Seminar Leader: Professor Dominic Thomas
Department of French and Francophone Studies, UCLA

Dates: Mondays, March 1, April 12, May 3, 2004 (9am-4pm)
Classroom release time required. University Extension credits available.

European colonialism in Africa during the 19th and early part of the 20th Century provided some of the most challenging and compelling examples of cultural encounters - educational, religious, etc. Beginning with the legacy of colonial rule and African responses to the colonial project, we will examine these historical events and attempt to locate them in a broader cultural, political, and social framework through a consideration of writings and films about Africa.

Our discussion will focus on texts written by two francophone African writers - Camara Laye (The Dark Child) Mariama Ba (So Long a Letter). The first book explores the childhood of an African boy in the Mande region of former French-Guinea during the later years of colonial rule, while the second book looks at polygamy and gender relations in Senegal. We will also have the opportunity to screen two films, Sugarcane Alley (exploring colonial education in the Caribbean) and Chocolat (Claire Denis's film about colonialism and racism). We will also consider important gender questions raised by the documentary Warrior Marks.

French colonialism in francophone Africa officially ended during the 1960s, and African writers have addressed this influence in their writings - oral literature, missionary activity, Islam, gender roles, traditional practices vs. Western modernity, colonial education vs. Koranic education, etc. Our project then, will consist in exploring these issues and divergent voices, while also attempting to locate the broader implications of these concerns for the African Diaspora, immigrant populations in contemporary France, and francophone Africa and the Caribbean today.

Cutting across the social science, humanities and language arts and foreign language fields and the corresponding standards (communication, culture, connection, comparison and communities), the seminar has particular relevance and provides excellent materials to teachers of French, world literature and world history, as well as to individuals interested in enhancing their literacy and critical learning skills.

Dominic Thomas (Ph.D. Yale 1996) is a specialist of sub-Saharan African literatures and cultures. His publications include Nation-Building, Propaganda, and Literature in Francophone Africa and Black France: Colonialism, Immigration, and Transnationalism (forthcoming). He is also the co-editor of Francophone Studies: New Landscapes, a special issue of Modern Language Notes. Thomas has been a Visiting Scholar at Northwestern University and a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the Cornell Society for the Humanities. He was the Dr. William M. Scholl Foundation Chair in Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Notre Dame before moving to UCLA.