Back to selection
69216-01 - Proseminar: House of Stone: Kings, Cities, and Mountains in Medieval and Early Modern Southern Africa (3 CP)
| Semester | fall semester 2023 |
| Course frequency | Once only |
| Lecturers | Ettore Morelli (ettore.morelli@unibas.ch, Assessor) |
| Content | Where is the king? Who is the king? In southern Africa, long time ago, these questions could have almost the same answer: the king is on the mountain; the king is the mountain. Rule, wealth, rank, and power were associated with elevated places such as rocky fortresses, imposing hilltops, or even gentle slopes a few meters high above the endless grassy plains of the southern African interior, where smaller or larger urban spaces grew around powerful men and women. The course sketches an overview of kingship in Medieval and Early Modern southern Africa from c.1200 to c.1800, focusing on several key urban localities across the vast region south of the Zambezi River: Mapungubwe, the first southern African state and home of the Golden Rhino in the 13th century; the colossal curved walls of Great Zimbabwe in the 14th century; the decorated Rozvi cities of the Monomotapa in the 17th century; and the reticular conurbation of Lithakong on the Kalahari desert’s edge in the 18th century. The course will also hint at different but historically related urban places of power such as the Swahili stone towns of the east African coast and the early colonial fortified settlements of Luanda and Cape Town. The history of Africa has been providing fresh challenges for historians for the past seventy years. Studying and researching African history requires the acquisition of a varied and malleable disciplinary toolkit which spans from traditional philological and historiographical approaches to anthropology, archaeology, and linguistics. The course will provide forays into these disciplines, in the understanding that their usefulness potentially extends to all fields of historical enquiry and that exercising them helps our scholarship to become deeper, more refined, and ready to take up the challenges of today’s historical work. |
| Bibliography | François-Xavier Fauvelle, Le Rhinocéros d'or. Histoires du Moyen Age africain, Paris, Alma Editeur, 2013 (also available in English, German, and Italian) W.G.L. Randles, L'empire du Monomotapa du XVe au XIXe siècle, Paris, Mouton & Co, 1975 (also available in English) S.I.G. Mudenge, A Political History of Munhumutapa, c. 1400-1902, Harare, African Publishing Group, 2011. Innocent Pikirayi, The Zimbabwe Culture: Origins and Decline of Southern Zambezian States, Oxford, AltaMira Press, 2001. Paul Stuart Landau, Popular Politics in the History of South Africa, 1400-1948, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2010. |
| Admission requirements | Für Studierende des BSF Geschichte im Grundstudium mit abgeschlossenem Einführungskurs Geschichte. Teilnahme an der ersten Sitzung ist obligatorisch. Die Teilnehmer:innenzahl ist auf 25 beschränkt. Bei Überbelegung werden Studierende des BSF Geschichte, die noch kein Proseminar in dem Modul absolviert haben, bevorzugt zugelassen. |
| Course application | Belegung via Mona. |
| Language of instruction | English |
| Use of digital media | No specific media used |
| Interval | Weekday | Time | Room |
|---|---|---|---|
| wöchentlich | Wednesday | 16.15-18.00 | Departement Geschichte, Seminarraum 3 |
Dates
| Modules |
Modul: Basis Frühe Neuzeit (Bachelor's degree subject: History) Modul: Basis Mittelalter (Bachelor's degree subject: History) |
| Assessment format | continuous assessment |
| Assessment details | Aktive Teilnahme. |
| Assessment registration/deregistration | Reg.: course registration; dereg.: not required |
| Repeat examination | no repeat examination |
| Scale | Pass / Fail |
| Repeated registration | no repetition |
| Responsible faculty | Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch |
| Offered by | Departement Geschichte |