140131 VO Issues in African Literature in English: Past and Present (2012S)

This introductory lecture series will trace the birth and development of modern African literature in English and French up to the present time, exploring the political, aesthetic, and philosphical issues in this literaure. The political issues include the colonial encounter, anti-colonial nationalism, post-independence disillusionment and the issues of decolonization, the clash between tradition and modernity, the position of African women, African diaspora, the impact of neo-colonization and globalization on Africa, the process of canonization of certain writers, and the material aspects of publishing. The aesthetic issues include topics such as social realism versus experimental approaches, Black writing, language choice, the influence of African orality and Western forms on the African novel, popular literature and the history of criticism of African writing. The philosophical issues to be explored include African identity and the postcolonial self, the position of African literature in world literature, the universal versus local, and the influence of poststructuralist, postcolonialist and postmodernist discourses on these identities. Framing the discussion will be the question of how African literature can be defined and whether the term 'African literature' is useful at all in approaching writing from the continent.

Lecture topics:
Lecture 1: The birth and development of African writing in English
(the colonial factor; language; audience; relationship with orality; missionary education factor; the publishing of African literature in English and French)
Lecture 2:The rise of African national consciousness
Lecture 3:The role of the writer in Africa and the development of African literary aesthetics
(orality; 'writing back' versus 'writing alongside' the Western tradition; politics versus aesthetics; the 'truth of fiction'; 'decolonizing the mind')
Lecture 4: Marxist aesthetics in African literature
Lecture 5: The African writer and the divided nation: the era of disillusionment
Lecture 6: The criticism of African literature: from commonwealth to postcolonial
Lecture 7: The aesthetics and politics of Négritude and Black Consciousness
Lecture 8: Women’s writing and feminism
Lecture 9: Defining African modernism, postmodernism and magical realism
Lecture 10: Popular literature
Lecture 11: Diaspora writing
Lecture 12: Queer writing
Lecture 13: Postcolonialism and poststructuralism