Peter Mark		Tues, Thurs 10-11:20
fall 1999		Zilka 106

Course Précis:

What is "African art?" Does "traditional African art" even exist outside of Western consciousness? This course is based on the premise that art can only be studied and understood within the context of the specific societies from which it grew. In a broader sense, "art" is part of the history of culture and it can only be understood within the context of local and regional history.

This course introduces the cultural history of West Africa from the first millenium to the beginning of the colonial period. This course is intended as an introduction to the precolonial history of West Africa, and as a sketch of what an "art history" of the region might someday resemble.

Course Requirements

There will be a midterm exam, a term paper (8-10 pages) and a final exam. There will also be two class trips, one to New York City (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) and the other to the Housatonic Museum in Bridgeport (to be arranged later). Students will be required to write a short paper based upon their visit to one or the other of these museums.

Suggested Websites to Visit:

www.oswego.edu/other_campus/stud.org/mansa

Required Texts

Curtin, Feierman, Thompson and Vansina, African History, from earliest Times to Independence.

Susan Vogel, Art of the Baule.

Additional Readings will be on libary reserve

See individual assignments listed below.

Course Syllabus

 (Additions and emendations are marked with '*')

I. September 2 and 7:

African Cultural History: the major sources

Definitions and Boundaries -

What ethnic groups? Whose definition of art?

Does "African art" exist?

Objects/ works-of-art as historical texts

From written texts to oral traditions, whose perspective?

Readings:

Curtin, Feierman, Thompson and Vansina, African History, chapter 1 (pp. 1-28).

Donald Wright, "What do you mean there were no tribes in Africa," in History in Africa, 1999, pp. 409-426.

Anthony Appiah, "Why Africa? Why Art? in Africa the Art of a Continent (Guggenheim Museum), pp. 5-8.

September 9:

Paleoclimatology and Archaeology

The environmental factor in ethnic formation on the desert fringe

Reading:

Rod McIntosh, "The Pulse Model: Genesis and Accommodation of Specialization in the Middle Niger," in Journal of African History, 1993, 181-220.

 See archeological site in Niger.

II. Week of September 14:

Historical Sources; a critical interpretation:

The trans-Saharan trade and the Empires of the Western Sudan

The origins of urbanization and state formation

Ancient Ghana (8th-11th century AD) and Mali (1200-1500).

Oral tradition as historical memory:

Week of September 21

Mande oral traditions and archaeological evidence.

Architecture as historical memory

the Jenné-Jeno terra cotta sculptures

Urban monumental architecture: Jenné and Timbuktu

Readings: (September 14)

Curtin, Feierman, et. al. African History, chapter 3.

Reading: (September 21)

D. Conrad and H. Fischer, "The conquest that never was, Ghana and the Almoravids," in History in Africa, 1982 (21-59).

Suggested:

J. Devisse, et. al.,Vallées du Niger. pp. 3-31, 103-115, 365-374, 425-440, 478-492.

III. Week of September 28:

Religion and Spiritual Power among the Mande People

Mande religion and the mystical power of the blacksmiths

'nyamakalaw': wordsmiths, blacksmiths, hunters and potters

Power objects and spiritual ower

Long-distance trade and the spread of Islam

Readings:

Curtin, et. al., African History, chapter 6.

and:

Patrick McNaughton, The Mande Blacksmiths

or:

E. Herbert, Iron, Gender and Power.

Class Trip to New York, Saturday October 9

Short Essay - a writing assignment based on this visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art will be due in the Art Department office Thursday, October 14 at 9 a.m.

IV. Week of October 5:

Gender and Power:

Womens' Power and female masquerades among the Mande and among the peoples of the Upper Guinea Coast

Why have women's masquerades only recently been "discovered" by scholars?

Reading:

E. Herbert, Iron, Gender and Power.

P. Weil, "Women's masks and the power of Gender in Mande History," in African Arts, spring 1998.

Sidney Kasfir, "Elephant Women, Furious and Majestic," Ibid.

Midterm exam, Tuesday, October 19.

V. October 12, 14, and October 26:

Peoples of the Forest: history without written texts

The organization of small-scale societies: local religion and initiation societies

Art of initiation: knowledge and power

Jola masking traditions of Senegal; dances of esoteric knowledge;

Reading:

Mark, The Wild Bull and the Sacred Forest.

(available from Atticus; must be ordered through Dr. Mark by October 1).

VI. October 28 and November 2:

"But is it art?" Sculptural traditions of the Baule of Cote d'Ivoire

Reading:

Susan Vogel, Baule; African art Western eyes.

VII. November 4 and 9:

European sea explorations and European-African interaction; the formation of the modern world.

The Portuguese in Africa; the Luso-African communities.

An African model of identity: Who was "white" in precolonial West Africa?

The Afro-Portuguese ivories; the earliest export art.

Reading:

Mark, "The evolution of 'Portuguese' Identity: Luso-Africans on the Upper Guinea Coast from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth century," in Journal of African History, 1999, no. 2.

VI. November 11 and November 16:

The West African coast in the era of the Atlantic trade

Slavery in Africa;

The Atlantic slave trade:

The demographics of the trade: how many were enslaved?

African systems of "unfreedom" and American chattel slavery.

Reading:

Curtin, et. al., African History, chapter 7.

and:

S. Miers & I. Kopytoff, eds., Slavery in Africa, introduction, pp. 3-78,

or:

Inikori, "The Volume of the British Slave Trade 1655-1807," in Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines, no. 128 (1993).

or:

Martin Klein, "Servitude among the Wolof and Serer of Senegal, in Miers & Kopytoff, ch. 13, pp.335-363.

November 18:

Guest Lecture, Prof. Ibrahima Thioub, University of Dakar, Senegal: "An Islamic artistic tradition, Mouride painting."

VII. Week of November 30:

*Guest Lecture: Dr. Dominique Malaquais, Trinity College and Columbia University School of *Architecture: "Architecture as a means of articulating resistance against the established order"

Islamic reform movements in eighteenth and nineteenth century West Africa

Islamic 'jihad' in West Africa, Futa Jalon and Futa Toro:

Constructing religious identity: the mosques of Futa Toro.

Readings

Curtin, African History, ch. 12 (pp. 325-351)

Bourdier, "The rural mosques of Futa Toro," in African Arts, July 1993.

Term Paper due December 9, 9 a.m. in the Art Department Office. Late papers will be penalized one grade for every day late.

VIII. Week of December 7:

The Eve of the Colonial Period

The interaction of Western and African modes of thinking and doing

Colonial Architecture: the construction of power.

Culture as Process: beyond the "traditional vs. modern" paradigm.

Reading:

Curtin, et. al., chapter 15 (pp. 398-422), chapter 18 (pp. 469-489).

Short Writing Assignment
Visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Arha 299/History 229

Select one of the works listed below. All are in the Michael Rockefeller wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Answer first the following basic questions: what is the object? That is, what was its original function and what might it have represented? What is it made of and what is the scale of the object?

Does the form of your piece establish compositional rhythms - i.e. repeated patterns or varied patterns? If so, do these rhythms animate the object and, if so, how? In what other manners does the artist convey a sense of vitality or of force to the work?

Discuss the surface: is there patina (encrustation)? If so, does it refer to possible ritual use? How might such patina give evidence of the object's spiritual power?

Select one:
Bamana 'boli' figures

Snake headdress, Baga peoples, Guinea, either 1978.412.339 or 1979.206.101

Kneeling mother and child, Dogon, Mali, 1981.398.1

Antelope, Bamana, Mali, 'chi wara kun,' 1978.412.435