Abstract:
In my research, to understand how we undertake the study of the African experience you have to start in the beginning of time which dates back hundreds of thousands years ago and go into one of the first civilizations known as ancient Egypt. Understanding where the people come from and where they are at today does not even cover a quarter of understanding the true African experience. To understand truly how to undertake the African experience you must understand the social structure, governance, ways of knowing, science and technology, movement and memory, and cultural meaning (The six conceptual categories). With these concepts you understand that in a cosmograph known as the circle of life, there is a cycle that is always repeated: birth, the peek of life, death, the peek of death and rebirth. “Anything above the line is alive, anything below the line is dead.” The experience is continued all the way from beginning to the current time and you have to know all the stages to fully understand the true African experience. For my critical review of scholarship I will talk about my current favorite book, “Something Torn and New, African Renaissance,” by Nguigi Wa Thiong’o. I will use class discussion and the book to undertake the African experience. A scholar by the name of Dr. Carr said, “Dr. King talked about non-violence. Obama just passed gun laws while kissing babies. So you can say we are making a step towards fulfilling our goals but we are not there yet.” Slavery is not the beginning of what is known of as Africa, which tends to be what all people think the African experience is. The syllabus states, “Well over half of the human development took place exclusively in Africa. Studying Africana therefore requires long-view historical markers derived from intra and extra African conceptual tools.” So I will start my essay before what we know as the modern world. According to the African