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African Languages and Literatures in the 21st Century
by Esther Mukewa Lisanza Leonard MuakaThis edited book examines the crucial role still played by African languages in pedagogy and literatures in the 21st century, generating insights into how they effectively serve cultural needs across the African continent and beyond. Boldly positioning African languages as key resources in the 21st century, chapters focus on themes such as language revolt by marginalized groups at grassroots level, the experience of American students learning African languages, female empowerment through the use of African languages in music, film and literary works, and immigration issues. The contributions are written by scholars of language, literature, education and linguistics, and the book will be of interest to students and scholars in these and related areas.
African Languages/Langues Africaines: Volume 1 1975 (Linguistic Surveys of Africa #23)
by Various AuthorsVolume 1 of African Languages include articles originally published in 1975 and written in French and English on educational, literary, cultural, historical and socio-linguistic aspects of language in Africa, as well as descriptive and comparative studies. Among others there are chapters on African oral literature, the standardization of languages and education in Nigeria and a description of Shona spelling.
African Languages/Langues Africaines: Volume 2 1976 (Linguistic Surveys of Africa #24)
by P. AkỤjỤobi NwachukwuVolume 2 of African Languages includes articles originally published in 1976, written in French and English on educational, literary, cultural, historical and socio-linguistic aspects of language in Africa, as well as descriptive and comparative studies. Among others there are chapters on an early Vai manuscript from Liberia, John Clarke's unidentified Nago dialect and swahili secondary education in Tanzania.
African Languages/Langues Africaines: Volume 3 1977 (Linguistic Surveys of Africa #25)
by P. AkỤJỤobi NwachukwuVolume 3 of African Languages includes articles originally published in 1977, written in French and English on educational, literary, cultural, historical and socio-linguistic aspects of language in Africa, as well as descriptive and comparative studies. Among others there are chapters on the national language issue in Africa (Akan in Ghana), a socio-linguistic case study of the Hausa language in Nigeria and assimiliation and lexical coinages in Igbo.
African Languages/Langues Africaines: Volume 4 1978 (Linguistic Surveys of Africa #26)
by P. Akụjụobi NwachukwuVolume 4 of African Languages includes articles originally published in 1978, written in French and English on educational, literary, cultural, historical and socio-linguistic aspects of language in Africa, as well as descriptive and comparative studies. Among others there are chapters on lexical innovation in Zambian languages, Portuguese creole of Sénégal, the application of ethics in Hausa didactic poetry.
African Languages/Langues Africaines: Volume 5 (1) 1979 (Linguistic Surveys of Africa #27)
by David Dalby Kahombo Mateene P. AkụJụobi NwachukwuVolume 5 (1) of African Languages originally published in 1979, is a special issue focussing on the Bantu languages in Tanzania. The languages are discussed according to 4 regions of Tanzania and although the sub-grouping is lexicostatistical, the classification is borne out by other consdierations, such as phonology and verbal morphology.
African Languages/Langues Africaines: Volume 5 (2) 1979 (Linguistic Surveys of Africa #28)
by David Dalby Kahombo Mateene P. AkụJụobi NwachukwuVolume 5 (2) of African Languages originally published in 1979, is a special issue focussing on languages and education in Africa. There are chapters on African language education from a socio-linguistic perspective, the problems of bi-lingualism and multi-lingualism in Zaire and small languages in primary education.
African Literature and Social Change: Tribe, Nation, Race
by Olakunle George“George rethinks the entirety of African literature by considering texts from the 19th century and mid-20th century alongside canonical texts.” —Neil ten Kortenaar, author of Debt, Law, RealismAlert to the ways in which critical theory and imaginative literature can enrich each other, African Literature and Social Change reframes the ongoing project of African literature. Concentrating on texts that are not usually considered together—writings by little-known black missionaries, so called “black whitemen,” and better-known 20th century intellectuals and creative writers—Olakunle George shows the ways in which these writings have addressed notions of ethnicity, nation, and race and how the debates need to be rehistoricized today. George presents Africa as a site of complex desires and contradictions, refashioning the way African literature is positioned within current discussions of globalism, diaspora, and postcolonialism.“A bold exploration of the complexity of different modes of writing about Africa in the context of current debates on the nature of the literary in the production of African knowledge. Concerned with a rhetoric of self-writing as it has developed over two hundred years, Olakunle George attends to local details within the larger configurations of colonial discourse in this ambitious and timely work. It is a caution against the neglect of the conditions of possibility that made an African literature possible.” —Simon Gikandi, author of Slavery and the Culture of Taste“A new and welcome addition to the field of African literary studies, Olakunle George’s African Literature and Social Change is dense where it needs to be and glories in productive close readings when its objects call for it.” —Comparative Literature Studies
African Literature and the CIA: Networks of Authorship and Publishing (Elements in Publishing and Book Culture)
by Caroline DavisDuring the period of decolonisation in Africa, the CIA subsidised a number of African authors, editors and publishers as part of its anti-communist covert propaganda strategy. Managed by two front organisations, the Congress of Cultural Freedom and the Farfield Foundation, its Africa programme stretched across the continent, with hubs in Ibadan, Kampala, Nairobi, Cape Town and Johannesburg. This Element unravels the hidden networks and associations underpinning African literary publishing in the 1960s; it investigates the success of the CIA in disrupting and infiltrating African literary magazines and publishing firms, and determines the extent to which new circuits of cultural and literary power emerged. Based on new archival evidence relating to the Transcription Centre, The Classic and The New African, it includes case studies of Wole Soyinka, Nat Nakasa and Bessie Head, which assess how their literary careers were influenced by these transnational literary institutions, and their response to these interventions.
African Literature, Animism and Politics: Animism And Politics (Routledge Research in Postcolonial Literatures #Vol. 4)
by Caroline RooneyThis book marks an important contribution to colonial and postcolonial studies in its clarification of the African discourse of consciousness and its far-reaching analyses of a literature of animism. It will be of great interest to scholars in many fields including literary and critical theory, philosophy, anthropology, politics and psychoanalysis.
African Literatures in English: East and West (Longman Literature In English Series)
by Gareth GriffithsHere is an introduction to the history of English writing from East and West Africa drawing on a range of texts from the slave diaspora to the post-war upsurge in African English language and literature from these regions.
African Media and Communication: Foundational Conversations (Routledge Contemporary Africa)
by Winston Mano Viola C. MiltonThis book provides an important set of critical reflections from a selection of foundational scholars of African media and communication studies through biographical method. The book interrogates the center of mainstream academic scholarship by providing the foundational history and origins of an Africanist conceptual model while highlighting its significance globally.The editors use biographical and life story interviews to critically review the respondents’ interpretations of their key works and arguments in relation to key moments in the field, the continent and globally. Though the book is focussed on recovering pioneering arguments by key thinkers in African media and communication, efforts of individual academics are to be understood in the context of their work with others and within institutions that are networked, locally and globally. By bringing together many of the leading figures of African communication and media studies in a single volume, this book provides a critical corrective to the dearth of knowledge and information about who the key thinkers are and what their key arguments, theories and models for media and communication in African contexts entail.As such, it will be of interest to scholars of media and communications in Africa, and the global south.
African Perspectives on Literary Translation (Routledge Advances in Translation and Interpreting Studies)
by Judith Inggs Ella WehrmeyerThis collection serves as a showcase for literary translation research with a focus on African perspectives, highlighting theoretical and methodological developments in the discipline while shedding further light on the literary landscape in Africa. The book offers a framework for understanding key approaches and topics in literary translation situated in the African context, covering foundational concepts as well as new directions within the field. The first half of the volume focuses on the translation product, exploring such topics as translation strategies, literary genres, and self-translation, while the second half examines process and reception, allowing for an in-depth look at agency, habitus, and ethics. Each chapter is structured to allow for the introduction of a given theoretical aspect of literary translation followed by a summary of a completed research project with an African focus showing theory in practice, offering a model for readers to build their own literary translation research projects while also underscoring the range of perspectives and unique challenges to literary translation work in Africa. This unique volume is a key resource for students and scholars in translation studies, giving visibility to African perspectives on literary translation while pointing the way forward for future research directions.
African Perspectives on the Teaching and Learning of English in Higher Education (Global South Perspectives on TESOL)
by Alexandra Esimaje Bertus Van Rooy ‘Demola Jolayemi Daniel Nkemleke Ernest KluThis book brings together the work of African scholars and educators directly involved in initiatives to improve the teaching and learning of English in higher education across Africa. Offering alternative perspectives across different African countries with examples of decolonised practice in research, the book provides a critical discussion and examples of successful practice in the teaching of English in Africa. Each chapter of the book reports on a specific context and a specific teaching and/or learning initiative in higher education, with emphasis on comparability of information and on clear evaluation and critical analysis of the intervention. The editors offer a thoughtful comparison of different methods, strategies and results to provide an authoritative reference to effective strategies for English teaching and learning. The book paints a cohesive picture of the field of English language teaching in Africa and will be of great interest to researchers, scholars and postgraduate students in the areas of applied linguistics, English teaching and comparative education.
African Philosophic Sagacity in Selected African Languages and Proverbs
by Wilfred LajulThis book explores African philosophic sagacity, or wisdom philosophy, as proposed by Odera Oruka in his “Four Trends in Current African Philosophy” (1981), which he later expanded to six trends (1998). Oruka defines philosophic sagacity as wisdom philosophy, or philosophy of the wise men of Africa who are independent, liberal and non-conformist thinkers, and who often deviate from the accepted common norms of their societies. This book takes philosophic sagacity discourse beyond Oruka’s definition by encompassing traditional wise sayings and proverbs. It combines individual liberal thinkers and the communal ideas, and cherishes both rational and emotional engagement, offering a broader understanding of African philosophic sagacity. Wilfred Lajul opens the door for new researchers to venture into the study of African languages, wisdom sayings, and proverbs, and helps to unveil the content of this philosophy from the perspective of different African societies.
African Radio and Minority Languages: Participation and Representation (Routledge African Media, Culture and Communication Studies)
by Limukani MatheWithin Africa, radio provides an important platform for accommodating diverse linguistic groups and enabling speakers to express themselves in their own local languages. This book investigates how radio broadcasting across the continent provides a platform for cultural participation and the representation of minority language speakers in a contested public sphere. In African media, a fierce contest wages for representation and participation, in which majority languages often emerge at the exclusion of minority ethnolinguistic groups. This book considers the important role that radio can play in broadcasting in minority languages. Drawing on in-depth original analysis, ethnographic observation and interviews with minority language radio hosts and guests from across South Africa, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Malawi, Namibia, Mozambique, Lesotho and Kenya, this book considers to what extent African radio is accommodative of minority languages and what the challenges and prospects are for this. Ultimately, the book argues that radio’s three-tier system of broadcasting through analogue and digital radio leaves the medium of radio particularly well placed to provide equal access for ethnolinguistic groups in Africa.This ambitious and broad-ranging study will be an essential read for scholars and students of media studies and sociolinguistics in Africa.
African Shakespeare: Subversions, Appropriations, Negotiations (Routledge Studies in African Literature)
by Pepetual Mforbe Chiangong Oliver Nyambi Ifeoluwa Aboluwade Serena TalentoAfrican Shakespeare: Subversions, Appropriations, Negotiations uncovers the multidimensional inventions, synergies, and experimentations that have emerged from performative, political, literary, and conceptual encounters with Shakespeare and his oeuvre in African contexts. Divided into three broad and overlapping parts, the chapters of the book critically explore issues of decoloniality and postcoloniality; nation-building and state corruption; history and memory; gender and feminism; translation and adaptation from diverse theoretical standpoints. The book displaces the emphasis on Shakespeare’s works to productively illuminate the multi-layered significance of African epistemes, politico-aesthetics, languages and socio-cultural realities to the practice and process of literary and theatrical intervention and creation. Building on and extending extant scholarship in the field of African Shakespeare, the contributions in the volume not only enhance knowledge of African Shakespearean creations but also enrich African Studies and Shakespeare Studies by opening up new possibilities for transdisciplinary dialogues and cross-fertilization.The book will be useful for students and scholars of African Theatre and Performance, Cultural Studies, (Global) Shakespeare Studies, Translation and Adaptation Studies and Post-colonial Studies.
African Voices on Slavery and the Slave Trade
by Alice Bellagamba Sandra E. Greene Martin A. Klein Alice Bellagamba Sandra E. GreeneThough the history of slavery is a central topic for African, Atlantic world and world history, most of the sources presenting research in this area are European in origin. To cast light on African perspectives, and on the point of view of enslaved men and women, this group of top Africanist scholars has examined both conventional historical sources (such as European travel accounts, colonial documents, court cases, and missionary records) and less-explored sources of information (such as folklore, oral traditions, songs and proverbs, life histories collected by missionaries and colonial officials, correspondence in Arabic, and consular and admiralty interviews with runaway slaves). Each source has a short introduction highlighting its significance and orienting the reader. This first of two volumes provides students and scholars with a trove of African sources for studying African slavery and slave trade.
African Voices on Slavery and the Slave Trade
by Martin A. Klein Alice Bellagamba Sandra E. Greene Bellagamba, Alice and Greene, Sandra E. and Klein, Martin A.Though the history of slavery is a central topic for African, Atlantic world and world history, most of the sources presenting research in this area are European in origin. To cast light on African perspectives, and on the point of view of enslaved men and women, this group of top Africanist scholars has examined both conventional historical sources (such as European travel accounts, colonial documents, court cases, and missionary records) and less-explored sources of information (such as folklore, oral traditions, songs and proverbs, life histories collected by missionaries and colonial officials, correspondence in Arabic, and consular and admiralty interviews with runaway slaves). Each source has a short introduction highlighting its significance and orienting the reader. This first of two volumes provides students and scholars with a trove of African sources for studying African slavery and slave trade.
African Youth Languages: New Media, Performing Arts And Sociolinguistic Development
by Ellen Hurst-Harosh Fridah Kanana ErastusThis book showcases current research on language in new media, the performing arts and music in Africa, emphasising the role that youth play in language change and development. The authors demonstrate how the efforts of young people to throw off old colonial languages and create new local ones has become a site of language creativity. <P><P>Analysing the language of ‘new media’, including social media, print media and new media technologies, and of creative arts such as performance poetry, hip-hop and rap, they use empirical research from such diverse countries as Cameroon, Nigeria, Kenya, the Ivory Coast and South Africa. <P>This original edited collection will appeal to students and scholars of African sociolinguistics, particularly in the light of the rapidly changing globalized context in which we live.
African-American English: Structure, History and Use (Routledge Linguistics Classics Ser.)
by John R. Rickford Salikoko S. Mufwene John Baugh Guy BaileyAfrican-American English: Structure, History and Use provides a comprehensive survey of linguistic research into African-American English. The main linguistic features are covered, in particular the grammar, phonology and lexicon. Further chapters explore the sociological, political and educational issues connected with African-American English. The editors are the leading experts in the field and along with other key figures, notably William Labov, Geneva Smitherman and Walt Wolfram, they provide an authoritative, diverse guide to this topical subject area. Drawing on many contemporary references: the Oakland School controversy, the rap of Ice-T, the contributors reflect the state of current scholarship on African-American English, and actively dispel many misconceptions, address new questions and explore new approaches. The book is designed to serve as a text for the increasing number of courses on African-American English and as a convenient reference for students of linguistics, black studies and anthropology at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.
African-American English: Structure, History, and Use (Routledge Linguistics Classics)
by Salikoko S. MufweneThis book was the first to provide a comprehensive survey of linguistic research into African-American English and is widely recognised as a classic in the field. It covers both the main linguistic features, in particular the grammar, phonology, and lexicon as well as the sociological, political and educational issues connected with African-American English. The editors have played key roles in the development of African-American English and Black Linguistics as overlapping academic fields of study. Along with other leading figures, notably Geneva Smitherman, William Labov and Walt Wolfram, they provide an authoritative diverse guide to these vitally important subject areas. Drawing on key moments of cultural significance from the Ebonics controversy to the rap of Ice-T, the contributors cover the state of the art in scholarship on African-American English, and actively dispel misconceptions, address new questions and explore new approaches. This classic edition has a new foreword by Sonja Lanehart, setting the book in context and celebrating its influence. This is an essential text for courses on African-American English, key reading for Varieties of English and World Englishes modules and an important reference for students of linguistics, black studies and anthropology at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.
African-Decolonial Interculturalities (New Perspectives on Teaching Interculturality)
by Hamza R’boulThis groundbreaking book brings together scholars to explore African epistemologies as underrepresented and misrepresented sociologies of knowledge in interculturality research, challenging dominant narratives and promoting epistemic justice.The volume affirms the validity of African perspectives based on their originality and non-derivativeness rather than their status of invisibility. It contributes to a critical reflection on how African spheres and epistemologies can be represented and ultimately understood as homogeneous entities, denying the particularities of their situated acts and processes of knowing. The contributors argue that (a) theorizing and practicing interculturality otherwise requires 'looking elsewhere' by foregrounding knowledge from spheres often marginalized by dominant mainstream discourses; (b) African stories, discourses, and epistemologies are crucial for enunciating interculturality through innovative and original knowledge and thus advancing the field. The book aims to promote diverse African interculturalities, strengthen alternative theorization methods, and position interculturality as a theory of hermeneutics and liberation that African people can draw upon to navigate and understand their own and others’ experiences.This book will be essential read for scholars and students of intercultural communication, sociology, African studies, and philosophy.
African-Language Literatures: Perspectives on isiZulu fiction and popular black television series
by Innocentia Jabulisile MhlambiAfrican-language writing is in crisis. The conditions under which African writing developed in the past (only remotely similar to those of Western models), resulted in an inability of Eurocentric literary models to explore the hermeneutic world of African language poetics inherited from the oral and the modern worlds. Existing modes of criticism in the study of this literary tradition are often unsuited for a nuanced understanding of the intrinsic and extrinsic aspects at play in the composition, production and reading of these literatures. In African-Language Literatures, Innocentia Jabulisile Mhlambi charts new directions in the study of African-language literatures generally and isiZulu fiction in particular by proposing that African popular arts and culture models be considered as a logical solution to current debates and challenges. Mhlambi shows how the popular arts and culture approach brings into relationship the oral and written forms, the local and the international, and elitist and popular genres, and locates and places the resultant emerging, eclectic culture into its socio-historical context. She uses this theoretical approach to explore – in a wide range of cultural products – what matters or what is of interest to the people, irrespective of social hierarchies and predispositions. It is her contention that, in profound ways the African-language literary tradition evinces diversity, complexity and fluidity, and that this should be seen as an invitation to look at systems of meaning which do not hide their connections with the facts of power and material life.
Afrika and Alemania: German-Speaking Women, Africa, and the African Diaspora (German and European Studies #59)
by Priscilla Layne Michelle Stott James Lisabeth HockAfrika and Alemania explores the representation of Blackness in German-speaking literary, autobiographical, and cinematic texts across two centuries. By examining how different groups of women with access to German culture have depicted Africa, Africans, and the African diaspora, the book challenges the assumption that all women will tell the same story. Focusing on Black women, non-Black women of colour, and white women, it investigates how these diverse voices engage with and represent Blackness within a society shaped by racial hierarchies. Part I analyses how Black, German-speaking women actively reshape and redefine Blackness in response to stereotypes upheld by white German society. Part II explores how non-Black women of colour navigate the complexities of othering while sometimes reproducing anti-Black stereotypes, while Part III discusses how white women’s projections of fantasies about Africa often erase Black voices and render them invisible. Offering a nuanced analysis of the intersections of race, gender, ethnicity, and nationality, Afrika and Alemania provides a vital framework for understanding Blackness within contemporary scholarship and its broader social and cultural implications.