LAW 307 - Gender and Human Rights in Africa:

A Literary Perspective. This seminar will introduce students to African legal systems through engagement with fiction and other literature. Through the lens of literature, students will explore a number of human rights issues, including inheritance, HIV/AIDS, immigration, poverty and economic development. The seminar will focus on crosscultural treatment of these issues and will explore the colonialist ways in which Western activists construct the issues as relevant within “other” cultures and legal systems but not their own. The class will explore examples of how dominant cultures describe the “other,” frame issues, define the norms, and consequently, define what is abnormal or aberrant.One hour.Dow