140488 VO New Writing from Africa (2010W)

What are African writers thinking and writing about in the first decade of the 21st century? This second-year Special Lectures will explore recent African Anglophone writing (2000-2009), examining how African writing has developed over the last 50 years, and how critical approaches to this literature have also changed. We will analyze African writing as part of world literature, rather than simply part of "postcolonial literature", and ask why it continues to thrive despite economic, social and political instabilities across Africa. The themes and concerns of this writing reflect the transformed African identity that has become increasingly disillusioned with nationalist identifications, replacing these with a transnational, global awareness. They include the disillusionment over corruption, ethnic strife, and paralysis; war trauma, including torture, genocide, and child soldier experiences; exile, diaspora, and the impact of globalization on Africa; the exoticization and commodification of Africa in the West; and the perceived clash between Islam and Western modernity. We will examine a variety of genres and narrative trends, including the novel, the autobiography, "bildungsroman", the short story and the detective thriller, and explore their function and effectiveness. Our analyses will be informed by contemporary cultural theories, especially globalization theories, paying close attention to the relationships between international politics and national politics; between sex and international political economy; and between race, gender, nationality and religion, looking at the many faces of globalization as reflected in African writing.