Abstract
Acta Academica is an accredited, open access South African journal dedicated to scholarship in the humanities. The journal publishes independently refereed research articles in the humanities. It promotes the perspectives of critical social theory and engagements with postcolonial and post-developmental debates with special references to (Southern) Africa. The journal is thereby in support of scholarly work that examines how the humanities in the twenty-first century respond to the double imperative of theorising the world and changing it. The journal appears twice a year and is published in English. Acta Academica charges no submission and article processing fees.
Highlights
This lecture explores what we could learn about being and becoming African as a permanent work in progress from how Chinua Achebe adopts and adapts Igbo proverbs in his writing
While all claims and denials may have foundation, not every claim is informed by the same considerations
If being and becoming African were compared to shopping at a supermarket, one could argue that some are flexible in what they put into their shopping baskets while others are picky, even when invited to buy a lot through attractive offers, sales and discounts
Summary
This lecture explores what we could learn about being and becoming African as a permanent work in progress from how Chinua Achebe adopts and adapts Igbo proverbs in his writing. I am interested in how being African is claimed and denied in history, socioanthropologically, and politically In this connection, I have found much inspiration in Chinua Achebe’s use of proverbs as words of salience and significance in crafting the stories and essays that have made him. The proverb in the novel is slightly adapted from that in circulation in everyday Igbo language: “Ada-akwu ofu ebe enene mmuo, ‘You do not stand in one place to watch a masquerade’” (Achebe 1988: 65). Commenting on this proverb, Achebe notes: “The Igbo believe that art, religion, everything, the whole of life are embodied in the art of the masquerade. The ideas that hold this lecture together are: Incompleteness, Mobility/ Motion, Encounters, Compositeness, Debt and Indebtedness, and Conviviality
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