The African Experience and Global Art History: Towards A Curriculum for Critical Citizenship

Abstract

We live in a world that is fast becoming a global village and if misconceptions and xenophobic attitudes of the people of the world would be assuaged, there is the need for an understanding of the cultures of one another. Fortunately, the discipline of art history is gradually shifting from a Eurocentric scholarly / intellectual preserve to include the art histories of the “other” non-western societies, a rather temperate intellectual disposition. This is surely a drift from the “aloofness’ of the discipline which adhered to hegemonic Western art historical evaluation, distancing “other” epistemologies and histories, over a period. In Africa, there is a crisis of a neo-colonial trend that is fossilizing knowledge in most of the higher institutions in Africa. This paper focuses on the possibility of developing an African art history curriculum or curricular towards a progressive “recovery” of the African learners’ mind and preparing them for an engagement with the global environment.