AFRICA

The only way one could conceivably consider “Africa” as a single, homogeneous entity is by stepping back–way back, actually, as far as outer space–where a whole-earth photograph shows Africa as a geographically distinct mass of land, connected in literal terms to the rest of the world by just a tiny strip of desert in the far northeast.

The fact that the land mass has distinct boundaries, coupled with the knowledge that there are some consistent historical narratives that unfortunately appear time again again across the continent, somehow empowers much of the rest of the world to lump the extraordinary number of cultures, languages, religions and ways of life found around Africa into one.

In All Around This World classes we accept “Africa” geographically, grateful to the natural boundaries for providing some parameters for our multicultural explorations, but beyond that we find our utmost excitement in the continent’s diversity. In class we take a tour that begins in the East and proceeds counterclockwise around the continent–North then West, Central then South.