Dec 22, 2024  
2020-2021 Caspersen School of Graduate Studies (Admitted Fall 2020/Spring 2021) 
    
2020-2021 Caspersen School of Graduate Studies (Admitted Fall 2020/Spring 2021) [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

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ARGS 835 - Women Writing Africa: Gender in Modern African Literatures

3 credits


How have African women’s voices and images been shaped, heard, and/or represented in the public sphere? Using the African proverb, “Until lions have their own historians tales of hunting will always glorify the hunter” as an analytical metaphor, this seminar seeks to enable students to understand ways in which contemporary African culture is being reconstructed through the restoration of women’s voices in the public sphere by African women. Particular attention is paid to the feminine point of view in ways that challenge the false representation of women and their experiences in male-authored literatures in postcolonial Africa. Participants in the course read several works by female writers and explore changes in concepts such as “women”, “wife”, “mother”, and “family” from contemporary African women’s perspectives under the general rubric of “African Feminism”. Works/authors read include Mariama Ba, So Long a Letter, Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun, Ama Ata Aidoo, Changes: A Love StoryI, Tsitsi Dangaremba, Nervous Conditions, and Buchi Emecheta, Joys of Motherhood.

 

 

 



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