140064 VO Race, Gender and Sexuality in African Literature (2013W)
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Details
Language: English
Examination dates
Lecturers
Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N
- Tuesday 08.10. 15:00 - 17:00 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
- Tuesday 15.10. 15:00 - 17:00 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
- Tuesday 22.10. 15:00 - 17:00 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
- Tuesday 29.10. 15:00 - 17:00 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
- Tuesday 05.11. 15:00 - 17:00 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
- Tuesday 12.11. 15:00 - 17:00 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
- Tuesday 19.11. 15:00 - 17:00 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
- Tuesday 26.11. 15:00 - 17:00 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
- Tuesday 03.12. 15:00 - 17:00 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
- Tuesday 10.12. 15:00 - 17:00 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
- Tuesday 17.12. 15:00 - 17:00 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
- Tuesday 07.01. 15:00 - 17:00 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
- Tuesday 14.01. 15:00 - 17:00 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
- Tuesday 21.01. 15:00 - 17:00 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
- Tuesday 28.01. 15:00 - 17:00 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
Information
Aims, contents and method of the course
This course will explore the many ways in which race and gender have come into being through each other and governed political identities and relationships in colonial and postcolonial Africa, as reflected in African Anglophone and British imperial writing of the last two centuries. Race and gender will be seen as interchangeable terms in the patriarchal enterprise of colonialism and the resistance against it, and as over-loaded concepts that continue to impact upon the understanding of what it means to be African. Topics to be discussed include the gendered imagination of imperial adventure novels; the marginalization of femininity by both colonial and African nationalist discourses; feminist rewritings of African nationalism; the sexualized perception of mixed-raced identities in southern Africa; the pathologization of gay sexuality across Africa; sexual violence against women legitimized by tradition and nationalism; the sexualization and commodification of the African female body in Europe; and others. Dissident desire will be explored as both a destructive force and a boundary-breaking energy that can redefine both the body and the nation through an imaginary encounter with otherness, leading to creolisation and hybridity. The course will engage with postcolonial, feminist, psychoanalytic, queer and other literary theories, as well as notions from the history and criticism of African literature in English.
Assessment and permitted materials
Argumentative essay, 10-12 pages, due by August 31, 2014. Send the essay by email.
Minimum requirements and assessment criteria
Identify and analyse the operations of race and gender categories in African literature;
analyse key African literary works in terms of their social and historical context;
apply close reading skills and critical thinking to a variety of literary texts;
reflect critically on the relations between primary texts and relevant secondary texts;
produce well-structured, relevant arguments with an appropriate intellectual framework.
analyse key African literary works in terms of their social and historical context;
apply close reading skills and critical thinking to a variety of literary texts;
reflect critically on the relations between primary texts and relevant secondary texts;
produce well-structured, relevant arguments with an appropriate intellectual framework.
Examination topics
Lecture.
Reading list
Primary literature:
H. Rider Haggard, King Solomons Mines (1885)
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1889)
Sarah Gertrude Millin, Gods Step-Children (1924)
William Plomer, Turbott Wolfe (1925)
Doris Lessing, The Grass is Singing (1950)
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (1958)
Flora Nwapa, Efuru (1966)
Buchi Emecheta, The Joys of Motherhood (1979)
Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions (1988)
Wilson Katiyo, A Son of the Soil (1976)
Yvonne Vera, Without a Name (1994)
Nuruddin Farah, From a Crooked Rib (1970) and The Sardines (1981)
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel (2007)
Waris Dirie, Desert Flower (1998) and Desert Dawn (2002)
J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace (1998)
K. Sello Duiker, The Quiet Violence of Dreams (2001)
Achmat Dangor, Bitter Fruit (2001)
Chika Unigwe, On Black Sisters Street (2009)
H. Rider Haggard, King Solomons Mines (1885)
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1889)
Sarah Gertrude Millin, Gods Step-Children (1924)
William Plomer, Turbott Wolfe (1925)
Doris Lessing, The Grass is Singing (1950)
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (1958)
Flora Nwapa, Efuru (1966)
Buchi Emecheta, The Joys of Motherhood (1979)
Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions (1988)
Wilson Katiyo, A Son of the Soil (1976)
Yvonne Vera, Without a Name (1994)
Nuruddin Farah, From a Crooked Rib (1970) and The Sardines (1981)
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel (2007)
Waris Dirie, Desert Flower (1998) and Desert Dawn (2002)
J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace (1998)
K. Sello Duiker, The Quiet Violence of Dreams (2001)
Achmat Dangor, Bitter Fruit (2001)
Chika Unigwe, On Black Sisters Street (2009)
Association in the course directory
ÜAL1, ÜAL2, EC-1, M8 (BA Vergl. Litwiss.), M3 (MA Vergl. Litwiss.), 7. M-07 - Transdisziplinäres Modul
Last modified: Mo 07.09.2020 15:34