The course will provide the analytical and conceptual tools necessary to engage with the history of Mediterranean and Eastern Africa in the modern and contemporary periods.
Course Prerequisites
The student must have acquired the competencies related to a basic course in African history. In the final examination, knowledge of any one of the following textbooks will therefore be taken for granted – and may be verified if necessary: Gian Paolo Calchi Novati and Pierluigi Valsecchi, Africa: la storia ritrovata. Dalle prime formazioni politiche agli stati nazionali, Carocci, Rome, 2016; Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch, Breve storia dell'Africa, il Mulino, Bologna, 2012; Anna Maria Medici, Arrigo Pallotti, and Mario Zamponi, L’Africa contemporanea, Le Monnier, Milan, 2017.
Teaching Methods
Lectures and group discussions.
Assessment Methods
Oral examination
Texts
Bahru Zewde. (2001). A history of modern Ethiopia 1855-1991 Oxford J. Currey; Ioan M. Lewis (1988), A modern history of Somalia : nation and state in the Horn of Africa. Westview; Cresti, Federico. , & Cricco, Massimiliano. (2012). Storia della Libia contemporanea : dal dominio ottomano alla morte di Gheddafi. Roma Carocci.
Contents
In the general section, the state and societies in the Mediterranean (Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Morocco) and in the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia) will be examined from the Long Nineteenth Century to national independence in the 1950s and 1960s, with a broader overview of the postcolonial period up to the present day.
The monographic section will focus on the case study of Morocco within the same chronological framework, from the Long Nineteenth Century to the postcolonial era.
Particular attention will be paid to processes of modernization, colonization, and decolonization. The discussion and deconstruction of categories (colonialism, nationalism, race/ethnicity, gender, etc.), as well as historiographical narratives (colonial historiography, nationalist historiography, etc.), will be the subject of specific analysis.
