| Indhold: |
Background and motivation
What has literature got to do with it? So Nigerian writer, Chinua Achebe asked in his famous essay of the same title.
Answering this question is the core of this interdisciplinary course, where interlinking literature on one hand and history and the social distribution of power on the other is the field of study. This course breaks down the barrier between culture and politics, between literature and power, revealing the intimacies between them. Through the analytical perspective of ‘practices of representation’ we continually ask the question: what is the political significance of literature in the light of the meta-distinction colonialism/postcolonialism?
Edward Said first formulated these connections in his famous book “Orientalism”. Said analysed the continuity between cultural representations and colonialism and found that literature and other cultural representations implicitly served as a justification for colonial ambitions. The romanticized images of the Orient in European culture were moral vehicles enabling final military conquest.
African critics are well aware of these powers of culture. In different ways writers such as Nigerian Chinua Achebe and Kenyan Ngugi wa Thiong’O try to break the spell of colonial discourse: Achebe writes about colonial experience from the colonized perspective while Thiong’O does the same – in his language gikuyu. Both of them later criticize European authors for their racist tendencies: Joseph Conrad and Karen Blixen. Their critique will be the starting point for a discussion of how historical literary representations of Africa have had consequences, both historical and contemporary.
The Danish author Jakob Ejersbo, in his works about Africa, mocks colonialism by letting his protagonist say “Who do you think you are? Karen Blixen?” Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie also reacts to classical colonial literature calling Karen Blixen “unforgiveable”. These works will be read under the theme “Bye bye Blixen”.
Whereas these gestures of dismissal have been historically necessary, they seem to replicate themselves in the present day, as a means for positioning oneself, even now, half a century after formal decolonization. This fact allows us to ask the question: does all postcolonial identity depend, first and foremost, on a negation of colonialism? What about an affirmation of self? Indeed, who would this ‘self’ be? Postcolonial Africa was very confident in the belief that decolonization would allow the free manifestation of identities which colonialism had denied. But, which identities were these? Who, in fact, was the subject of liberation: an ‘authentic’ African, a socialist revolutionary, a middle-class nationalist, none of the above?
Post-colonial literature has been saturated with this problematic of identity, which will be the point of departure for the second half of the course. We will look at various literary and cultural manifestations of the search for identity in the contemporary postcolony, which will include the fragmentation of post-apartheid afrikaanerdom grappling with historical complicity and the nihilism of young, urban, middle-class Kenyans and their struggle with the historical contradictions of postcolonial nationalism and contemporary poetry slam from Harare, Zimbabwe, where taking a risk and making a joke about political issues is a new mode of resistance.
Form and content
Throughout the course the literary investigations will focus on the contexts – historical, political and cultural – to discuss the consequences of practices of representation. The course follows the chronology of the works: Starting with the classics “Heart of Darkness”, “Out of Africa” and “Journey to the End of the Night” and ending with contemporary art from and about Africa. All works that anyone studying Africa should be familiar with.
The purpose of the course is to provide students with the capacity to analyse and reflect on representations of Africa in relation to history and the on-going discussions of colonialism and post-colonialism.
The course combines lectures and classroom discussions, requiring participation and active engagement, including student presentations. Films will also be screened.
|