Dear learners! This course is designed to acquaint students in the conventions and methods of historical writing. history, as a science, has its own conventions that need to be considered in writing of any historical works. it explains the procedures that need to be taken into consideration by undergraduate students who will write their senior essay as a requirement for graduation. it gives notes on how to develop proposal for writing senior essays of graduating class of the discipline. moreover, the course provides the major styles  and conventions of quoting and documenting references that are consulted by researchers. it also precisely presents historical sources and their natures. generally, the course intends to develop the writing skill of students of the department by training them on the practice of writing history.

The course is designed to discuss the History of Ethiopian Visual and Performing Arts; that is very fundamental to enable students to familiarize themselves with the basic production areas of tangible and intangible cultural heritages of the country. As a preemptive idea for the major discussion, the course begins by dealing with the definition, elements, and principles of art. Types of art, interrelationship of arts as well as the traditional division into art and craft will be the focus of the introductory part. Basically, however, students will be able to internalize the visual and performing arts of Ethiopia periodically from Pre-Aksumite to the end of the second millennium, and thematically it comprises from the intangible performing arts to the traditional house architecture of the various ethnic groups of the country. As such mural and rock paintings; architectural values of historic cities; church and mosque architectures; traditional house architecture; city development and the emergence of modern architecture; monuments and sculpture; handcraft products and practitioners are the major topics that the course deals with.


This  course  is  designed  to  equip  students  with  the  major  social, economic  and  political  developments  of  Africa  during  the  period  of  colonialism.  This Course module contains five chapters. At the end it also incorporates an assignment that will be done individually. The historiography of colonial Africa, the infrastructure and the ideology of the New Imperialism are main themes to be addressed.  The  partition  of  Africa,  the  motives  and  the  process,  African initiatives and the responses during the imposition of colonial rule, colonial administrations and the colonial states, the politics and the economics of colonial agriculture, mining, and trade are other  points  which  requires  attention.  Africans participation in the Second World War and its impact and consequences on Africa and Africans will be dealt. The winning of independence in different part of Africa is also a point equally important.


This course surveys the birth, transformation and diffusion of world civilizations from prehistory to about 1500 - the beginning of European overseas expansion. It will focus on the beginnings of civilization some five to seven thousand years ago in Mesopotamia, Africa, and Asia. We will then proceed to Classical Civilizations, the Middle Age and conclude the course with an understanding of the world in 1500.