CMLIT 523

Beyond the Male Axis: Subjectivity, Agency, and Subalternity in African Feminist Discourses

(Spring 2004)

Instructor: Dr Pius Adesanmi

Office: N 425 Burrowes Building

Office Hours: T 10:00 am – 12:00 pm

Office Phone: 863 4933

Meeting Time: W 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm

Meeting Place: 306 Burrowes

Email:

Overview

Welcome! This seminar offers an overview of the corpus of creative and critical writings produced by African women in the last four decades, as well as the modalities of male intervention in such feminist processes. Conceived within a phallocentric discursive economy which stressed the nationalistic need for Africans to unite across gender lines against imperialism and, subsequently, emerging forms of postcolonial, global capitalist exploitation, African feminist discourses have struggled to carve out a space for the articulation of African women’s specific experiences by disrupting masculinist grand narratives of African subjecthood. Paradoxically, African feminisms have sometimes had to align themselves with male discursive formations in order to satisfy the anti-imperialist imperative. Allied to this problem is the disciplinary challenge of mapping African feminisms in opposition to White/western feminist discourses on the one hand, and estbalishing boundaries between them and other ‘minority’ feminisms - Africana feminism, Third World feminisms - on the other hand. These overlapping scenarios of local, regional, and global concerns raise a number of questions: how do African feminisms deal with issues of female subjecthood and agency in local contexts where culture, politics, social institutions, and language are ensconced within dominant male narratives of nation and nationalism? How do African feminist discourses negotiate the structures/strictures of feminist internationalism while aiming to maintain a specific African inflection? Is the desire for boundaries, even in the context of Third World feminisms, not invidious? The seminar will seek answers to these questions and more, using a wide range of texts by Francophone (English translations) and Anglophone African women and men: theoretical articles and books, novels, drama, poetry, music, and newspaper articles.

Requirements and Procedures

Requirements: read and reflect on each text well ahead of the date we begin to discuss it in class. As class presentations will be on the fictional works in the syllabus, please do not read only the text you have selected for your presentation. Read and prepare each novel/play in order to be able to participate effectively in the discussions that will follow each presentation. Presentation dates will be determined in class. Your final essay will be a full-length, publishable article (5000-7000 words, MLA format) that you will work on throughout the semester as soon as you determine a suitable topic in consultation with me.

Attendance: as this seminar strongly requires students’ active participation, regular attendance is imperative. The seminar shall be delivered in such a way that continuous students’ involvement shall be necessary at every stage.

Academic integrity: academic dishonesty will be dealt with according to College and University Policies.

Access Statement: the Pennsylvania State University encourages qualified persons with disabilities to participate in its programmes and activities. If you anticipate needing any type of accomodation in this course or have questions about physical access, please tell the instructor as soon as possible.

Registration Policy: during the drop/add period at the beginning of the semester, the Department of Comparative Litertaure encourages students to visit this and other courses in order to make informed judgements a bout which courses to take. After the first week, however, only students registered in the course may remain; no student may late-add (or restore a dropped registration) after the third week of semester without petitioning the department on a form available in the office, 311 Burrowes.

Examination and Assignments

Participation: 20%

Class Presentation 20%

Final Essay 60%

Grade Distribution

93 and above = A

90-92 = A-

87-89 = B+

83-86 = B

80-82 = B-

75-79 = C+

70-74 = C

60-69 = D

59 & below = F

Required Texts

Flora Nwapa, Efuru

Flora Nwapa, Women are Different

Buchi Emecheta, The Joys of Motherhood

Buchi Emecheta, Second Class Citizen

Calixthe Beyala, Your Name Shall be Tanga

Tess Onwueme, Tell it to Women

Tess Onwueme, What Mama Said

Course Outline

Jan 14 / Introduction: African Men and their Africa
A panoramic survey of the phallocentric nature of African modes of self-fashioning and discursive inscription into 20th century modernities: cultural nationalism (Achebe, Ngugi, Negritude, etc), political nationalism (Nkrumah, Nyerere, Mboya, Awolowo, etc), radical ideologism (Fanon, Rodney, Lumumba, Cabral, Chinweizu, etc), historical revisionism (the Ibadan School of History). Survey texts will be supplied in class. Class will conclude by listening to two songs offering a representation of the modern African woman by male musicians: Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s “Lady” and Shina Peters’s “Shinamania”.
21 / Women’s intervention as discursive rupture
*Do not be intimidated by the volume of readings for the classes of Jan 21 – Feb 11. They are not all long, turgid theoretical texts. Also included are short articles, internet op-eds, and newspaper debates
Part One: Defining African Feminisms
(1)  Carole Boyce Davies, “Introduction: Feminist Consciousness and African Literary Criticism”
(2)  Deidre L. Badejo, “African Feminism: Mythical and Social Power of Women of African Descent”
(3)  Molara Ogundipe-Leslie, “The Female Writer and her Commitment”
(4)  Molara Ogundipe: “African Women, Culture and another Development”
(5)  Obioma Nnaemeka, “From Orality to Writing: African Women Writers and the (Re)Inscription of Womanhood”
28 /

Inter-Departmental Symposium on Dimensions of Third World Feminisms. Symposium stands in place of class. Every student is required to attend.

Feb 4 /

Women’s intervention as discursive rupture

Part Two: African/Black/Third World Feminisms and the internationalist question
(1)  Obioma Nnaemeka: “Feminism, Rebellious Women, and Cultural Boundaries: Rereading Flora Nwapa and her Compatriots”
(2)  Nkiru Nzegwu, “Sisterhood”
(3)  Julianah Makuchi Nfah-Abbenyi, “Rethinking Feminist Theory and Post-Colonial Women’s Writing”, an excerpt from her Gender in African Women’s Writing.
(4)  Oyeronke Oyewumi “Introduction: Feminism, Sisterhood, and Other Foreign Relations”
(5)  Olufemi Taiwo, “Feminism and Africa: Reflections on the Poverty of Theory”
11 /

Male ‘Feminists’, Female Critics

(1)  Femi Ojo-Ade, “Female Writers, Male Critics”
(2)  Ali Mazrui, “The Black Woman and the Problem of Gender: an African Perspective”
(3)  Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye, “Still a Malignant Cancer: Feminism in Literature and Society”
(4)  Pius Adesanmi, “Dictatorship of the Balls”
(5)  Sanya Osha, “Haba, Mister Feminist!”
(6)  Nduka Otiono, “Women Writers Unbound”
(7)  Omowumi Segun, “(In)visible (Wo)man”
(8)  Molara Ogundipe-Leslie, “Beyond Hearsay and Academic Journalism: The Black Woman and Ali Mazrui”
(9)  Molara Ogundipe-Leslie, Excerpts from Recreating Ourselves: African Women and Critical Transformations.
18 / Flora Nwapa, Efuru
25 / Flora Nwapa, Women are Different
Mar 3 / Ama Ata Aidoo, Our Sister Killjoy
10 / Spring Break
17 / Ama Ata Aidoo, The Dilemma of a Ghost/Anowa
24 / Buchi Emecheta, The Joys of Motherhood
31 / Buchi Emecheta, Second Class Citizen
Apr 7 / Tess Onwueme, Tell it to Women
14 / Tess Onwueme, What Mama Said
21 / Calixthe Beyala, Your Name Shall Be Tanga
28 / New Female Writers:
Lola Shoneyin, Excerpts from her poetry
Seffi Atta, A short story
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, A short story
Mobolaji Adenubi, Two short stories
* I am making arrangements for us to have a short telephone conversation with each of these new writers as we discuss their works.

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