UCSB Conference: Africa After Gender? 04/01

AFRICA AFTER GENDER?
AN EXPLORATION OF NEW EPISTEMOLOGIES FOR AFRICAN STUDIES

University of California, Santa Barbara
Interdisciplinary Humanities Center
McCune Conference Room
April 20-21, 2001

The conference will asses and examine new epistemologies for African studies by focusing on recent work in the field of gender studies. The following questions will animate our discussions. Is gender still an appropriate unit of analysis, or is it merely a colonial imposition with limited value? To what extent have gender identities become indigenized through the process of colonization and Christianization? Should the concept of gender be expanded to focus on its relational component by examining African constructions of masculinities, as well as femininities? What categories of identity and personhood are more appropriate and germane to African societies? This conference will identify those traces of African categories which are underwritten and under-theorized in Africans studies, such as reproductive status and seniority, and place them within a larger epistemological context. Moreover, we will explore sites of local knowledge production in Africa where indigenous categories are formulated, contested, and renegotiated in a dialectic response to historical transformations.

Conveners:
Catherine M. Cole, UCSB
Stephan F. Miescher, UCSB

Conference Schedule

Friday, April 20, 2001
9:15 Coffee & tea

9:30 Opening Remarks
Catherine M. Cole & Stephan F. Miescher, UCSB

9:45 Session I: Performing Gender
Gracia Clark, Indiana University, Self-Portraits of a Good
Woman: Situational Representations of Gender in One Woman's
Life Stories from Kumasi, Ghana
Paulla Ebron, Stanford University, Constituting the Subject
through Performative Acts
Lisa A. Lindsay, University of North Carolina, Working with
Gender: The Emergence of the "Male Breadwinner" in Colonial
Southwestern Nigeria
Nontsasa Nako, University of Cape Town, Alice's Little
Sister: Representing African Women in Alice Walker's Possessing
the Secret of Joy
Discussant: Catherine M. Cole, UCSB
Chair: Stephan F. Miescher, UCSB

11:45 Lunch

2:00 Session II: Historiographies of Gender
Susan Z. Andrade, University of Pittsburgh, Writing Women, Rioting
Women: Gender, African Nationalism and Literary History
Catherine Burns, University of Natal, Africa After Gender? A View
from the South
Nancy Rose Hunt, University of Michigan, Girls--and Semiotics with
Fantasies, Too: Or, Bodies and the Historiographies of Gender in Africa
Lynn M. Thomas, University of Washington, Gendered
Reproduction: Placing Schoolgirl Pregnancies in African History
Discussant: Jacob K. Olupona, UCD
Chair: Cornelia Fales, UCSB

4:00 Reception

7:30 Film: Ousmane Sembene, "Faat Kine," UCSB Campbell Hall
(co-sponsored by UCSB Arts & Lectures)

Saturday, April 20, 2001
9:00 Coffee & tea

9:15 Session III: Researches & Local Knowledge
Nwando Achebe, UCLA, Theorizing Northern Igbo
[Her]Stories: Listening and Hearing the Whispers From Within
Rudolf P. Gaudio, University of Arizona, African, Muslim,
Prostitute, Queer: What is and is not Lost in Translation
Takyiwaa Manuh, University of Ghana, On Teaching about Gender in
an African University: Reflections from the Ground
Bridget Angum Teboh, UCLA, On Writing and/or Discussing Africa,
Women, and Myself: A "Thought Piece"
Discussant: Eileen Julien, Indiana University
Chair: Claudine Michel, UCSB

11:00 Break

11:15 Session IV: Perspectives on Masculinities
Stephan F. Miescher, UCSB, Speaking Sensibly: Elders, Gender, and
Masculinities in Twentieth-Century Ghana
Helen Nabasuta Mugambi, California State University Fullerton,
Dangerous Waters: African Orature/Literature and the Anatomy of the
"Post-Gender" Question
Luise White, University of Florida, The Signification of the
Phallus in Africa during Decolonization
Discussant: Eileen Boris, UCSB
Chair: Patrick Bellegarde-Smith, UCSB

1:00 Lunch

2:15 Final Session:
Oyeronke Oyewumi, UCSB, Closing Remarks
Open discussion

Registration:
Conference papers will be circulated in advance. The conference is free and open to the public. For registration please contact the IHC, asharp@humanitas.ucsb.edu, or call: 805.893.3907
Sponsors:
UC Humanities Research Institute, UCSB Interdisciplinary Humanities Center

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