Mahmood Mamdani

I was excited when I started to this class. That being said, this class was honestly one of the worst I've taken so far at Columbia. First of all, the material itself was pretty dull. There was a lot of potential for this class, the subject itself is really interesting, but the way its structured makes everything just drone on. He assigns A LOT of his own reading, and the reading itself is pretty dense and uninteresting. Sitting in on lectures was unbearable most of the time, and a ton of students just resorted to messing around on their laptops as he rambled on. Mamdani himself is a one of those teachers who you are just shocked he is still teaching. He often keeps class late up to 10 minutes, and thinks he's the smartest person in the world. He has no interactions with students and tries to relate everything back to himself and his work. DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS, terrible class, terrible teacher.

Prof. Mamdani is the greatest professor at Columbia. Love him!!!

Mahmood Mamdani is a brilliant man with an unbelievable understanding of both the breadth and depth of the conflicting perspectives that make up the study of Africa. That said, this was a terrible class. Professor Mamdani has no idea how to structure a lecture. Though the class was, in theory, designed around several large controversies that have shaped the discourse on Africa, Mamdani consistently failed to demonstrate how each of the many authors, times, dates, and places he described in excruciating detail was relevant to the broader themes of the course. Walking out after each lecture (which very few students did), I rarely felt as though I'd gained new insight into Africa's place in the world. Instead, I became increasingly convinced that no matter what I said or thought about the entire continent, I could never, ever be right. Because I'm biased. Because of culture. Or something. The readings varied from the hugely important and influential (Edward Said, Franz Fannon) to the utterly dull and useless (maps of slightly conflicting tribal movements in South Africa). However, the quality of readings is irrelevant; you don't have to do any of them to succeed in the class. I can't count how many times Mamdani would mention some crucial, seminal text, ask how many of us had read it, and receive only blank stares in response. This is pretty indicative of Mamdani's ability to con…

A other thinking way. Don't take existing concepts or theories for granted.

As you may have gathered from the previous reviews, this class gets a lot of mixed reviews, and there is a clear divide between those that enjoy the class and those that write the class off as BS. I unfortunately was part of the latter. To clarify, the title of the class is not "Major Debates in Africa" -- it is "Major Debates in the STUDY of Africa," meaning that the class is not so much about contentious sociopolitical issues African countries face today as much as looking at how scholars have studied Africa. As someone who has read a lot about Africa and has spent a fair amount of time there, you will not learn about the nature of politics, you will not read extensively about native African traditions, and you will certainly not learn about economic theories of development. Rather, perhaps the focal point of the class is how culturally insensitive and sometimes ignorant the world is with respect to Africa. That being said, the readings tend to be very removed from the subjects themselves and focus instead on how scholars and important figures see these subjects. I and my other SEAS friends usually just chanted "BS! BS!" under our breaths from day one. Lectures are hit or miss. I went to every lecture, and still have no freaking clue why I kept showing up. Once in a while Professor Mamdani will discuss an interesting topic, but most of the time lectures are very slow and do…

TAKE THIS CLASS!!! I can't express enough enthusiasm and excitement about this class. I have been gushing about it all semester long to all of my friends (both at Columbia and even outside Columbia). Honestly, I never write reviews, but felt compelled to finally write my first review for this class because it is worth it. Also, because I so strongly disagree with the last review. Out of all the classes I have taken at Columbia, this is the one class that I actually feel has altered me academically, but also personally as well. Professor Mamdani began the class by saying that this class will "not change how you view Africa, but how you view the World from an African vantage point". Since the class, I can truly say that I do see the world through a different lens now and ACTUALLY remember the things that I learned in the classes. (What a concept!) I do not know what the previous reviewer was saying about Professor Mamdani's lectures being unorganized. I found his lectures to be very organized. There was a very clear outline from the very beginning of what he would cover and then he proceeded to do so. Also, he only missed one lecture and it was due to sickness. That being said, the lectures were also the best I had ever had at Columbia. I went to every single lecture because I wanted to hear every single word that he said. Usually he would say something that was so eye opening o…

If I were being exceedingly generous, I would say it was an educational experience in how NOT to run an introductory course.

This class was UNREAL. As other reviewers have mentioned, the class is structured in a way so that you need to attend exactly two lectures for the entire semester. Even as someone with an interest in Anthro (although not an Anthro major) I found this class incredibly painful. While Mamdani is no doubt a very intelligent man, this proved to be his main downfall, as his lectures were terribly disorganized and very difficult to follow. To be honest, the first few were very interesting and far clearer than his later ones, and I suspect he started working on a new book or something because his lectures turned shit toward the end, and his missed a lot of classes. Again, as mentioned by others, the grading is entirely dependent on your TA and due to the absolutely enormous size of the class, there is a huge variation in TA quality and grading criteria. My section was absolutely infuriating, and our TA completely incompetent. In our section, half of the class commented irrelevantly on " white people vs. Africans" this, and "well, because I'm half Jamaican" that, while the other half either texted on their Sidekick phones or were absent. The TA turned every class over to the "student presenters" of that weeks readings (which no one ever did) and would interrupt whoever was bullshitting some response to lecture us on "the way things actually are." This was the worse class I have ever ta…

This course offered a great opportunity to read work from the Global South and thus pushed for a different decolonial epistemology.

Quite unusual for a review, I would like to comment on what I cared about most in this class rather than general aspects - and also give you a good way to get a good grade and actually learn something from this class. Hopefully future reviewers will keep this in mind when judging this class that I found very informative - yet with its own biases like any humanity class is bound to have. I just feel like they missed the point of the class. The point is to debate, and understand all sides, not just pick one and insist on it. I found other reviews particularly misleading, and I believe the main reason why so many got bad grades was because they did not get the essential "debate" part of the class - just like I found many students in my class didn't. First of all, I would like to say that my TA for this class (Susana Ramirez) made me very happy with one of her comments regarding students' essays: writing Europe is evil, Africa is great does not make a good paper. The purpose of the class is not to cast anachronistic moral judgments, but to understand certain political processes and power relations that shaped Africa's history. It's quite important to keep that in mind when writing your essays, and to always keep your own mind about things. It's very important to understand that this is not a class about political activism, but an anthropology and a history class at the same time.…