The African Quest for Freedom and Identity

The African Quest for Freedom and Identity PDF Author: Richard Bjornson
Publisher: Bloomington : Indiana University Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 536

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Book Description
Independence generated the promise of a better future for the ethnically diverse populations of African countries, but during the past thirty years economic and political crises have called into question the legitimacy of speaking about nationhood in Africa. Richard Bjornson argues here that a national consciousness can indeed be seen in the shared systems of references made possible by the emergence of literate cultures. By tracing the evolution of literate culture in Cameroon from the colonial period to the present and by examining a broad spectrum of writing in its social, political, economic, and cultural contexts, Bjornson shows how the concepts of freedom and identity have become the dominant concerns of the country's writers, and he relates those themes to the history of Cameroon's as a complex modern state. Bjornson also analyzes in detail works by writers such as Mongo Beti, Ferdinand Oyono, Marcien Towa, Guillaume Oyono-Mbia, René Philombe, and Francis Bebey.

The African Quest for Freedom and Identity

The African Quest for Freedom and Identity PDF Author: Richard Bjornson
Publisher: Bloomington : Indiana University Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 536

Get Book Here

Book Description
Independence generated the promise of a better future for the ethnically diverse populations of African countries, but during the past thirty years economic and political crises have called into question the legitimacy of speaking about nationhood in Africa. Richard Bjornson argues here that a national consciousness can indeed be seen in the shared systems of references made possible by the emergence of literate cultures. By tracing the evolution of literate culture in Cameroon from the colonial period to the present and by examining a broad spectrum of writing in its social, political, economic, and cultural contexts, Bjornson shows how the concepts of freedom and identity have become the dominant concerns of the country's writers, and he relates those themes to the history of Cameroon's as a complex modern state. Bjornson also analyzes in detail works by writers such as Mongo Beti, Ferdinand Oyono, Marcien Towa, Guillaume Oyono-Mbia, René Philombe, and Francis Bebey.

African Freedom

African Freedom PDF Author: Phyllis Taoua
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108689132
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
The push for independence in African nations was ultimately an incomplete process, with the people often left to wrestle with a partial, imperfect legacy. Rather than settle for liberation in name alone, the people engaged in an ongoing struggle for meaningful freedom. Phyllis Taoua shows how the idea of freedom in Africa today evolved from this complex history. With a pan-African, interdisciplinary approach, she synthesizes the most significant issues into a clear, compelling narrative. Tracing the evolution of a conversation about freedom since the 1960s, she defines three types and shows how they are interdependent. Taoua investigates their importance in key areas of narrative interest: the intimate self, gender identity, the nation, global capital, and the spiritual realm. Allowing us to hear the voices of African artists and activists, this compelling study makes sense of their struggle and the broad importance of the idea of freedom in contemporary African culture.

African Or American?

African Or American? PDF Author: Leslie M. Alexander
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252078535
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
The struggle for black identity in antebellum New York

The Quest for Citizenship

The Quest for Citizenship PDF Author: Kim Cary Warren
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807899445
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
In The Quest for Citizenship, Kim Cary Warren examines the formation of African American and Native American citizenship, belonging, and identity in the United States by comparing educational experiences in Kansas between 1880 and 1935. Warren focuses her study on Kansas, thought by many to be the quintessential free state, not only because it was home to sizable populations of Indian groups and former slaves, but also because of its unique history of conflict over freedom during the antebellum period. After the Civil War, white reformers opened segregated schools, ultimately reinforcing the very racial hierarchies that they claimed to challenge. To resist the effects of these reformers' actions, African Americans developed strategies that emphasized inclusion and integration, while autonomy and bicultural identities provided the focal point for Native Americans' understanding of what it meant to be an American. Warren argues that these approaches to defining American citizenship served as ideological precursors to the Indian rights and civil rights movements. This comparative history of two nonwhite races provides a revealing analysis of the intersection of education, social control, and resistance, and the formation and meaning of identity for minority groups in America.

The Quest for Community and Identity

The Quest for Community and Identity PDF Author: Robert E. Birt
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742512924
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
This collection of essays engages two of the most fundamental social and political issues of our time: community and identity. Wrestling with the perplexities of these two issues within the Africana world, the contributors delve into the influences of a postmodern world of globalization with outdated, crumbling forms of identity and sociality. In the wake of such an order, new forms of identity and community must be established. Birt has collected an informed group of contributors here, who lay the foundation for a new approach to finding community and identity in the Africana world.

A Companion to African Literatures

A Companion to African Literatures PDF Author: Olakunle George
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119058171
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 512

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Book Description
Rediscover the diversity of modern African literatures with this authoritative resource edited by a leader in the field How have African literatures unfolded in their rich diversity in our modern era of decolonization, nationalisms, and extensive transnational movement of peoples? How have African writers engaged urgent questions regarding race, nation, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality? And how do African literary genres interrelate with traditional oral forms or audio-visual and digital media? A Companion to African Literatures addresses these issues and many more. Consisting of essays by distinguished scholars and emerging leaders in the field, this book offers rigorous, deeply engaging discussions of African literatures on the continent and in diaspora. It covers the four main geographical regions (East and Central Africa, North Africa, Southern Africa, and West Africa), presenting ample material to learn from and think with. A Companion To African Literatures is divided into five parts. The first four cover different regions of the continent, while the fifth part considers conceptual issues and newer directions of inquiry. Chapters focus on literatures in European languages officially used in Africa -- English, French, and Portuguese -- as well as homegrown African languages: Afrikaans, Amharic, Arabic, Swahili, and Yoruba. With its lineup of lucid and authoritative analyses, readers will find in A Companion to African Literatures a distinctive, rewarding academic resource. Perfect for undergraduate and graduate students in literary studies programs with an African focus, A Companion to African Literatures will also earn a place in the libraries of teachers, researchers, and professors who wish to strengthen their background in the study of African literatures.

Mobilizing the Hordes

Mobilizing the Hordes PDF Author: Victor N. Gomia
Publisher: African Books Collective
ISBN: 9956727547
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
This book draws on years of rich empirical research on radio drama production in Cameroon to offer a strikingly new perspective in Development Theatre discourse in Africa. Chronicling the history and evolution of Development Theatre practice in Anglophone Africa and arguing for literary forms that address the basic everyday realities of ordinary people in a medium they understand, the book revisits the crucial question of utilitarian literature in a continent that continues to brandish a begging bowl even as it celebrates fifty years of independence. Radio Theatre's inherent latitude to reach the masses in a manner and matter that they identify with makes of it an invaluable albeit often neglected sub-genre in the universe of Development Theatre. Reaching an enlarged audience through radio drama productions - plays that address the rustic, ascetic and practical realities of the people - is liberating. Through radio plays and their capacity to provide for an enormous degree of authenticity, ordinary people are able to enhance their self-esteem. Like main stream Development Theatre, Radio Drama sets out to address the concerns of all in an all-embracing approach that explores interactive learning characterized by continuous questioning of and adaptation to reality. It disparages the omniscience of the superstructure meant to be perceived as indispensable and all-knowing. As a medium of development communication with unique aesthetic qualities found in and not limited to sound and silence, Radio Drama creates events and condenses reality into dramatic constellations with a high sense of authenticity that invites its audience to participate in the creation process with a strong sense of direction in a story, a plot and a moral. This people-oriented culture re-animation process is the fertile ground for grassroots empowerment. It is the point of departure for feasible development initiatives that this book explores.

Landscaping Postcoloniality. The Dissemination of Cameroon Anglophone Literature

Landscaping Postcoloniality. The Dissemination of Cameroon Anglophone Literature PDF Author: B. Ashuntantang
Publisher: African Books Collective
ISBN: 9956715107
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 186

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Book Description
This is a foundational text on the production and dissemination of Anglophone Cameroon literature. The Republic of Cameroon is a bilingual country with English and French as the official languages. Ashuntantang shows that the pattern of production and dissemination of Anglophone Cameroon literature is not only framed by the minority status of English and English-speaking Cameroonians within the Republic of Cameroon, but is also a reflection of a postcolonial reality in Africa where mostly African literary texts published by western multi-national corporations are assured wide international accessibility and readership. This book establishes that in spite of these setbacks, Anglophone Cameroon writers have produced a corpus of work that has enriched the genres of prose, poetry and drama, and that these texts deserve a wider readership.

Gordian Knot

Gordian Knot PDF Author: Ryan M. Irwin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199996172
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Writing more than one hundred years ago, African American scholar W.E.B. Du Bois speculated that the great dilemma of the twentieth century would be the problem of "the color line." Nowhere was the dilemma of racial discrimination more entrenched-and more complex-than South Africa. Gordian Knot examines South Africa's freedom struggle in the years surrounding African decolonization, using the global apartheid debate to explore the way new nation-states changed the international community during the mid-twentieth century. At the highpoint of decolonization, South Africa's problems shaped a transnational conversation about nationhood. Arguments about racial justice, which crested as Europe relinquished imperial control of Africa and the Caribbean, elided a deeper contest over the meaning of sovereignty, territoriality, and development. Based on research in African, American, and European archives, Gordian Knot advances a bold new interpretation about African decolonization's relationship to American power. In so doing, it promises to shed light on U.S. foreign relations with the Third World and recast understandings of the fate of liberal internationalism after World War II.

The Anglophone Literary-Linguistic Continuum

The Anglophone Literary-Linguistic Continuum PDF Author: Michael Andindilile
Publisher: African Books Collective
ISBN: 1920033254
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
Michael Andindilile in The Anglophone LiteraryLinguistic Continuum: English and Indigenous Languages in African Literary Discourse interrogates Obi Walis (1963) prophecy that continued use of former colonial languages in the production of African literature could only lead to sterility, as African literatures can only be written in indigenous African languages. In doing so, Andindilile critically examines selected of novels of Achebe of Nigeria, Ngugi of Kenya, Gordimer of South Africa and Farah of Somalia and shows that, when we pay close attention to what these authors represent about their African societies, and the way they integrate African languages, values, beliefs and cultures, we can discover what constitutes the Anglophone African literarylinguistic continuum. This continuum can be defined as variations in the literary usage of English in African literary discourse, with the language serving as the base to which writers add variations inspired by indigenous languages, beliefs, cultures and, sometimes, nation-specific experiences.