This course traces the genealogy of an idea, the idea of Africa, considering archaic conceptualizations of Africa in Greek philosophy and history, Roman politics, in European explorer and jungle doctor tales, and as presented in European literature and anthropological accounts of African primitive culture. Students will discover how images of Africa as the dark continent and Africans as the radically exotic and savage other provided a conceptual legacy which came to be used to sanction the slave trade, imperialism and colonialism, and fascism and Nazism. Prerequisite: None. (F;S)