The course – taking the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) as a specific case-study – examines the trajectories the continent has experienced since the end of the colonial domination up to the present “new rush for Africa”
Reading material for the preparation of the exam.
Attending students:
- Kevin C Dunn, Imagining the Congo: The International Relations of Identity, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. xi + 196 pp.
- Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, The Congo from Leopold to Kabila: A People’s History, London: Zed Books, 2002
-Attending students will also be given other reading materials (articles, essays, primary documents) in class that will be uploaded on the course’s Moodle page
Non attending students:
- P. Nugent, Africa since independence : a comparative history, New York Macmillan : Palgrave ; 2012, pp. 1-57.
- E. Schmidt, Foreign Intervention in Africa from the Cold War to the War on Terror, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 2013.
- Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, The Congo from Leopold to Kabila: A People’s History, London: Zed Books, 2002
Recommended reading for all students who have no previous knowledge of African history:
- Dennis Laumann, Colonial africa 1884-1994, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013.
All the volumes will be found at the Library of the School of Political Science.
Learning Objectives
The course will provide students with in-depth knowledge on the roots of the contemporary Democratic Republic of the Congo and, through this case-study, of Africa integration in the international arena, focusing on cold-war, post-cold war, and present political strategies.
Abilities acquired at the end of the course: The historical perspective adopted during the course will unable students to situate present African challenges in a long time framework, providing them with consistent analytical tools.
Capacity to apply the knowledge: students will be able to use these new skills while working, in particular, within international organizations, governmental and non-governmental institutions, and media.
Prerequisites
It is desirable (not compulsory) for the students to have some knowledge on African pre-colonial and colonial history; on Contemporary History and on the History of International Relations.
Teaching Methods
Lectures and workshops on primary and bibliographical sources.
Attending students will be asked to read articles and essays which will be discussed in class. In the second part of the course, in groups, students will be asked to work on archival sources and prepare a class presentation. The discussions and presentations will form an important part of the final grade. Attending students will be given access to the Moodle page of the course, where they will find materials related to the issues discussed in class.
Type of Assessment
Attending students are required to actively participate in class discussions; in the second part of the second module they will be asked to work on a specific topic related to the themes of the course, to present in class the results of their research and to write a final essay (10/12 pages max.)
The final assessment will be based on :
- the active participation in class 30%
- the case study organisation 20%
- the case study presentation in class 20%
- the written essay 30%
No final exam for attending students
Non attending students:
an oral exam (or written at student's choice) on the course program consisting in answering open questions based on the topics presented by the authors of the suggested books.
Course program
Today Africa is experimenting a renewed global interest. All the issues that arise and operate within the continent, being them cultural, economic, political or security related, project themselves at an internal level – within each State – at a regional and continental level and reverberate on the relations between Africa and the rest of the world. The image of a marginal and isolated Africa has been definitively superseded, nevertheless the common interpretative instruments used in order to grasp the running processes within the continent seem unfitted; they are often too concentrated on current events and only tuned on emergency as the unique possible view point.
The course, through an historical perspective articulated on a specific case study (that of the Democratic Republic of Congo), encourages students to reflect about the trajectories the continent – formed today by 55 States – has experienced since the end of the colonial domination to the present “new rush for Africa”. Through a methodology that comprises a variety of sources – including literature and cinema – students will build an in-depth knowledge of the recent history of the DRC, linking it to that of the macro-region of which Congo is part and of the entire continent. Called upon to grapple with issues such as the exploitation of resources; the relations between urban and rural areas; identity and religious issues and their manipulation; security in its various forms, the students will develop a personal view and understanding that will allow them to confront the plurality of the political, economic and social processes that have marked and still differently characterize the various African regions and ultimately link Africa, or rather the diverse ‘Africas’, to the rest of the world.
Key issues that will be discussed are:
- The 'encounter' between the Kongo kingdom and the Portuguese: History between reality and representations
- The Atlantic slave trade in an historical perspective
- The advent of Leopold II: imperial competitions and African resistance
- 1908-1960 The Belgian Congo
- The 1950s, the emergence of Congolese political movements and different visions of independence
- Decolonisation and the Cold War: the first Congolese 'crisis', 1960-1964
- The advent of Mobutu: ‘zairization’ and single party
- The 1970s in Southern Africa: the Congo between regional ambitions and internal fragilities
- The 1980s: ‘Mobutu or chaos’? A narrative beneficial to the survival of the regime
- The 1990s: Nothing changes? The sovereign national conference
- 1994: Rwanda, the genocide
- 1996-1997 Mobutu's ouster and new powers in Kinshasa
- 1998-2002 the African 'world' war
- 2002-2018 Kabila jr and the DRC between internal, regional and international dimensions
- 2019 a new era? Félix Tshisekedi in power.
In the second part of the course, through the study of multiple sources (including archival ones), attending students will be invited to develop autonomous research around the topics discussed and to present the result of their personal work in class.