POLI Speakers Series - Dr. Shireen Hassim

Join the POLI Speakers Series for their first event of the year, featuring Dr. Shireen Hassim. Dr. Hassim will present a talk titled "Gender, social imaginaries..." where she explores how including gender as a category of analysis can transform the theorization of democracy in Africa.

Her presentation will delve into whether notions of a just society and the common good would appear different if the full spectrum of human possibilities were considered. These are not abstract questions, but rather central to political mobilization against power structures and foundational to many collective movements for democracy.

Dr. Hassim will argue that the exclusion of feminist scholarship from mainstream democratic analysis in Africa not only renders women invisible but also reveals a limitation in the very conception of democracy itself. She will use South Africa as a case study, drawing on historical archival sources, to demonstrate how concerns articulated by black women, including queer black women, have often exceeded conventional political understandings.