4 pp.) |
OCT. 15 |
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Paper # 3. Short Paper &emdash; Critique of a Secondary Source (4 pp.) |
OCT. 31 |
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Ex. # 3. Research proposal (1 p.) |
NOV. 11 (Mon.) |
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Ex. # 4. Summary of your primary source and its historical context (2 pp.) |
NOV. 14 |
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Ex. # 5. Outline of your paper (2 pp.) |
NOV. 18 |
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Ex. # 6. Draft of final paper (6-8 pp.) |
NOV. 27 (Wed.) |
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Paper # 4 &emdash; Revised Final Paper (8-10 pp.) |
DEC. 9 (Mon.) |
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Ex. # 7. Self-evaluation (1-2 pp.) and turn in writing porfolio. |
DEC. 14 (Fri.) |
In the last month of the course, you will prepare a short research project, examining a single primary source or a single historical question. You may choose to look deeper into something we've treated in class, or set off on your own to apply what you've learned in class to something new. We will talk about potential research topics all through the semester. A few possible topics which might get you started thinking (and I will give you further guidance as you focus your interests): Travel Accounts of North Africa (Isabelle Eberhardt, for example); Films/Novels of the North African Immigrant Experience ("Rai," "La Haine," Mehdi Charef's Tea in the Harem); Images of North Africa in Hollywood Films ("Beau Geste"); North African and European Musical Influences (Cheb Khaled and Rai Music).
Keep all of the writing exercises and papers you do for this course, together with my comments, in a writing portfolio. We will meet three times across the term to discuss your writing portfolio.
Your course grade will measure your effort and achievement in this course. The following is offered as a rough guide: 70% of your grade is based on the quality and completeness of your writing portfolio; 30% of your grade is based on class discussion.