COURSE DESCRIPTION

The course Women in African Society examines roles and status of women in traditional and contemporary African societies, as well as the impact of international organizations and globalization. The interdisciplinary, intersectional and transnational course interrogates African women’s representations as objects, subjects, writers of history, and producers of knowledge.  It offers theoretical, historical and contemporary frameworks centering indigenous African epistemologies in an ever-globalizing academy. The course modules include family and kinship, economic development, culture preservation, gender dynamics, education and health provision, artistic production, environmental preservation, migration experience, religious trends, political pursuits, and women’s rights concerns.  Students will read scholarly works, autobiographies, biographies, memoirs, oral histories, and more, covering pre-colonial to contemporary times.  Readings will bring to light African women’s  previously overlooked or misconstrued contributions in social institutions, movements, organizations, and processes, for social transformation locally and globally.

LEARNING GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

The course is part of the Flexible Core World Cultures and Global Issues and General Education Distribution Area — Comparative Culture.  It satisfies the following skills: critical thinking, oral expression, writing skills, and library, database, and information literacy skills.

Students are expected to gain the following competencies and skills:

• Recognize and critique common misrepresentations of African women and their cultures.
• Recognize Africa as a continent (not a country) and Africa as part of the world.
• Learn gender/womanhood constructs and dynamics in samples African societies.
• Identify institutions that have contributed to an understanding of African women.
• Learn the diversity and complexity of African women, their roles, status and contributions.
• Learn the commonalities and differences among African women and beyond.
• Learn various ways in which African women have interacted with one another and others.
• Learn key terms and concepts, key historical and geographical sites, major historical events and figures.
• Identify local/global historical processes that have had a lasting impact on African women.
• Gain a cultural and historical background to think critically and comparatively about African women and their cultures/societies.
• Develop an ability to read reflectively, analyze and synthesize scholarly material.
• Develop an ability to write a focused essay organized around a sustained argument.
• Develop an ability to participate actively in class discussions, making informed arguments and treating peers’ contributions both critically and respectfully.

COURSE FORMAT

Lectures, readings, movies, on-line databases, and class discussions — drawing on literary, historical, ethnographical, sociological, and autobiographical sources — will be used to elicit new concepts and gain a better understanding of African women’s many lives in local and global dimensions.  The multimedia resources – articles, artwork, books, cases studies, (documentary) films, letters, oral traditions, photographs, (story) maps, TED talks, and other media — to depict women’s roles, responsibilities and rights or lack thereof, in precolonial, colonial and postcolonial Africa.

 

COURSE  REQUIREMENTS

Regular class attendance is mandatory. More than four unexcused absences will adversely affect your grade.  You are expected to come to class prepared, i.e. having done all assigned readings in advance, to participate in class discussions on the issues raised.

– Written Responses to readings/viewings – 1 page.

– Midterm Examination and Final Examination: each covers program materials and topics, and consists of fill-in-the-blank and essay questions.  The essay is 2-3 pages.

– Research Project: Making Connections to the course thrust through the Arts 5-7 pages.

A “ZERO TEXTBOOK COST” COURSE

No textbook is required for this class.  All course materials are Open Educational Resources (OER) and will be posted on Blackboard for your perusal.