Department of African Feminist Studies - New Masters Course in Gender and Transformation

30 Sep 2021
30 Sep 2021

The Department of African Feminist Studies offers a Masters level coursework programme in Gender and Transformation.  The programme is rooted in questions about continental histories and contemporary politics and the ways in which diverse feminist and queer theorizations inform possibilities for new ways of imagining humanity. The programme engages four particular zones of discussion:

  • we explore the narratives of feminist activism and theorization in specific contexts (such as within the history of South African flag-democracy or Ugandan peace-building movements);
  • we put pan-African discourses of independence and African self-reliance, diasporic conversations on blackness and the decolonial, and other contemporary voices into conversation with feminisms and queer voices;
  • we ask questions about the meanings of gender and sexualities operative in different spaces (such as religion, or the virtual, higher education, or the market);
  • we engage with modes and possibilities of research that challenge us to engage in work capable of thinking deeply, and pro-actively, about seemingly intractable issues of dislocation and inequity and which also strengthen knowledges of African feminist and queer intellectual and strategic resistance

The programme offers a suite of core and elective courses (with options to take courses outside of the Department), and strong support for innovative research work. The programme works closely with the African Gender Institute, housed in the Department, to create many opportunities for connection to feminist work in and beyond university borders.

The programme will be launched in 2022, and applications are welcome: please contact jane.bennett@uct.ac.za with any questions.