Fall 2002, 306
MIDTERM REVIEW
Remember, this is just to help you study; it is a list of examples of things to review, NOT an exhaustive list of everything that might be on the exam. But if you know all this material, you are likely to do quite well. Most of the questions will be short answer (fom a few words to a few paragraphs), with a few map questions and the possibility of a longer essay and perhaps a few multiple choices.
Know dates for events where the timing is an issue, e.g.:
- the Berlin Conference
- the earliest homo sapiens
- the "Golden Age of Slavery" and the British banning slave trade
Know the authors of articles in cases where their viewpoint is an issue (e.g., Kaplan, Lee). Authors of text chapters are less important.
Keep the geography fresh in your mind, including languages, climate, countries
& cities, vegetation, ethnic groups, rivers, colonial powers, etc.
Examples of issues to be able to discuss:
- effect of lenses on knowledge about Africa (e.g., Kaplan, forager arguments)
- Bantu expansion
- Davidson's theory of origins of racism (and evidence for it)
- rubber trade (causes behind events in Congo, effects on indigines, factors
behind its end)
- foraging as way of life (different perspectives on both Ituri & Kalahari)
Physical Geography
- Pangea, Gondwanaland
- African rivers and deltas
- High Africa
- Jos Plateau
- Atlas mountains
- East African Rift Valley
- Mt. Kilimanjaro
- Sahel
- Sahara, Kalahari, Namib deserts
- ITCZ
- Rainforest, Savanna
Paleo and Early History
- Australopithecus, Homo erectus
- Archaic Homo sapiens
- Anatomically modern Homo sapiens
- Laetoli, Tanzania (footprints)
- Language phyla
- Bantu expansion
- Nubia ("Kush"), lower and upper Nubia
- Ibn Battuta
- Jihad
- Swahili culture
- Kilwa (Swahili island city)
Misc Languiage & Culture
Pre-Colonial & Colonial
- Cape of Good Hope
- Basil Davidson (guy in the movies)
- Middle belt (of W. Africa)
- Berlin Conference
- King Leopold (what was his famous line?)
- Colonial countries (ones not colonized?)
African Foragers & Pastoralists
- Herero, Tswana
- Venus Hottentot
- Khoe Herders
- !Kung Bushmen (or "San" or "Bushmen")
- Ju/'oasi Bushmen
- Cattle posts
- Egalitarianism
- Man the Hunter Conference
- Boreholes
- SWAPO
- Lee, Wilmsen, "Rural proletariat"
- Efe, Lese
- Ota Benga, Verner, McGee
- Ituri Forest
- Grinker, Turnbull
- "larger social collectivity"
- relationship b/w pygmies and farmers
Other
- Gullah & Mende
- examples of "lenses" affecting what is said about Africa