History

Chinyenum Amadi

Intro to African American Studies

Dr. Carr

How do we undertake the study of the African Experience

Abstract:

To understand how we undertake the study of African Experience, we have to look back to history, from hundreds of years down to when civilization started back from Ancient Egypt. To know how to undertake the African Experience, we have to take into consideration the six conceptual categories. These categories include the social structure of the people talked about., the governance, their ways of knowing, type of devices that were developed to shape their nature and relationship (science and technology), their movement and memory and lastly the cultural meaning making. With these concepts, we can draw information on how African studies was implemented.

Critical Review of Scholarship:

From the onset of class starting from the beginning of the semester, we’ve brought up questions and answers to how Africans were the first to come up with ideas and most of the languages that has been forgotten today. One of the books recommended by Professor Carr is, “Something Torn and New, An African Renaissance,” by Ngugi wa Thiong’o. I would focus on some of the class discussions and the text book to explain the study of African Experience and how recent times has changed.

In Something Torn and New, Ngugi purposely gave up English language and focuses on writing African languages. Here, he explores Africa’s historical, economic, and cultural fragmentation by slavery, colonialism and globalization. Throughout this history, the result was the dismemberment of African memory. This dismemberment occurred in two stages. During the first stage, the continent and its dispora were the first stage in which African humanhood was divided. In the first chapter, he explains saying that African continent is someworth noted as Anglophone, Francophone or Lusaphone. Also indicating that due to slavery, Africans had lost their identity and their...