Naked Agency - Genital Cursing and Biopolitics in Africa

Naminata Diabate explores how the deployment of defiant nakedness by mature women in Africa challenges longstanding assumptions about women's political agency.

List of contents

Acknowledgments  ix
Introduction: Exceptional Nakedness  1
Section I. Restriction  
Scene 1. Exceptional Conditions and Darker Shades of Biopolitics  29
Scene 2. Dobsonville and the Question of Autonomy  43
Section II. Co-operation
Scene 3. Africanizing Nakedness as (Self-)Instrumentalization  65
Scene 4. In the Name of National Interest  89
Scene 5. Film as Instrumental and Interpretive Lens  107
Section III. Repression
Scene 6. Secularizing Genital Cursing and Rhetorical Backlash  131
Scene 7. Epistemic Ignorance and Menstrual Rags in Paris  149
Scene 8. Mis(Reading) Murderous Reactions  175
Epilogue: Defiant Disrobing Going Viral  191
Notes  197
References  219
Index  251

About the author

Naminata Diabate is Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature at Cornell University.

Summary

Naminata Diabate explores how the deployment of defiant nakedness by mature women in Africa challenges longstanding assumptions about women's political agency.

Product details

• Authors: Naminata Diabate
• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.03.2020
• EAN: 9781478006152
• ISBN: 978-1-4780-0615-2
• No. of pages: 277
• Series: Theory in Forms
• Subjects: Guides > Health > Beauty/cosmetics; Humanities, art, music > Philosophy > General, dictionaries; Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; Afrika, Afrikanische Geschichte, Geschichte allgemein und Weltgeschichte, Ethische Themen und Debatten, Politischer Aktivismus