African Studies Annual Teachers' Workshop 2022
African Cities Across the Curriculum: People, Power, and Cultures
Saturday, November 12, 12pm-5pm ET

The ASA Outreach Council hosted its virtual annual teachers' workshop once again last November, 2022 in conjunction with the African Studies Association's annual meeting in Philadelphia, PA. Learn more about the workshop below and hover over the event schedule to view the available recorded sessions.

The Teachers’ Workshop invites K-12 teachers to engage with African cities, as a place and a concept. The theme of cities offers concrete ways to bring Africa into K-12 classrooms. Teachers attending the online workshop will have opportunities to:

Examine the long history of urbanism in Africa, and learn about the historical development and importance of African cities in enabling societies to thrive, accumulate wealth, and lead technological innovation.
Identify the types of cities that are found throughout the continent and their local specificities and regional networks, including port cities, island cities, trade cities among other types of cities.
Discuss crucial questions about African cities in the context of the climate crisis and learn about the struggles people are waging for sustainable futures.
Hear from children and youth literature authors (or hear about children’s and youth literatures that bring diverse social and historical perspectives on African cities.
Reflect on ways to introduce themes related to African cities to your classrooms.

We align our sessions for teachers with the annual meeting conference theme which importantly reminds us that:

Africa counts the fastest urban growth in the world, with an overwhelmingly youthful population, expected to double in 30 years’ time.
To think Africa is to think cities, in terms of private and public spaces, sustainable and healthy spaces with rural and pastoral dwellers, which sustain cities and nations in many ways.
To think African cities is to think innovation, experimentation, technological advances, and creativity.
Cities were important to Africa’s pasts. Cities will continue to impact and shape the futures of urban and rural global Africa. Historical and archaeological sources attest that dynamic cities have existed in Africa since ancient times.
Cities influenced the dispersion, mobility, and circulation of African peoples; disseminated their cultures and technologies globally.
Cities interconnected African peoples and polities, notably in the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean, and Atlantic worlds.