History 296AF - African Women: Food & Power

This course uses archival records, fiction, film, life histories and outstanding recent scholarship to investigate African women's actions in a century that encompassed women's loss of power and authority despite their continuing centrality in food production. We study the erosion of women's autonomy and the loss of women's work of governing at conquest, in the early colonial period, and as a consequence of Africa's subordinate place in the world economy. We examine women's efforts to sustain productive activities in the face of opposition and the gendered tensions these efforts provoke. No previous Africa coursework required. Optional collaboration with African immigrants in our region.