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Europe and the Other: the Middle East and Africa encounter
Europe, 1000-2000

Topic description
Objectives: The objectives of this course are
- to deepen the knowledge of some important phases of Europe’s encounter with the
Other in Middle East and Africa
- to reflect upon the connections between power and knowledge, in particular in the
field of history, by discussing various theoretical approaches and specific historical
cases
- to discuss the production of ‘counter-narratives’ by which exploited individuals and
communities resist their oppression

Course Descriptions: No encounter is neutral. Our knowledge of the Other is constructed

through presuppositions and bias which are embedded in power relations.
During the Middle Age, Europe met the ‘Oriental’ mostly through the Crusades, and was in a
position of political and military fragility. This situation affected the content and the
modalities of mutual knowledge. In the 19th century, instead, science had become the
instrument of Western supremacy. The kind of knowledge formulated by Europe about the
Other was, and still is, an objectifying knowledge, and their encounters were portrayed as
Western missions to save the Other from his/her own incapacity

This course starts by posing some crucial questions, such as: why do we want to know the
Other? And also, which are the conditions for such knowledge?
The course will approach the above questions first from a theoretical point of view, and
thinkers such as Said, Foucault, Gramsci, and Guha will be discussed. Then, we will proceed
to the analysis of specific historical cases, from the Middle Age to the time of decolonization,
even if the most substantial part of the course will be dedicated to the modern times. We will
examine how history is built through a synthesis of narratives, informed by points of views
which are often contradictory and in competition. The course will largely make use of
documents, produced by antagonistic historical agents, such as “us” and “them”, male and
female, slaveowners and slaves, colonial administrators and anti-colonial intellectuals. It will
also include excerpts of famous literary works, documentaries, and paintings.
Finally, it should be mentioned that various theories discussed are still controversial,
including Said’s famous theory on Orientalism. Thus, the aim of this course is not only to
teach to the students the history of Europe’s encounter with the Other, but first and foremost
to stimulate –and perhaps provoke- students’ critical thinking, and to constitute a starting
point for further readings and research.

Teaching Modalities
For each week, I have assigned one article of secondary literature, one or more documents,
and a reference work. It will be my responsibility to guide you to the retrieval of this material.
The reference work represent the ‘hard fact’ to be learned; the secondary literature deals with
various questions related to the topic of this course, and the section ‘documents’ help you to
train your skills as historians.
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Each week will include six hours of lecture. For each week, there will be time for lecturing
but also time for class discussion and for group work. In addition, I have chosen to screen
several documentaries on the various topics covered, as I believe they are a privileged way
not only to learn, but also to think critically.
As a student in this course, you are expected to be an active member of the class in all
sessions. That means you have to come to class having read the assigned material and
prepared to contribute something.
At the end of each week I will provide you with the material to read for the following one and
with a set of questions in which individually or by group you are requested to work. The main
purpose of these questions is to prepare you for the class discussions. However, you will also
be requested to formulate your own questions and views. Usually Wednesday will be the day
dedicated to group work.

Evaluation:
The evaluation will not consist in an ordinary oral exam. It will instead be based on different
criteria: your participation to the classes and to discussions, group assignments, and finally the
term paper, what I would call as a Home Exam: on the basis of the lectures, you will have one
week to develop in about 10 pages a topic that I will chose for each of you. Thus, the final
grade will be a combination of the following factors:

Class participation 30%

Groups Assignments 30%
Term paper 40%

Total 100%

COURSE OUTLINE

Week 1: Orientalism and its intellectual origins: From Gramsci to Foucault

* Edward Said (1978), Orientalism Introduction, pp 1-28 (28pp)

* Michel Foucault [1989 (1972)], Preface to The Order of the Things

* Chakrabarty: Provincializing Europe

Reference:
* Antonio Gramsci and related entries at:
http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/hegemony.html (7pp)

Week 2: Europe, Africa and the Middle East during the Middle Age and
Renaissance, reciprocal visions

*Said Orientalism, pp. 49-73 (24pp)

*Daniel, Norman (1966) Islam, Europe and Empire, Chapter 1: The Developing Image, pp. 3-
35 (30 pp)
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* Alden T. Vaughan and Virginia Mason Vaughan, Before Othello: Elizabethan

Representations of Sub-Saharan Africans, The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series,
Vol. 54, No. 1 (Jan., 1997), pp. 19-44 (25 pp)
URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2953311

Reference:
* Fage Todoroff (2001), A History of Africa; Chapter 9: The beginning of European
Entreprise in Africa, pp. 215-243 (28 pp)

Week 3: Changing visions on Africans: from the Atlantic slave trade to

abolitionism, the question of slave narratives and representations

* John Sekora ‘Black Message/White Envelope: Genre, Authenticity, and Authority

in the Antebellum Slave Narrative’, Callaloo, No. 32 (Summer, 1987), pp. 482-515 (33 pp)
URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2930465

Documents:
* Curtin, Africa Remembered (1967), Chapter 3: Prisley, ‘Philip Quaque of Cape Coast’, pp.
99-139.

* Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano

http://history.hanover.edu/texts/equiano/equiano_contents.html

Reference:
* Fage Todoroff (2001), A History of Africa. Chapter 10: The first stage of the impact of
world trade on tropical Africa: the export slave trade, pp 244- 262 (18 pp)

- Screening of the Movie: Amazing Grace

Week 4: The Bon Sauvage, Enlightenment and Africa and the Beginnings of the Empire
in Africa

* T. Carlos Jacques, From Savages and Barbarians to Primitives: Africa, Social

Typologies, and History in Eighteenth-Century French Philosophy, History and Theory, Vol.
36, No. 2 (May, 1997), pp. 190-215 ( 25 pp)
URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2505337

* Comaroff & Comaroff (1991) Of Revelations and Revolutions, part 1: Chapter 3: Africa
Observed, pp. 86-125 (39 pp)

Documents
* Toussaint L'Ouverture: A Biography and Autobiography: Electronic Edition, pp.
28-42 (14 pp)
http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/beard63/

Screening of the movie: Toussanit Louverture and the Haitian Revolution

Week 5: Empire
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* Patrick Brantlinger Victorians and Africans: The Genealogy of the Myth of the
Dark Continent, Critical Inquiry, Vol. 12, No. 1, "Race," Writing, and Difference
(Autumn, 1985), pp. 166-203, (37 pp)
URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1343467

Documents
* Lord Lugard (1965 [1922]) The Dual Mandate. Chapter IV: The People of British
Tropical Africa, pp. 64-93; Chapter XI: Methods of Ruling Native Races, pp. 214-
229 (45 pp)

Reference:
* Fage Todoroff (2001), A History of Africa, Chapter 13: The expansion of European
power during the 19th century, 1: General Considerations; West Africa, pp. 326-354;
Chapter 14: The expansion of European power during the 19th century, 2, pp. 361-
381 (46 pp)

Week 6: Questions of Gender: The Europeans’ gaze upon women in Middle East and
Africa

* Simone de Beauvoir: “The second sex” – Introduction.

* Jennifer L. Morgan "Some Could Suckle over Their Shoulder": Male Travelers,
Female Bodies, and the Gendering of Racial Ideology, 1500-1770, The William and
Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 54, No. 1 (Jan., 1997), pp. 167-192 (25 pp)
URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2953316

Documents
* Mabro (1996), Veiled Half-Truths, Western travelers’ perceptions of Middle Eastern
Women. Introduction, pp. 1-27; Chapter 4, Lifting the veil, pp. 64-71; Chapter 6: The voice of
sex crying in the wilderness pp. 118-23 (41pp)

Week 7 : Nationalisms and Resistance

* Arnold, Modernism and Negritude (1981), Chapter 5: the Epic of Negritude, pp. 133-168
(35pp)

Reference:
* Fage Todoroff (2001), A History of Africa. Chapter 17: Independence Resumed, pp. 460-90

Documents:
* Fanon (1963) The wretched of the earth. On National Culture, pp. 206-248 (37 pp)

* Williams and Chrisman eds. (1996), Colonial discourse and post-colonial theory : a reader;
Chapter 1; Senghor Negritude: A humanism of the Twentieth Century, pp 27-35; Aime
Cesaire, From discourse on Colonialism, pp. 172-180 (16 pp)

Screening of the Movie: Aimé Césaire