MAGHAN KEITA
  Professor
  African, World, Class, and Gendered Histories
  Villanova University
 

Department of History

  St. Augustine Center 433
  Villanova, PA 19085
  maghan.keita@villanova.edu
(610) 519-6964

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Links to Syllabi

          Atlantic World

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CurriculumVitae

Area of Instruction: African, African-American, European, and World Histories; Political Economy; Development Studies.

 

Educational Background:   

Howard University,Washington, D.C.  Doctor of Philosophy, African Studies, 1988. Course Concentration: History and Political Economy of Southern Africa. Dissertation: The Political Economy of Health Care in Senegal.

Cleveland State University, Cleveland, Ohio Master of Arts, American History,1975.

Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio. Bachelor of Arts, East Asian History and ChineseLanguage, 1972.

 

Academic Appointments:

 

Present: Villanova University, Villanova, PA

Professor of History

--Director, Center for Arab and Islamic Studies

Director, Africana Studies

Director, Summer Graduate Program in World History

Associate Director, Center for Peace and Justice Education

Faculty, Arab & Islamic Institute

Instruction in African, African-American and World Histories and Western Civilization at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Focus on political economy as historical methodology with emphasis on the analysis of social formation and development within the stated historical context.

 

1993: Visiting Professor in Black Studies, Swarthmore College

 

1979-1980: United Nations African Institute for Economic Development and Planning, Dakar, Senegal. Visiting Lecturer and Researcher: Lectured and conducted research on U.S. foreign policy towards Africa and the political economy of health care and development in Africa.

 

1979-1980: University of Dakar, Faculte des Lettres, Dakar, Senegal.  Visiting Lecturer: Lectured on the African-American novel as history, highlighting the works of Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston, Ann Petry, and others. Discussion of images and historical events which are key to the formation of the African-American community in the American historical process.

 

 

Publications:

 

Articles:

"The African Contribution to Western Civilization," The Pan-Africanist Journal ( 1998).

"Bibliographic Essay," in Thomas Gossett, Race: the History of an Idea in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).

"The Political Economy of Health Care in Senegal," Journal of Asian and African Studies, XXXI 3-4 (1996).

"Deconstructing the Classical Age: Africa and the Unity of the Mediterranean World," The Journal of Negro History, LXXIX, 2 (Spring 1994).

"Linking Pre-Colonial Africa and Pre-Columbian America: the Implications and the Impact on Old World/New World Scholarship," in N. Sudarkasa, ed., The African-American Experience: a Multidisciplinary Approach, (New York: Harper Collins, 1994)

"Deconstruction and Reconstruction: Africa and Medieval and Renaissance History," The Medieval Feminist Newsletter, 16 (Fall 1993).

"Glasnost, Perestroika, and the Peace Dividend: U.S./Soviet Foreign Policy, The Great Thaw and its Effects on Southern Africa," Ufahamu, XIX, 3, 1992.

"Bond, (Horace) Julian," in Charles D. Lowery and John F. Marszalek, eds.  Encyclopedia of African-American Civil Rights (New York: Greenwood Press, 1992).

"Giovanni, Nikki," in Charles D. Lowery and John F. Marszalek, eds. Encyclopedia of African-American Civil Rights (New York: Greenwood Press, 1992).

"Hampton Conference," in Charles D. Lowery and John F. Marszalek, eds.  Encyclopedia of African-American Civil Rights (New York: Greenwood Press, 1992).

"Multiculturalism, Mandate for the Nineties: Myth of the American Monolith,"  Journal of Multicultural Studies, (Spring 1991).

"The Dynamics of Ethnicity and Religion in Post-Colonial Health Care in Senegal," Contemporary French Civilization, Summer 1990.

"Scholarship as a Global Commodity: Intellectual Communities in Renaissance and Medieval Africa," Proceedings of the PMR Conference, Summer 1990.

 

Books:

A  Political  Economy of Health Care in Senegal   (Leiden: Brill,  2007)

Conceptualizing/Re-conceptualizing  Africa: The Construction of African Historical Identity , Editor,(Leiden: Brill, 2002)

Riddling the Sphinx. Race, the Writing of history, and America's Culture Wars (New York: Oxford University Press)

Working for the Food of Freedom: African Initiatives for Changes, with Bill Raw, Susan Roche, and Fantu Cheru (Washington, D.C.: Africa Peace and justice Network, 1988).

South Africa Education and Resource Guide (New York: Africa Office, The National Council of Churches in Christ in the U.S.A., 1986).

A Zaire Symposium, Editor, (New York: Africa Office, The National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., 1983).

South Africa: Challenge and Hope, Writer; Staff Consultant; Member,, Editorial Committee (Philadelphia: American Friends Service Committee, Southern Africa Working).

 

Presentations:

"The Signares and the Construction of Colonialism in Senegal," The Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Conference on "Comparative Colonialisms: Preindustrial Colonial Intersections in Global Perspective" SUNY, Binghamton, November 1997.

"Urban Culture in Medieval and Renaissance Western Sudan," The Smithsonian

Institute, "Echoes from the Desert Edge" series, Washington, D.C., October 1997.

"The Black Body in Society: Health, Education, and Social Well-Being," Roundtable, "The 21st Century and Beyond," A 25 th Anniversary Conference Afro-American Studies Program, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, October 1997.

"Terror in Mississippi: The Shwerner, Chaney, and Goodman Case," The History Channel, September 1997.

"Matters of Race and Color," Africana Studies Program Lecture Series, Vassar College, Poughkeepssie, September 1997.

"Paradigm Shifts: Africa and the world," The Sixth International Conference of the World History Association, Pamplona, Spain, June 1997.

 

 

History of Terrorism (S' 2008)

 

 

 

 

A HISTORY OF TERRORISM

 

While our politicians want us to believe we know it when we see it, terrorism remains a sticky wicket; an entity whose contemporary existence, and therefore historical evolution, are mired in politics. One goal of this course is the unpacking of contemporary political definitions of this thing called terror. This is engaged to better enable analysis of various theoretical conceptualizations of terror and terrorism and then to construct histories of terrorism and the uses of terror in history. The key is movement away from conventional definition and theory to serious critique of terror in the construction of social order in both the historical and contemporary senses.

 

This will be achieved through a close and nuanced reading of our sources and vigorous discussion and debate of them. The primary point that you, as students, need to keep in the forefront of this exercise is that this is a seminar. Its success is predicated on your participation. You can participate in a meaningful way only if you come to class prepared and willing to participate. In that regard, 25% of the course grade will rest on class participation; an additional 50% will be relegated to two (2), five-page (5) analytical essays (one epistemological; the other historiographic); and, the remaining 25% is reserved for an analytical research paper of 15-20 pages. PAPERS ARE DUE 3/3/2008; 4/7/2008; AND, 5/5/2008, respectively. 

 

The texts for the class are:

 

            Laqueur, A History of Terrorism

            Richardson, What Terrorists Want

            Ali, A Clash of Fundamentalisms

            Rushdie, Shalimar the Clown

 

 

 

            Week 1

Richardson, Roots of Terrorism, xi-13 (electronic reserve)

Laqueur, A History of Terrorism

Gardner, “September 11” (electronic reserve)

Crenshaw, “Psychology of Terrorism” (electronic reserve)

 

            Week 2

                        Laqueur

Krueger, “Education, Poverty and Terrorism” (electronic reserve)

De Mesquita, “The Quality of Terror” (electronic reserve)

 

            Week 3

                        Richardson, What Terrorists Want

                        Bergesen, “International Terrorism” (electronic             reserve)

                        Schwartz, “Environmental Terrorism”(electronic reserve)

 

            Week 4

                        Richardson

Greenwood, “Terrorism as Discourse” (electronic    reserve)

Heston, “Crusaders and Jihads” (electronic reserve)

 

            Week 5

                        Kydd, “Sabotaging the Peace”(electronic reserve)

                        Silvestri, “The Sinn Fein of India” (electronic reserve)

 

            Week 6

Chellaney, “Fighting Terrorism in Southern Asia” (electronic reserve)

Rushdie, Shalimar the Clown

 

            Week 7

                        Rushdie

                        Apter, “Out of Character” (electronic reserve)

 

            Week 8

                        Ali, The Clash of Civilizations

 

            Week 9

                        Ali

 

            Week 10

                             Jones, "Review-Parainstitutional  Violence"

                              Mason, "Political  Economy of Death Squads"

                          

           

            Week 11

                         O'Brien, "Well Regulated Militia"

                         van Dyke, "Patriot and Militia Organizing"

            Week 12

                          Feldman, “Soft Opposition” (electronic reserve)                          Cardyn, “Sexualized Racism” (electronic reserve)C

 

TBA

 

 

           

 

 

 

"The World is a Book…."

Augustine of Hippo

 

INTRODUCTION TO GLOBAL INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES

Critical Thinking

Problem Solving

Responsible Global Citizenship

 

The Introduction to Global Interdisciplinary Studies is a gateway for re-conceptualizing the world and the bodies of knowledge that construct it. It is preparatory to a mode of thinking that is consciously and deliberately both global and interdisciplinary. As the Institute’s credo implies, the Introduction to Global Interdisciplinary Studies focuses on critical thinking as the fundamental tool for engaging in problem solving, and in that act, carrying out our roles as responsible global citizens.

This is a proseminar. The very nature of the learning environment is intensified by this intellectual setting. The proseminar is a space of contending ideas, disciplines, and methodologies. It is a space of learners in which each learner is a teacher. There is no room for reticence given the obligation of each learner to teach all others. Participation is an obligation, not an option. In that regard, you are to enter each class session prepared.

Because this is a proseminar, we will be joined from time to time by various members of the faculty who will come to share their disciplinary expertise and the perspectives those expertise convey of the world.

The writing intensive nature of the course constitutes a major dynamic that will also be used to spur in-class discussion. There will be two papers and a final exercise that will constitute the bulk of a student’s grade. The two papers will be five and fifteen-page, analytical essays, respectively, for which revisions will be required. These two papers will account for 50% of the final grade. The final exercise will build on and incorporate the analyses of the two papers, and course discussions and readings for the semester. The final exercise will make up 25% of the final grade. THE FINAL EXERCISE WILL OCCUR ON THE DAY AND AT THE HOUR DESIGNATED BY THE OFFICE OF THE REGISTRAR. THERE WILL BE NO EXCEPTIONS TO THIS RULE. Because this is a proseminar and the student is charged with teaching as well as learning, the remaining 25% of the grade is charged to class participation.

Finally, a statement that should not have to be made:

Cheating of any sort, including plagiarism is prohibited and will result in failure. If you are unclear as to what constitutes cheating, consult your student handbook

Please feel free, and make every opportunity to consult with me whenever the need arises. My office hours are Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12-1:00 pm; Tuesdays, 4-5:00, and by appointment.

 

TEXT

Stephenson, The Diamond Age

I Critical Thinking

                Week 1 (Aug. 26/28)

                                -Historiography

                                -Epistemology

                                -Political Economy

                                    Stephenson, 1-53

II The Intercultural and Democracy

                  Week 2 (Sept. 2/4)

Bennett and Salomen, "Intercultural Communication" (electronic reserve)

Holden, "Learning for Democracy" (electronic reserve)

Stephenson, 53-105

III Globalization

                   Week 3 (Sept. 9/11)

McGrew, "A Global Society?" (electronic reserve)

Stephenson, 106-161

 

 

IV Globalization and Tools

Week 4 (Sept. 16/18)

Krishnaswamy, "The Criticism of Culture" (electronic reserve)

Stepehenson, 161-211

[speaker]

V More Tools

                        Week 5 (Sept. 23/25)

Hancock, "Analytics of Racial Domination" (electronic reserve)

Stephenson, 211-251

[speaker]

VI Tooling

       Week 6 (Sept. 30/ Oct. 2)

Walker, "Lies" (electronic reserve)

Stephenson, 254-306

[speaker]

 

 

VII Tooling Still

                            Week 7 (Oct. 7/9)

                                        Consolmagno, "Popular Culture" (electronic reserve)

                                        Stephenson, 306-357

                                        [speaker]

 

PAPER (October 9, 2008)

 

 

 

VIII Re-Tooling

            Week 7 (Oct. 21/23)

                                            Russo, "Research" (electronic reserve)

                                            Kafka, "Why" (electronic reserve)

                                            Crossley, "Future" (electronic reserve)

                                            Stephenson, 357-419

 

IX Re-Constructing

             Week 8 (Oct. 28/30)

                        Schwartz, "Bridge"(electronic reserve)

                        Stephenson, 419-448

 

IX Re-Conceptualizing

                                    Week 9 (Nov. 4/6)

        Conrad, "The Beginning of the World" (electronic reserve)

        Stephenson, 448-499

 

X Class, Gender, Race, Science, Technology, Industry, and Identity

                                    Week 10 (Nov. 11/13)

                            Conrad, "Others" (electronic reserve)

 

 

XI Empire and Resistance: Revolutions

                Week 11 (Nov. 11/20)

                            Huntington, "The Clash of Civilizations" (electronic reserve)

                            Grewell, "Colonization" (electronic reserve)

 

 

XII Revolutions, Resistances, Consciousness

                    Week 12 (Nov. 25)

 

XIII Revolutions, Resistances, Consciousness II

                                        Week 13 (Dec. 2/4)

XIV Re-envisioning the World

                Week 14 (Dec. 11)

 

 

 

FINAL PAPER

(DECEMBER 11, 2008)