Bringing together thirty contributions from researchers in Africa, Europe and North America, Africana. Figures of Women and Forms of Power questions the discourse on representations of sub-Saharan and diasporic female voices. At a time when gender stereotypes are being denounced worldwide, it seems essential to analyze how women's ways of being women are affirmed, negotiated or invented through literature or history, scholarly discourse or comics, cinema or visual arts. The diversity of critical approaches, crossing time and space, is enriched by exclusive interviews with writers Djaïli A. Amal, Bessora, Calixthe Beyala and Véronique Tadjo.
With 540 pages, the book is composed of four parts organized in as many forms of power declined in the feminine, enriched with illustrations. The publication was supported by the University of Lausanne, the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Swiss Society for African Studies and the Vaud Academic Society.
Download: The Book (pdf) is open-access and available free of charge.