Women Explorers In Africa

Summarizes the lives and accomplishments of five women who were explorers in Africa.

Fourteen essays provide a challenging outlook on narratives by women explorers and travellers from five different continents, spanning nearly one century from 1850 to 1945. The map thus drawn enables one to revisit, restore, and reassess the content and the originality of these narratives by women. The essays are relevant to the fields of travel writing and gender studies, and all draw from referential contemporary theoretical and critical works (Michel Foucault, Homi Bhabha, Edward Said, Roland Barthes, Michel de Certeau, Gilles Deleuze, Sara Mills, Kristi Siegel, and Jane Robinson). The main interest and originality of the volume result from the perspectives adopted by the different authors. The text-oriented analyses rely on close reading, thus definitely providing accurate and perceptive critical insights into the narratives. Such perspective precludes erasing the differential features characterizing each geographical space and each travelling subject. It also moves away from any temptation at creating a naturalized mythical image of these women.

There�s no doubt that women have always been a part of journeys of discovery, from Viking women crossing the ocean to new lands to trade caravans bringing goods through Africa. But there is slim mention of them in most history books. This exciting book digs up the history of the bold women who dared to travel all over the world, including multilingual Isabelle Eberhardt, who �obeyed her destiny� and traveled through the Algerian desert dressed as a man, and adventurous aviatrix Bessie Coleman, the first African-American woman to hold a pilot�s license.

Introduces inspiring women whose passions for exploration made them push the boundaries, including Nellie Cashman, Annie Smith Peck, and Delia Julia Denning Akeley.

As a dutiful Victorian daughter, the author was thirty before being freed (by her parents' deaths) to do as she chose. She went to West Africa in 1893 and again in 1895, to investigate the beliefs and customs of the inland tribes and also to collect zoological specimens. She was appalled by the 'thin veneer of rubbishy white culture' imposed by British officials and was not afraid to say so.

First published in 1892, M. French-Sheldon's book describes her 1891 expedition that took her from the court of the Sultan of Zanzibar to the Mount Kilimanjaro region of East Africa. This narrative is accompanied by an introduction, exploring the cultural context within which this text appeared.

Discusses the lives and accomplishments of five twentieth-century women who traveled and explored the oceans of the world, some of whom also studied marine life.

Women Explorers chronicles the lives of six intrepid women whose hunger for adventure and knowledge compelled them on paths of discovery around the world. Their discoveries not only brought stores of information on topics ranging from ancient dinosaur fossils to life in Tibet, but also challenged the established roles of women in their fields. Kingsley set sail for Africa in 1893, embarking on a trip that would change not only her life, but the Victorian understanding of the dark continent as well. She traveled between the Niger and Congo rivers, was the first white woman to climb Mount Cameroon, and penned two books about her research in Africa.