Readings in African Masculinities

Several generations of rich and varied scholarship on gender in Africa has been key to transforming our understanding of families, communities and power.  Yet by and large gender has remained largely synonymous with women.  Scholars note the importance of gender as a relational construct, but the rich empirical exploration of gendered relations and formations have tended to focus largely on women and girls. In this seminar we read and theorize the construction of masculinities on the continent. Readings provide and introduction to some of the key texts and historiographical trends in this field over the past 30 years.

In addition to providing students with the opportunity to familiarize themselves with key literatures on masculinities and the social, economic, political and cultural forces that have shaped and transformed them on the African continent, the course also provides students with the opportunity to delve into a cache of primary sources and produce the first draft of an original research paper. Students can analyze representations of masculinities in a piece of literature, film or art, or explore their changing social constructions utilizing newspapers, colonial documents, missionary archives or other primary sources.  If utilizing primary sources, the aim is to produce a paper of 10-12 pages that might serve as a draft for a conference paper. Students may also opt to produce a lengthier (15-20 page) historiographical essay on a theme of interest, or a paper situating a sub-set of Africanist scholarship within a wider and broader theoretical field.  

Course Requirements: A lively seminar is dependent on your active and consistent participation.  You are expected to come to each class and to arrive with a firm grasp of the week’s assigned texts and list of questions/issues you would like to discuss.  We will take turns leading discussion, but each week you should come prepared with a list of issues/questions you would like to discuss.