Beyond the Domestic Threshold

In the early days of decolonization on the African continent discourses around decolonial nationalism have been dominated by men. Yet women novelists, theorists and writers, while previously largely unacknowledged or unknown, nevertheless wrote and continue to write—countering masculinist tropes of the nation, such as Mother Africa. Many wrote from the domestic sphere, initially considering the dynamics of the (post)colonial home as a reflection of the nation, but others have expanded beyond the domestic. This class considers how African women’s literary works conceive of the role women play in discourses surrounding nationhood, tradition, and decoloniality, and how these women (re)imagine possibilities for the nation that dominant narratives obscure.

Satisfies General Education Requirements:

• Group-Satisfying: Arts and Letters
• Multicultural Courses: Identity, Pluralism, and Tolerance (IP)
• Core Education Multicultural: Global Perspectives (GP)