Naminata Diabate explores how the deployment of defiant nakedness by mature women in Africa challenges longstanding assumptions about women's political agency.

Acknowledgments  ix
Introduction: Exceptional Nakedness  1
Section I. Restriction  
Scene 1. Exceptional Conditions and Darker Shades of Biopolitics  29
Scene 2. Dobsonville and the Question of Autonomy  43
Section II. Co-operation
Scene 3. Africanizing Nakedness as (Self-)Instrumentalization  65
Scene 4. In the Name of National Interest  89
Scene 5. Film as Instrumental and Interpretive Lens  107
Section III. Repression
Scene 6. Secularizing Genital Cursing and Rhetorical Backlash  131
Scene 7. Epistemic Ignorance and Menstrual Rags in Paris  149
Scene 8. Mis(Reading) Murderous Reactions  175
Epilogue: Defiant Disrobing Going Viral  191
Notes  197
References  219
Index  251