CORE 185C - The Sahara

The Sahara has loomed large in the Western imagination yet it has rarely been understood on its own terms. The Sahara’s role in world history has been framed as a bridge or a barrier, the dividing line between Arab and African Africa. Such framings obscure the agency of the people in the Sahara and the land itself. This course explores the relationship between imagination and imperialism in the Sahara, problematizing the idea of objective and disinterested knowledge about the Other — other peoples, other places, and other histories. The central themes of this course are power, racism, and imperialism, which are examined through theories of Orientalism; neocolonialism and world systems theory; post-colonialism and subaltern studies; as well as feminist, gendered, and queer studies approaches.

Credits: 1.00
Corequisite: None
Prerequisites: None
Major/Minor Restrictions: None
Class Restriction: No Junior, Senior
Area of Inquiry: None
Liberal Arts CORE: Communities & Identities

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