Contemporary African societies reflect the interplay of tradition and change. The institutions of the past have not simply given way to the newer ones of the present. It is an interplay among what Ali A. Mazrui called a “Triple Heritage” of Indigenous Africa, Islamic Africa, and Euro-Christian/Western Africa. Kwame Nkrumah identified the same dynamic and described it as “Consciencism”—how these three influences on contemporary African life and institutions generate a “crisis of conscience”. Thus, African cultural institutions and practices continue to give direction to the internal and external changes that are taking place in Africa and in the Americas today. This course examines the social, political, economic and religious institutions embodying patterns of culture that have evolved over thousands of years and represent Africa’s contribution to global civilisation. The course enables students to see Africa in a global perspective and provides a framework for scholarly reflection. We approach this course from socio-anthropological perspectives and identify culture as: 

• A lived experience developed over time with contours and detours based on geography, history and environment, 
• African cultures as different yet similar to all other cultures 

The course focuses on three interrelated themes: (a) Cultural processes and institutions that existed just prior to the “arrival” of Europeans, (b) the raptures to these cultural processes and institutions—caused especially by the trans-Atlantic slave trade and its subsequent colonial phase, and (c) the legacies of these ruptures during the postcolonial era to the present. Of particular concern will be the effect on processes of development and democratisation. The integration and/or influences of African cultural institutions with other parts of the world, and the centrality of “Africa” in the world receive attention.