Module description
This module looks at Ethiopian, Eritrean and Somali literatures as part of the global history of the twentieth century. The primary sources covered by the module include an Amharic comedy on the theme of marriage, a Tigrinya novel about Italian colonialism in Eritrea and Libya, the memoir of an Ethiopian revolutionary woman, an Arabic account of African migration to Europe, an African-American “novel of ideas” on Black activism against the Italian occupation of Ethiopia (1936-41), and Somali poems on love and nationalism. We will also cover cinema, music and the visual arts. For each text, we will trace possible “comparative journeys”, and learn something new not only about the Horn of Africa, but also about the world. The challenges of modernity, colonialism and capitalism, after all, are global challenges, and Ethiopian, Eritrean and Somali texts and ideas have much in common with, for example, Chinese, Indian, Mexican, Iranian or Arab thought. In tracing these comparative journeys, the module will ask questions about the history of cultural globalisation, the meaning of the "global", and how to study the "world".
English translations will be provided for all Ge’ez, Amharic, Tigrinya, Somali and Arabic texts, but students who know these languages are welcome to work on the original versions. This module is assessed via a learning journal where students record their reflections on the weekly readings.
Assessment details
100% one learning journal with ten entries, one per week, to be submitted as an end-semester assignment.
Educational aims & objectives
The module uses Ethiopian, Eritrean, and Somali texts as an entry point into world literature and global intellectual history debates.
Learning outcomes
By the end of the module students will have:
- Learned about the twentieth-century history and literatures of Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia in languages such as Ge'ez, Amharic, Tigrinya, and Somali
- Identified the relationship between these literary traditions and Pan-Africanism, feminist theory, the nonaligned movement, and anticolonial thought
- Acquired knowledge about comparative methodologies, and learn how to draw connections between literary and intellectual trends in different parts of the world
- Gained an understanding of processes of cultural and literary globalisation, and how writers across the globe theorised them, shaped them and responded to them
- Questioned the meaning of "literature" in non-European contexts, reflecting for example on the importance of orature and folklore
- Reflected on the role of Eurocentrism in the definition of modernity and in current theories of world literature
Teaching pattern
1 hour lecture and 1 hour seminar, weekly
Suggested reading list
Some of the primary texts we will discuss during the module are:
- Faarax M. J. Cawl, Ignorance is the Enemy of Love, 1974
- Gebreyesus Hailu, The Conscript: A Novel of Libya's Anticolonial War, 1949/50,
- Mengistu Lemma, Snatch and Run or Marriage by Abduction, 1959-60
- Tsegaye Gebre-Medhin, Also of Etiopics, 1965.
- Hiwot Teffera, Tower in the Sky, 2012.