Intro to African Literature (outline)

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African Literature
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ENG 458 Course Pack:
Introduction to African Literature
C20 Historical-Cultural Contexts
African Literature 1950s - 1990s
--Language Debates
--African Novel
--Engage History
*

1. Introduction to African Literature
C20 Historical-Cultural Contexts
See also African Timelines (C. Agatucci, Humanities 211):
Part 3: African Slave Trade and European Imperialism
Part 4: Anticolonialism & Reconstruction
Part 5: Post-Independence Africa & Contemporary Trends

		Late 19^th c. - Colonization of Africa "Scramble for Africa" & the Berlin Conference (1884-1885) See African Timelines, Part 4
		1914-1918: World War I damages myths of European invincibility & right to rule the world
		League of Nations: Eur. colonizers to prepare colonies for independence

2. C20 Historical-Cultural Contexts
See African Timelines, Part 4

1920s-30s: anti-colonial independence & pan-African movements gain strength

Négritude literary movement of African & Caribbean intellectuals & poets:
--shared African roots & destructive experiences of European colonization
--denounced victimization & fragmentation
--affirmed African identity & romanticized ancestral traditions (Africa=woman;
idealized harmonious African past

3. C20 Historical-Cultural Contexts, cont.
See African Timelines, Part 4

1947: Independence gained by India/Pakistan (Gandhi) intensifies de-colonization movements in Africa

1952: Franz Fanon (b. Martinique; military psychiatrist in French Algeria) publishes Black Skin, White Masks, influential critique of experience of racism & evils of European colonialism

4. C20 Historical-Cultural Contexts, cont.
See African Timelines, Part 5

1957: Ghana (former "Gold Coast") is 1^st African nation to gain independence (from UK), led by Kwame Nkrumah using Gandhi-inspired rallies, boycotts, strikes

1958: Chinua Achebe publishesThings Fall Apart….See Hum 211 ed. of Things Fall Apart introductory essays: "Chinua Achebe: A Biographical Note"; "Chinua Achebe & the Invention of African Literature"

5. African Literature 1950s-1990s

Anglophone (English-language) African novel & autobiography: key genres
(see below)

Combine Western lit. conventions + African storytelling/oral traditions

"Cultural imperialism" – "modernization" - "globalization": participation in interconnected world culture

6. African Literature 1950s-1990s

Circulation of world cultures: Kwame Anthony Appiah: "we are all already contaminated by each other." There is no pure traditional African culture "awaiting salvage by our artists (just as there is…no American culture without African roots)." (1992)

"homogenization" vs. diversity
(e.g. of post-colonial world)

7. African Literature 1950s-1990s

African literature = Art, not just source of "anthropological" info re:"exotic" cultures; or "flawed" versions

Western tendency to "universalize" fails to respect African differences – e.g. in historical/cultural contexts, aesthetics (artistic theory, criteria, forms)

8. African Literature 1950s-1990s

African art/literature – more direct & urgent relationship to reality: "art for life’s sake" (vs. Western aesthetics: "art for art’s sake)

Achebe rejects anthropological & "universalist" readings of African literature – importance of African oral traditions

9. African Literature 1950s-1990s

Two types of African postcolonial writing > Biodun Jeyifo (1991) - TFA does both:

1. Reassert/reinvent traditions that European colonialism tried to destroy or devalue: "cultural genocide" > Jean-Marie Teno

2. Complex cultural "hybrids" that combine African & Western cultural perspectives

10. African Literature 1950s-1990s

Fight legacy of negative representations (images) of Africa – "decolonize the mind" > Ngugi wa Thiong’o

Resist both forms of racism: "apartheid" and "assimilation"

African response literature: The Empire Writes Back (to the West)

11. African Literature 1950s-1990s

Language Debate: African writers’, filmmakers’ choice of language is politicized decision "engulfed by ironies, paradoxes, & contradictions" >JanMohamed, 1984

Choose colonizer’s language – may perpetuate colonialist ideas of Eur. cultural superiority

12. African Literature: Language Debate

Fewer Africans literate in African languages than in European languages

Can reach larger African audience + Western/international audience

Economics of publishing industry

But most Africans not literate in European languages: writing for an educated elite

13. African Literature: Language Debate

Clash between written & oral cultural forms = defining characteristic of African post-colonial literature, which itself is written, but which often draws heavily upon oral cultural traditions >M. Keith Booker, 1998

Achebe writes "African English" – decolonize the English language

14. African Literature: The Novel

Genre = political, historical phenomenon (F. Jameson, 1981)

Novel’s flexibility (M. Bakhtin) shaped to social/communication situations, art’s critical function of "realistic" fiction, used to challenge (neo)colonial domination

15. African Literature: Engage history

Write African (hi)stories, challenge colonialist histories, recover the past, write African back into history

Construct new de-colonized cultural identities
*

Introduction,
Major Issues &
Questions:

See also:
Bahri, Deepika. "Introduction to Postcolonial Studies" Fall 1996. Postcolonial Studies Web. March 2001.
<http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/Bahri/Intro.html>
Accessed 21 August 2001.


ENG 458 - Cora Agatucci Comparative Literature: Colonialism/Postcolonialism

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