Men in African Film and Fiction

Through their depictions in film and literature of masculinities in colonial, independent and post-independent Africa, the contributors open some key African texts to a more obviously politicized set of meanings.

Collectively, the essays provide space for rethinking current theory on gender and masculinity focusing on: how only some of the most popular theories in masculinity studies in the West hold true in African contexts; how Western and indigenous masculinities react on the continent; how masculinity and femininity reside more on a continuum of cultural practices than on absolutely opposite planes; and how generation rather than gender often functions as the more potent metaphor.