This course will introduce students to the varied realities of black women in Africa throughout the African Diaspora. By exploring the different cultural, political, and historical contexts in which black women live, we will attempt to define the continuities and conflicts that exist within the vast field of Black Women’s Studies.

This seminar is designed to provide students with an overview of the historical and cultural richness of the experience of these women. This includes the changing status of women in traditional African societies compared with changes in the status of black women in the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

We will use black feminist texts which center the experiences of black women, rather than relegating them to the margins. Such texts demonstrate black women’s agency, draw on black women’s particular ways of signifying/testifying, and serve as counter-narratives to the pernicious myths, which for centuries have circulated regarding the black female body.

This course will also examine the role these women played in resistance movements throughout history as well as the effects of racial, gendered, class and other types of oppression on them.

Discussion topics include gender, sexuality, ethnicity, identity, economics, education, family, politics, and religion.

Visit our class page on 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence / Orange the World Campaign: https://afn128.commons.gc.cuny.edu/16-days-of-activism/

Contact Prof. Remi Alapo: BMCC – oalapo@bmcc.cuny.edu / York – oalapo1@york.cuny.edu