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Graduate Topics in African American Studies (480-0-20)

Topic

Afrofeminists. Black Women Challenging Colorblindn

Instructors

Silyane Larcher

Meeting Info

Crowe 5-138 Af Am Studies Sem: Wed 2:00PM - 4:50PM

Overview of class

"Afrofeminism" is the label forged by a new generation of Afrodescendant women (mostly in their twenties and early thirties), born in Europe (often non-English-speaking), to define their black feminism to not only affirm their multiple African heritages while they live in Europe, but also to distinguish themselves from US Black Feminism. This triple gesture - linguistic, political and cultural - calls for taking seriously the original formation and expressions of Black feminisms in diasporic and global contexts. It also implies to analyze the enduring consequences of colonialism of former European empires on the very soil of their metropoles through an intersectional perspective.

In this sense, this course will pay attention to the historical and social conditions of the emergence of black feminist struggles against patriarchy, racist minoritization and social inequality in a social and political context of white hegemony, where systemic racism is generally considered as "a notion imported from the United States". The reflections and readings will mainly focus on France, a European country which is paradigmatic of institutionalized race denial. Formerly a slave-owning colonial empire still marked by massive immigration of workers from Africa, the Caribbean, and the Indian Ocean in the 1960s, France still maintains ambiguous political and economic ties with these territories, while it actively excludes any reference to race from its official legislation as it has made colorblindness the bedrock of its national republicanism. However, some material will address the topic of Afrofeminism in a broader European context.