Universität Wien

140265 VO Contemporary African Women's Writing and African Feminism (2017S)

Details

Language: English

Examination dates

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

  • Tuesday 07.03. 15:00 - 17:00 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
  • Tuesday 14.03. 15:00 - 17:00 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
  • Tuesday 21.03. 15:00 - 17:00 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
  • Tuesday 28.03. 15:00 - 17:00 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
  • Tuesday 04.04. 15:00 - 17:00 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
  • Tuesday 25.04. 15:00 - 17:00 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
  • Tuesday 02.05. 15:00 - 17:00 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
  • Tuesday 09.05. 15:00 - 17:00 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
  • Tuesday 16.05. 15:00 - 17:00 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
  • Tuesday 23.05. 15:00 - 17:00 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
  • Tuesday 30.05. 15:00 - 17:00 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
  • Tuesday 13.06. 15:00 - 17:00 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
  • Tuesday 20.06. 15:00 - 17:00 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
  • Tuesday 27.06. 15:00 - 17:00 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

Content: The issues of women’s rights and liberation from patriarchy were secondary in the history of African emancipation struggles that were primarily focused on political independence. They came to the fore-front with the arrival women into the literary arena after independence and from the beginning constituted a controversial subject that appeared to privilege Western modernity in place of African tradition. African male writers’ rewriting of the history written by the colonizer privileged male achievement and symbolically displaced women from the nation, relegating them to the traditional domestic space and reproductive roles. In fact, male embracing of aspects of Western modernity depended upon preventing women’s access to that modernity, appointing women as guardians of tradition. African women writers reacted to these false dichotomies with their own rewriting of the male history of the anti-colonial struggles and independence, problematizing the meaning of independence, the nation, tradition and modernity. At the same time, they were negotiating their own place in the global women’s movement and assessing the usefulness of Western feminist ideas for their own needs. Contemporary African women’s writing shows development in thinking about African women’s roles and struggles, the definitions of African feminism, and the larger question of the meaning of African modernity.
This course surveys the most recent African feminist writing, including diasporic and transnational writing, and the transformation of African feminism since the 1980s. Thematically, it will focus on African women’s sexuality and the body as the site of contestation of power. This includes the relationship between the understanding of the female body and migration and displacement in the era of globalization, African women’s sexual and reproductive rights and tradition within the collapsed African state and in the diaspora, cultural or political violence against women’s bodies as well as the development in the perception of alternative sexual identities in Africa. Rather than focusing just on the political aspect of this literature, this course will emphasize the relationship between the politics, aesthetics and socio-historical and material context in order to explore the role of the literary text in the circulation of a global image of Africa.
Goals: On completion of this course the student will have developed the ability to:
• identify, analyse and understand key political, philosophical and aesthetic issues in contemporary African feminist writing
• understand the development of African discussions on women’s rights and African modernity
• apply close reading skills to a variety of literary texts and be able to analyze them from a literary-critical perspective
• reflect critically on the relations between primary texts and relevant secondary texts

Assessment and permitted materials

Written exam or argumentative essay (3,500 words).

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

Assessment criteria for the essay:
1) Contents (in particular detection of the central points; clear formulation, structure and organization of the argument, supported with evidence from primary and secondary sources; the ability to read text closely and interpret both form and content; the ability to identify, analyse and understand the context and make connections; the ability to reflect critically on the relations between primary texts and relevant secondary texts, instead of just citing secondary texts as a source of authority and interpretation; correctness of methodology; originality; creativity; scope or relevance of the secondary literature used and their methodologically consistent incorporation): Here about 60% of the points will be awarded.
2) Format (esp. layout, formatting, and citation practice): 20%
3) Language (particularly scholarly terminology and correct use of technical terms; clear and understandable language; correct spelling, grammar, and sentence composition; style): 20%

In all three areas at least 50% of the points must be achieved in order to obtain credit. The mark breakdown is as follows:
Excellent (1) 90-100 %
Good (2) 80-89 %
Satisfactory enough (3) 65-79 %
Unsatisfactory (4) 50-64 %
Fail ( 5) 50 -0 %

Examination topics

Topics for the exam and the essay will cover the texts discussed in the lectures.

Reading list

Primary works
NOVELS
Calixthe Beyala, Your Name Shall be Tanga (Tu t'appelleras Tanga, 1988)
Werewere Liking, It Shall Be of Jasper and Coral (Elle sera de jaspe et de corail, 1983)
Chika Unigwe, On Black Sisters’ Street (2009)
Jabulile Bongiwe Ngwenya, I Ain't Yo Bitch (2009)
Sefi Atta, Everything Good Will Come (2008)
Yvonne Vera, Butterfly Burning (1998) and Under the Tongue (1996)
Shailja Patel, Migritude (2010)
Chinelo Okparanta, Under the Udala Trees (2015)

SHORT STORIES AND NOVELLAS
Chinelo Okparanta, ‘America’, from Happiness, Like Water (2013)

Monica Arac de Nyeko, ‘Jambula Tree’ (2007)
Wame Molefhe, ‘Botswana Rain’ from Go Tell the Sun (2011)
Doreen Baingana, ‘Tropical Fish’ (2005) and ‘One Woman’s Body’ (2005)
Taiye Selasi, ‘The Sex Lives of African Girls’ (2011)
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, ‘You in America’ and ‘The Arrangers of Marriage’ in The Thing Around Your Neck (2006)
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions (2017)

MEMOIR AND TESTIMONY
Beyond the Dance, ed. by Violet Barungi and Hilda Twongyeirwe (2009)
Tears of Hope: A Collection of Short Stories by Ugandan Rural Women. Ed. Ayeta Anne Wnagusa and Violet Barungi (2003).
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel (2006)
Waris Dirie, Desert Flower (1998)
Nkunzi Zandile Nkabinde, Black Bull, Ancestors and Me: My Life as a Lesbian Sangoma (2009)

ESSAYS, THEORY AND PHILOSOPHY
Molara Ogundipe-Leslie, ‘Stiwanism: Feminism in an African Context’ (1994), in African Literature: An anthology of criticism and theory; Ed. By Tejumola Olaniyan and Ato Quayson (2007)
Obioma Nnaemeka, ‘Nego-Feminism: Theorizing, Practicing, and Pruning Africa’s Way’, Signs, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Winter 2004)
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Nomad (2010)
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, ‘We Should All Be Feminists’ (2012) - youtube

Secondary works
Susan Arndt, The Dynamics of African Feminism (2002)
Susan Andrade, The Nation Writ Small: African Fictions and Feminism, 1958-1988 (2011)
Oyeronke Oyewumi, African Women and Feminism : reflecting on the politics of sisterhood (2003)
Margaret Daymond, ed., South African Feminisms: Writing, Theory and Criticisms, 1990-1994 (1996)
Kirsten Holst Petersen and Anna Rutherford, A Double Colonization: Colonial and Post-Colonial Women's Writing (1986)
Susheila Nasta, Motherlands: Black Women's Writing from Africa, the Caribbean, and South Asia (1992)
Florence Stratton, Contemporary African Literature and the Politics of Gender (1994)
Juliana Makuchi Nfah-Abbenyi, Gender in African Women's Writing: Identity, Sexuality, and Difference (1997)
Mary Modupe Kolawole, Womanism and African Consciousness (1997)
Gwendolyn Mikell, Introduction, African Feminism: The Politics of Survival in Sub-Saharan Africa, ed. G. Mikell (1997), pp. 1-50.
Stephanie Newell, Writing African Women: Gender, Popular Culture, and Literature in West Africa (1997)
Ernest Emenyonu and Simon Gikandi, eds., New Women's Writing in African Literature (African Literature Today no. 24, 2004)
Elleke Boehmer, Stories of Women: Gender and Narrative in the Postcolonial Nation (2005)
Chielozona Eze, Postcolonial Imagination and Moral Representations in African Literature and Culture (2011)
Elisabeth Bekers, Rising Anthills: African and African American Writing on Female Genital Excision, 1960–2000 (U of Wisconsin Press, 2010)

Association in the course directory

SAL/A, SAL/B, EC-148
IE: VM4 und VM7

Last modified: Mo 07.09.2020 15:34