History and Social Studies Majors: Check out Dr. Owino’s HIS 393: Special Topics course on the History of Kenya. It will be offered Fall 2016 and counts as a non-western/transnational sequence course for Social Studies majors and a great way to get experience in digital history and collaboration.
Here is the course description:
“The History of Kenya course primarily focuses on the origin and evolution of modern Kenya from the second half of the 19th century to the present. Over the last one year, the course has been offered as a joint course featuring students at Cleveland State University, and Maseno University, Kenya. Students taking the course at the two universities work jointly together while studying about Kenya. They communicate with each other by phone and e-mail, do their research together, write their essays together, and share their research findings on the http://www.macleki.org website together during the course. The joint course offers students a tremendously unique way of learning, acquiring and sharing knowledge, and developing lasting ties, friendships, and partnerships with students from other parts of the world. Among some of the topics students taking the course are expected to learn about are: the historical geography of Kenya; ethnic groups and communities in Kenya during the second half of the 19th century; the causes, course, and consequences of the colonial scramble, invasion, partition, and occupation of Kenya; the African response to the colonial scramble for and occupation of Kenya; the colonial administrative system in Kenya; the colonial policies between WWI and WWII; African politics and the formation of African Associations between 1920’s and 1945; Colonialism and African politics between WWII and 1952; the Mau Mau War; the end of colonialism and the transfer of power to Africans; the rise of the One-Party State; the social, economic, and political policies of governments during the first decades of independence; the re-establishment of multi-party politics and the General Elections in Kenya from 1991 to 2007/8; and the prospects, possibilities, and challenges of modern Kenya. The course concludes with an examination of Kenya in regional, continental, and international politics.”