The seminars explore the history of the entanglements between Sub-Saharan Africa and the social sciences. This is done by unpacking the intersection between different disciplines (e.g., anthropology, history, political economy) and critical historical moments under colonial rule and in the early years of African independence. The seminars aim at making students familiar with the processes of ‘othering’ through which Western social sciences constructed Africa, and with the ways in which African intellectuals have mobilised the tools, language and methods of the social sciences to conceptualise their own societies, ask profound questions about their place in the world, and make political claims. From a methodological viewpoint, the seminars draw on insights and perspectives from intellectual and political history, the history of the social sciences, the sociology of development, political economy, and postcolonial theory.