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160199 PS Social History of Literature (PS): Race, Gender and Sexuality in African Literature (2011W)
Continuous assessment of course work
Labels
Details
max. 40 participants
Language: English
Lecturers
Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N
- Tuesday 04.10. 12:00 - 14:00 Seminarraum 2 Sensengasse 3a 1.OG
- Tuesday 11.10. 12:00 - 14:00 Seminarraum 2 Sensengasse 3a 1.OG
- Tuesday 18.10. 12:00 - 14:00 Seminarraum 2 Sensengasse 3a 1.OG
- Tuesday 25.10. 12:00 - 14:00 Seminarraum 2 Sensengasse 3a 1.OG
- Tuesday 08.11. 12:00 - 14:00 Seminarraum 2 Sensengasse 3a 1.OG
- Tuesday 15.11. 12:00 - 14:00 Seminarraum 2 Sensengasse 3a 1.OG
- Tuesday 22.11. 12:00 - 14:00 Seminarraum 2 Sensengasse 3a 1.OG
- Tuesday 29.11. 12:00 - 14:00 Seminarraum 2 Sensengasse 3a 1.OG
- Tuesday 06.12. 12:00 - 14:00 Seminarraum 2 Sensengasse 3a 1.OG
- Tuesday 13.12. 12:00 - 14:00 Seminarraum 2 Sensengasse 3a 1.OG
- Tuesday 10.01. 12:00 - 14:00 Seminarraum 2 Sensengasse 3a 1.OG
- Tuesday 17.01. 12:00 - 14:00 Seminarraum 2 Sensengasse 3a 1.OG
- Tuesday 24.01. 12:00 - 14:00 Seminarraum 2 Sensengasse 3a 1.OG
- Tuesday 31.01. 12:00 - 14:00 Seminarraum 2 Sensengasse 3a 1.OG
Information
Aims, contents and method of the course
This seminar 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 literature of the last 100 years. 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; cross-racial desire and sexuality; 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; and the sexualization and commodification of the African female body in the West. Through the trope of dissident desire, the creolisation and hybridity of culture and identity in Africa will be analyzed in all of its meanings, both positive and negative. 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.
Assessment and permitted materials
Argumentative essay, 10-12 pages (40 %); class presentation (30 %); class participation (30%)
Minimum requirements and assessment criteria
identify, analyse and understand key theoretical and historical issues in the field of postcolonialism
understand the operations of race and gender categories in African literature, history and philosophy
analyse key African literary works in terms of their social and historical context
apply close reading skills to a variety of literary texts
reflect critically on the relations between primary texts and relevant secondary texts
discriminate between ideas and define personal positions and justify them intellectually
produce well-structured, relevant arguments with an appropriate intellectual framework
understand the operations of race and gender categories in African literature, history and philosophy
analyse key African literary works in terms of their social and historical context
apply close reading skills to a variety of literary texts
reflect critically on the relations between primary texts and relevant secondary texts
discriminate between ideas and define personal positions and justify them intellectually
produce well-structured, relevant arguments with an appropriate intellectual framework
Examination topics
Seminar
Reading list
2Primary texts:H. Rider Haggard, King Solomon’s Mines (1885)
Sarah Gertrude Millin, God’s Step-Children (1924)
William Plomer, Turbott Wolfe (1925)
Doris Lessing, The Grass is Singing (1950)
Bessie Head, The Cardinals (1962)
Lewis Nkosi, Mating Birds (1986)
Buchi Emecheta, The Joys of Motherhood (1979)
Wilson Katiyo, A Son of the Soil (1976)
Yvonne Vera, Without a Name (1994)
J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace (1998)
Parselelo Kantai, “You Wreck Her” (2008)
Kabelo Sello Duiker, The Quiet Violence of Dreams (2001)
Sarah Gertrude Millin, God’s Step-Children (1924)
William Plomer, Turbott Wolfe (1925)
Doris Lessing, The Grass is Singing (1950)
Bessie Head, The Cardinals (1962)
Lewis Nkosi, Mating Birds (1986)
Buchi Emecheta, The Joys of Motherhood (1979)
Wilson Katiyo, A Son of the Soil (1976)
Yvonne Vera, Without a Name (1994)
J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace (1998)
Parselelo Kantai, “You Wreck Her” (2008)
Kabelo Sello Duiker, The Quiet Violence of Dreams (2001)
Association in the course directory
Diplomstudium VL 141
BA M5
BA M5
Last modified: Mo 07.09.2020 15:36