At Right: Photo of a Zanzibari bed covered with kangas and beads saying, “I love you” in English, decorated by Swahili Muslim women while teaching a bride how to please her husband. Copyright 2011 Katrina Daly Thompson
Katrina Daly Thompson
3 credits, open to undergraduates who have taken African 201 and graduate students
Spring 2018
How are gender and sexuality constrained, constructed, performed, and resisted in and through language? We will address these issues through readings and discussion of theories of language and gender, queer linguistics, and feminist discourse analysis, alongside case studies in sociocultural linguistics and linguistic anthropology from Africa, including Nigeria, South Africa, and the Swahili Coast. As a final project, students will write a funding proposal to conduct fieldwork on a topic of their choice. Students interested in language, gender, and sexuality outside of Africa are also welcome and may write the final paper in relation to any linguistic context.