Report

Peace studies is a growing academic field that has its scholarly roots in international relations (IR), political science, and history. All three academic disciplines consider the nation state as a primary constitutive element of the international system and central to social stability, security, and peace. This has been heavily critiqued by IR feminists (Still, 1998; Stean 1998, among others) who associate the notion of the nation state with an embedded patriarchal system that entrenches hierarchical social relations across race, class, and gender.

Gender and Media in Africa: An Idea for a Curriculum

The course, Gender and Media in Africa takes an analytical and critical approach to the study of the media’s role in social constructions of gender with emphasis on the African experience. The first part of the course covers issues of the political-economy of the media and its relationship to gender representations in media texts. The second part is devoted to analyses, interpretations and evaluations of media content. It also looks at ways of challenging the images and messages regarding women and men that audiences receive on a daily basis from the media- this section concludes by looking at contemporary African gender and media activism and research.