Universität Wien

143121 VO African Women’s Writing in the 20th Century (2020W)

Registration/Deregistration

Note: The time of your registration within the registration period has no effect on the allocation of places (no first come, first served).

Details

Language: English

Examination dates

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

This lecture takes place online through Big Blue Button on Mondays at 1 PM.
An audio recording of the lecture is put on Moodle.

  • Monday 05.10. 13:00 - 14:30 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
  • Monday 12.10. 13:00 - 14:30 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
  • Monday 19.10. 13:00 - 14:30 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
  • Monday 09.11. 13:00 - 14:30 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
  • Monday 16.11. 13:00 - 14:30 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
  • Monday 23.11. 13:00 - 14:30 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
  • Monday 30.11. 13:00 - 14:30 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
  • Monday 07.12. 13:00 - 14:30 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
  • Monday 14.12. 13:00 - 14:30 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
  • Monday 11.01. 13:00 - 14:30 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03
  • Monday 18.01. 13:00 - 14:30 Inst. f. Afrikawissenschaften, Seminarraum 1 UniCampus Hof 5 2M-O1-03

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

• identify, analyse and understand key political, philosophical and aesthetic issues in 20th-century African women’s 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

METHOD: Lecture
In case of a new wave of Covid-19 pandemic, I will provide audio-lectures with ppt slides.

Assessment and permitted materials

Written exam OR Argumentative essay (3500-4000 words).
In case of a new wave of Covid-19 pandemic, exam will be taken online.
The exam will include Yes/No, multiple choice and short essay questions. Minimum requirement 50% correct answers.

The final essay should analyze at least one work (novel, play, or at least 3 short stories). You will be given a list of app. 20 essay topics to choose from. The final essay is not just a summary of what was said in the lecture. It should show your own approach to a primary work and bring original observations and/or opinions.

There will be 4 dates for written exam and essay submission. It is possible to repeat the exam 3 times.

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

The exam will include Yes/No, multiple choice and short essay questions. Minimum requirement 50% correct answers.

The final essay should analyze at least one work (novel, play, or at least 3 short stories). You will be given a list of app. 20 essay topics to choose from. The final essay is not just a summary of what was said in the lecture. It should show your own approach to a primary work and bring original observations and/or opinions.

There will be 4 dates for written exam and essay submission. It is possible to repeat the exam 3 times.

Examination topics

-African women's literary history
-African feminism
-African women and writing
-African women writing back to male narratives
-African women, decolonization and modernity
-double colonization of African women
-postcolonial identity discourses
-the politics of representation
-material culture of publishing

Reading list

PRIMARY LITERATURE:

NOVELS:
Flora Nwapa, Efuru (1966)
Grace Ogot, The Promised Land (1966)
Charity Waciuma, Daughter of Mumbi (1969)
Muthoni Likimani, They Shall Be Chastised (1974)
Buchi Emecheta, Second-Class Citizen (1974), The Bride Price (1976), The Joys of Motherhood (1979)
Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions (1988)
Yvonne Vera, Butterfly Burning (1998), Without a Name (1996)
Ama Ata Aidoo, Changes (1991)
Miriam Tlali, Muriel at Metropolitan (1975)
Lauretta Ngcobo, And They Didn’t Die (1990)

DRAMA:
Rebeka Njau, The Scar (1961)
Efua Sutherland, The Marriage of Anansewa (1975)
Ama Ata Aidoo, Anowa (1970)

ESSAYS
Ama Ata Aidoo, “To Be an African Woman Writer” (1988)
Ama Ata Aidoo, “The African Woman Today” (1992)
Ama Ata Aidoo, “Unwelcome Pals and Decorative Slaves” (1981)
Flora Nwapa, “Women and Creative Writing in Africa” (1992)
Buchi Emecheta, “Feminism with a small f” (1988),
Molara Ogundipe-Leslie , “STIWANISM: Feminism in an African Context” (1994)
Catherine Obianuju Acholonu, Motherism: the Afrocentric Alternative to Feminism (1995)
Lauretta Ngcobo, “African Motherhood: Myth and Reality” (1988)
Mary E. Modupe Kolawole, Womanism and African Consciousness (1997)
Chikwenye Okonjo Ogunyemi, “Womanism: The Dynamics of the Contemporary Black Female Novel in English” (1985)
Oyeronke Oyewumi, The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourse (1997)
Obioma Nnaemeka, “Nego‐Feminism: Theorizing, Practicing, and Pruning Africa’s Way” (2004)
Yvonne Vera, “Writing Near the Bone” (1997)

SECONDARY LITERATURE
Susan Andrade, The Nation Writ Small: African Fictions and Feminism, 1958-1988 (2011)
Susan Arndt, The Dynamics of African Feminism: Defining and Classifying African-Feminist Literatures (2002)
Susan Arndt, “Who is Afraid of Feminism? Critical Perspectives on Feminism in Africa and African Feminism” (2000)
Joyce Chadya, “Mother Politics: Anti-colonial Nationalism and the Woman Question in Africa.” Journal of Women’s History 15.3 (2003)
Elisabeth Bekers, Rising Anthills: African and African-American Writing on Female Genital Excision (2010)
Elleke Boehmer, Stories of Women: Gender and Narrative in the Postcolonial Nation (2005)
Mary Pauline Eboh, “The Woman Question: African and Western Perspectives”, in African Philosophy: An Anthology, ed. Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998, 333-337
Anke Graneß, Martina Kopf, Magdalena Kraus, eds., Feministische Theorie aus Afrika, Asien und Lateinamerika (2019)
Marie Kruger, Women’s Literature in Kenya and Uganda: The Trouble with Modernity (2011)
Juliana M. Nfah-Abbenyi, Gender in African Women's Writing: Identity, Sexuality, and Difference (1997)
John McLeod, Chapter 6: “Postcolonialism and Feminism”, Beginning Postcolonialism (2000), 172-203.
Gwendolyn Mikell, ed., African Feminism: The Politics of Survival in Sub-Saharan Africa (1997)
Obioma Nnaemeka, “Feminism, rebellious women, and cultural boundaries: rereading Flora Nwapa and her compatriots.” Research in African Literatures, Summer 1995
Obioma Nnaemeka, ed. The Politics of (M)Othering : Womanhood, Identity and Resistance in African Literature (1997)
Obioma Nnaemeka, ed., Sisterhood, Feminisms and Power: from Africa to the Diaspora (1998)
Molara Ogundipe–Leslie, Re-Creating Ourselves: African Women and Critical Transformations (1994)
Chikwenye Okonjo Ogunyemi, Africa Wo/Man Palawa: The Nigerian Novel by Women (1996)
Kirsten Holst Petersen, “First Things First: Problems of a Feminist Approach to African Literature” Kunapipi 6.3 (1984)
Kirsten Holst-Petersen and Anna Rutherford, eds., A Double Colonization: Colonial and Post-Colonial Women's Writing (1986)
Florence Stratton, Contemporary African Literature and the Politics of Gender (1994)

Association in the course directory

ÜAL1/1, ÜAL1/2, ÜAL2/1, ÜAL2/2, SAL/A, SAL/B, EC-148, EC-647, MA: SAL.VO.1, SAL.VO.2

Last modified: Fr 12.05.2023 00:17