Program Highlighted | African Studies
Introduction by | Professor Dickson Eyoh
Interview with | Jason Smit
Date | August 2000

Introduction | Director of African Studies, Professor Dickson Eyoh

The African Studies Program attracts students with varied backgrounds and interests. Area-focused programs like ours are vehicles for enhancing cross-cultural knowledge, through exploring the similarities and differences among the world's diverse societies and cultures. Our students realize that the greatest value in studying the past and present experiences of African societies is that they also get to learn about themselves and their native or adopted countries. We live in a world that is being restructured by the rapid 'globalization' of economic, political, and cultural processes and relations. For good or bad, interactions among societies are becoming more intense and the fate of societies more interlocked than ever. The most crucial intellectual and practical task of our times is the need to understand the reasons for the similarities and differences in the responses of nations and regions to the multiple and interrelated challenges of 'globalization' - the challenges of sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction, environmental stress, justice and equality at local and global levels, cultural survival and change etc. The need for enhanced cross-cultural knowledge has never been greater. Our students go on to careers in education, journalism, law, international development and other areas. A concern for the critical issues of our times and awareness of a common universal humanity motivates their choice of careers.

The African Studies Program offers students the opportunity to concentrate their studies on Africa through courses devoted to African history, society and culture. This program was created in 1978 and has since offered multi-disciplinary programs of study about Africa at three different levels of specialization. The core courses are drawn from Anthropology, History, Literature and Political Science, together with a few interdisciplinary courses. Additional courses in these disciplines and in Sociology and Music round out the program offerings.

Students registered in African studies programs are encouraged to pursue a complementary focus in one of the traditional disciplines. Relevant to Africa, and giving good introductory background in their respective disciplines, are the following courses: Anthropology 204Y (Social and Cultural Anthropology); History 101Y (Emergence of the Third World); and Political Science 201Y (Politics of the Third World).

There is a specialist program available (11 of 20 courses) as well as a major program (6 of at least 15 courses) and a minor program (4) courses. The specialist program requires two years of language study designed to broaden access to the literature on Africa in French, Portuguese, Swahili, Arabic or another African language. Courses are taught by faculty members who have administrative, teaching and research experience in various parts of Africa.

Beyond coordinating the programs of study on Africa in the various disciplines, African Studies at New College helps to arrange seminars and cultural events centered on Africa and areas of the African diaspora, such as the Caribbean. The program works closely with student and community organizations interested in Africa and with academic programs and departments with parallel interests. It benefits from the useful Africa-related holdings and journal subscriptions of the Donald Glenn Ivey Library at New College.

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Interview | Jason Smit

Jason is a former Innis College Environmental Studies student. For the complete interview click here.

For furher information about the program in University of Toronto and beyond, click here.