Choose a topic from John Reader, Africa: A Biography of the Continent
Guideline: Choose a topic from John Reader, Africa: A Biography of the Continent, to pursue further research. (For example C3 vs. C4 photosynthesis and carbon fixation, the expensive tissue hypothesis, the social brain theory, Man the Hunter
Choose a topic from John Reader, Africa: A Biography of the Continent
Choose a topic from John Reader, Africa: A Biography of the Continent, to pursue further research. (For example C3 vs. C4 photosynthesis and carbon fixation, the expensive tissue hypothesis, the social brain theory, Man the Hunter
theory, etc.)
Approximately 1,800 – 2,000 words, 11 pt, Times New Roman, 1.5 spacing
Endnote citations using Chicago Manual
Other Notes:
There is a lot of technical information presented IN ADDITION to a great deal of embedded reasoning regarding principles of contemporary evolutionary thought.
(HINT: ‘evolution’ and ‘ecology’ are inseparable systems of
thought).
You have a lot of work to do just to assimilate all the material here in addition to remaining attentive to the movements and pattern of thinking and reasoning.
Try to stay at least somewhat attentive to both.
It is the habits of the mind performe d and demonstrated here that are the principal asset of this work and the intende d one in this course.
These 150 pages represent a compression of tens of thousands of pages of the most advanced work on material and living evolutionary processes and “ecological thinking” arguably ever achieve d in such short a space.
For this reason, you are being given a lot of time to read it slowly and to try to absorb its logic and movements as much as possible and not only the facts.
You are also being provide d with the notes and the vast (and brilliantly curate d)
bibliography at the back.
USE THESE as you read. Although there have been updates since the book was
written (20 years ago), some interesting discoveries, a few revisions, and so forth, this
remains a reliable source of the latest thinking on the subject.