Contemporary Themes and Debates on Africa

Description

The main objective of this course is to present the most current and relevant debates on political, social, economic, and cultural domains with an interdisciplinary focus. It also aims to critically analyze contemporary challenges of the continent, not limited to a sub-Saharan geographic context. The course complements the training offered in other course units by deepening some topics, intending that students acquire a more comprehensive framework for analyzing African realities. The approach is selective in thematic terms but reflects some of the most relevant studies with a regional focus in Africa. The course is structured into 5 modules, each lasting 4 hours. The first 2 hours of each module are theoretical presentations by a professor or invited researcher (e.g., through the Erasmus program), and the following hours are for student presentations and debates on the same topics. The course aims to deepen students' knowledge of contemporary African issues in political, social, economic, and cultural domains. Thus, the learning objectives are: - identify diverse ideologies operating in Africa, - develop a comparative view of political regimes in Africa, - identify the main African international institutions and their relations with traditional and emerging powers, - understand the various manifesta