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Reading Africa

Vak
2025-2026

Admission requirements

Admission to the Minor. See Target Group.

Description

This subject explores the factors that shape contemporary Africa and its people, through the lens of multiple disciplines from the three participating institutions. The course objective is to gain a foundational understanding of significant factors that shape contemporary Africa, with the goal to establish a broad understanding of Africa’s past, present and future.

With time scheduled for discussions and debates, the seminars will foster a greater understanding of this extremely diverse and richly endowed continent. Students will receive further reading and references to online material to deepen their knowledge, and through creating a multimedia country profile they showcase their ability to integrate different factors that shape an African country.

Course objectives

Upon successful completion students will have:

  1. Acquired a foundational understanding of:
  • Significant factors that shape societies and cultures in contemporary Africa;

  • Dynamic characteristics and diversity of African states and their people;

  • Africa’s role in a globalised world and the socio-economic and geo-political issues at play;

  • Methodological and ethical approaches to African studies.

  1. Developed skills and competencies to:
  • Critically search, structure and evaluate information about African states;

  • Consider relevant aspects in the analysis of complex questions;

  • Communicate own secondary research data through multimedia sources;

Timetable

Week 36 – 39. Timetable will be available on LEI Brightspace

Mode of instruction

  • Online and classroom lectures & seminars

  • Campus visits

Course load

5 EC x 28 hours= 140 hours

  • In-class contact hours: 78 hours

  • Integrated Assignments: 62 hours

Assessment method

Assessment and weighing

  • Country Profile multi-media assignment: 70%

  • P2P Feedback: 20%

  • Country Portal Review; 10%

The final mark for the course is established by determining the weighted average. To pass the course, the weighted average of the partial grades must be 5.5 or higher.

Resit

A resit is where possible the same subtest as the first, within the given timeframe.

Inspection and feedback

How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.

Brightspace

Leiden University Brightspace platform will be used for:

  • Announcements

  • Timetable

  • Course information

  • Documents

  • Discussions

  • Pitch2Peer

  • Grades

  • Calendar

Reading list

Prescribed reading available in the syllabus (Strive to mostly use library and open source online publications).

Registration

Enrolment through MyStudyMap is mandatory (only applies to LEI students).
General information about course and exam enrolment is available on the website.
Guest students from TUD and EUR will be helped with their course enrollment.

Contact

Minor Coordinator: Madi Ditmars minorafricandynamics@asc.leidenuniv.nl
Back to African Dynamics homepage.

Remarks

Not applicable