by Wanjiru G. Mbure
University of Michigan Press, 2026
Cloth: 978-0-472-07810-3
Paper: 978-0-472-05810-5
eISBN: 978-0-472-90588-1 (OA)
Out for Glamour in Africa critically reflects on how Black women utilized Drum magazine, a leading publication in Africa during the era of independence, for political empowerment and constructing notions of Black femininity. Wanjirũ G. Mbure terms the concept of femme urbAfricana, a model of Black femininity depicted as urban, political, fashionable, paradoxically Afrocentric, heteronormative, and transnational. Foregrounding stories of the women who embodied these traits and the social, political, and economic forces that shaped their presence in Drum, Mbure argues that these representations of Black women from Africa, the Caribbean, Europe, and the United States produced a novel form of Black urban femininity. Utilizing a breadth of archival materials from cover girl photographs, advertisements, and columns, to readers’ comments, Mbure reveals the complex relationship between the Black urban woman and the era’s contested ideals within a transnational matrix.
“Out for Glamour in Africa is a very well-researched and informative book that offers a comprehensively detailed treatment of the ways in which African women’s femininity was negotiated through media discourses aligned with specific moments in colonial and postcolonial history.”
— Patricia Davis, Northeastern University“Out for Glamour in Africa contributes to the lacunae in postcolonial African history research. It centers the subjectivities of African women to show that African women were co-creators in the post-independence nationalist project.”
— Hilary Jones, University of Kentucky“Deeply researched and lushly illustrated, Out for Glamour in Africa is an exhilarating read, revealing Drum’s truly transnational character by attending to the East and West African editions of the magazine so rarely paired with its better known South African edition. What’s more, Mbure is as meticulous when analyzing images as when excavating the active role that women played in shaping the editorial content rather than only as readers. Mbure’s femme urbAfricana is sure to become an indispensable concept across global Black, gender, and urban studies.”
— Tsitsi Jaji, Duke University“This innovative and accomplished study moves beyond the rubric of Black erasure to investigate the role of glamour in the making of novel urban femininities in Drum. Combining meticulous archival work and close analysis, this study makes visible the material and discursive forces which structured women’s presence in popular magazine culture in the period.”
— Corinne Sandwith, University of Pretoria, South AfricaLicense: CC BY-NC
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