Scholars and planners agree that dramatic urbanization has been the most significant and pervasive socio-economic trend across Africa during the 20th Century. They also predict that, judging by current trends, the continent?s conurbations will be amongst the world?s largest cities by 2020. Urban sprawl is increasingly taking up what was mostly rural land in the 1900s. It is therefore crucial, in light of these facts, that any attempt to understand contemporary life in Africa for any purpose must take full account of not just today?s African cities, but also their historical genealogies and contours of change. This course traces the long history of the African urban spaces, life and thought from early times to the contemporary period. We will map and learn the changing meaning of urbanity from historical case studies like Jenne-Jenno in West Africa, Aksum, Malindi and Kilwa in Eastern Africa and Great Zimbabwe and Mapungubwe in Southern Africa, and from more modern cityscapes such as Lagos, Nairobi, Bulawayo and Johannesburg ? the elusive Southern African metropolis. We will enter these urban spaces by focusing on particular themes, such as statecraft, trade, wealth accumulation, political hegemony and symbolism, migration and religion.We will use a mixture of books (both scholarly and novels), newspapers, magazines and audiovisual materials like films and music. This is a reading and discussion-intensive course that demands that students very seriously engage with assigned materials. A research paper, short exams and impromptu quizzes constitute the writing requirements. Students will have to buy two books: 1. Terence Ranger?s Bulawayo Burning and Yvonne Vera?s Butterfly Burning. Both will be in the UCen. Bookstore before classes commence. I will provide more materials and the syllabus in class.