African Literature Association Research Articles

Olaniyan’s legacy: metacriticism in African literary and cultural studies

This article highlights Tejumola Olaniyan’s often repeated interventions regarding the importance of a practice of metacriticism as a means of ensuring robust growth in the field of African literary and cultural studies. It also serves as an introduction to a special issue in the Critical Legacies series of the Journal of the African Literature Association, dedicated to an examination of Olaniyan’s contributions to metacriticism in African literary and cultural studies from a wide range of perspectives. Read together, the eight essays in the special issue, and the four additional shorter essays in the “Notes from the Field” section of this issue offer critical engagement with several major principles developed in Olaniyan’s writing as well as a model for undertaking metacriticism in African literary and cultural studies.

From the Editor

From the Editor Jennifer L. Airey In our last issue, Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature had the honor of publishing on the special topic of “Contemporary Black British Women’s Writing,” guest edited by Elisabeth Bekers, Elizabeth-Jane Burnett, and Helen Cousins. The issue focuses on literary innovations and experimental forms of writing by British women of African and African Caribbean descent since the 1990s. Through five articles and interviews with four contemporary authors, the guest editors craft an issue that “raises critical questions about the extent to which precedence has been given to the politics over the aesthetics of their writing.”1 The issue recognizes Black women’s writing as a driving force of contemporary literary innovation in Britain. It was a pleasure to work with the guest editors on the issue and to publish this important work. With this special issue, we had three new members join our editorial board: Robin Hackett, Cynthia Richards, and Mary Youssef. Since I was not able to announce them in our last issue, their introductions appear below along with the editorial board members joining with this issue: Gabeba Baderoon, Kimberly Anne Coles, and Laura E. Tanner. While I am looking forward to working with all these exemplary scholars, I am always sad to bid farewell to those rotating off the board. With great appreciation, I say goodbye to Anupama Arora, Mary Jean Corbett, Marilyn Francus, Hala Halim, Jean Mills, and Carrie J. Preston. Robin Hackett is Associate Professor of English at University of New Hampshire, where she specializes in feminist theory, queer theory, British literature after 1800, and modernisms. She is the author of Sapphic Primitivism: Productions of Race, Class, and Sexuality in Key Works of Modern Fiction (2004) and coeditor of Affective Materialities: Reorienting the Body in Modernist Literature (2019) and At Home and Abroad in the Empire: British Women Write the Thirties (2009). She has contributed to several collections including Communal Modernisms: Teaching Twentieth-Century Literary and Cultural Texts in the College Classroom (2013), At Home and Abroad in the Empire, and Interrogating Lesbian Modernism: Histories, Forms, Genres (forthcoming from Edinburgh University Press) and published articles in venues including Woolf Studies Annual, Virginia Woolf Miscellany, and Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature. Cynthia Richards is Professor of English and Richard P. Veler Endowed Chair in English at Wittenberg University, where she directs the Center for Teaching and Innovation, the Women’s Studies Program, and the Writing Across the Curriculum Program. She is the editor of The Wrongs of Woman; [End Page 5] or Maria and Memoirs of the Author of “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” (2003) and coeditor of Approaches to Teaching Behn’s “Oroonoko” (2013), Early Modern Trauma: Europe and the Atlantic World (2021), and Quotidian Fevers in the Enlightenment: Patient Narratives of the Eighteenth Century (in progress). She is also currently completing a monograph, The Body, Trauma, and War, 1667–1798 (forthcoming from University of Nebraska Press), which focuses on re-thinking the representation of the body and domestic space in eighteenth-century canonical works using the perspective of disability studies and trauma theory. Richard has also published numerous articles in venues including Literature Compass, English Language Notes, Eighteenth-Century Fiction, and Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, analyzing the works of Aphra Behn, Eliza Haywood, Mary Wollstonecraft, and other women writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. She is a Contributing Behn Editor at The Scriblerian and a Fulbright Scholar Alumni Ambassador. Mary Youssef is Associate Professor of Arabic in the Department of Middle Eastern and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, with a courtesy appointment in the Translation and Research Instruction Program at Binghamton University, State University of New York. Her book, Minorities in the Contemporary Egyptian Novel (2018), critically examines discourses surrounding race, religion, class, gender, sexuality, and language within the Egyptian literary and socio-cultural arenas through case studies of the novels of Idris ᶜAli, Bahaᵓ Ṭahir, ᶜAlaᵓ al-Aswani, Yusuf Zaydan, Muᶜtazz Futayha, Ashraf al-Khumaysi, and Miral al-Tahawi. She has published in journals including Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, Journal of African Literature Association (JALA), and International Journal of Islamic Architecture, and has contributed to Islamic Ecumene: Comparing Muslim Societies...

Bernth Lindfors and Dennis Brutus in association: African literary studies, anti-apartheid politics, and the paradox of competing principles

This essay threads together Bernth Lindfors’ contributions to African literary studies, Dennis Brutus’s career as an activist poet, and the political positions of the African Literature Association on academic and cultural boycott. The analysis of this history brings into focus the way that the institutions of African literary studies in the US from their early formation in the 1970s until the present have paradoxically reproduced the often limiting norms of literary scholarship and at the same time challenged the convention of political neutrality that is a feature of scholarly associations. Metropolitan African studies in general, like other area studies fields, have been troubled by the paradox of competing principles: on the one hand, the principle of political neutrality and non-interference; and on the other hand, the principle of social responsibility, derived in large part from the influential conceptualization of engagement in the 1960s. Lindfors, Brutus, and the other founding members of the African Literature Association gave expression to this paradox to one degree or another, but it was notably on the question of the cultural boycott of South Africa that the competing principles became the most intensely polarizing.

Pearls and oysters: an introduction

The introduction to this special issue of the Journal of the African Literature Association indicates the relevance of the focus on autobiographical writing from Africa. As even our lives can be seen as related to our life narratives, through their textual strategies and individual perspectives autobiographical forms offer insight into public debates and societal concerns. The articles and reviews in this special issue focus on a wide range of themes, including the the criteria for textual identification and the fluidity of the boundaries between genres, style as a means of political engagement, the relations between history, materiality and embodiment, and the potential of intersubjectivity for resistance.

Institutions of African literature: introduction

“Institutions of African Literature” was the theme of the 45th annual conference and meeting of the African Literature Association, held May 15–19, 2019, in Columbus, Ohio. Articles in this cluster...

Institutions of inclusion or exclusion: towards sustainable ecosystems of cultural production in Zimbabwe1

I am very grateful to the African Literature Association for giving me the honor of speaking at the 45th annual conference. It is not often that I am amongst such distinguished minds and scholars ...

Tejumola Olaniyan: Tribute and Celebration of a Quintessentially Boisterous and Illustrious Intellectual Career

Tejumola Olaniyan:Tribute and Celebration of a Quintessentially Boisterous and Illustrious Intellectual Career Pelumi Folajimi Tejumola Olaniyan was a child of destiny. He was destined to be great. Indeed, he was great; he was a great scholar and amazing researcher. Fondly called Teju or T. J. by friends and colleagues, he lived from April 3, 1959 to November 30, 2019. He studied in the Department of Dramatic Arts, the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), the department and the university where I also studied. In 1982, he became the president of the Dramatic Arts Students' Association. Teju was the first to earn First Class Honors for the Bachelor of Arts in the department (in 1982), something achieved by only one other student since. Teju earned a master's degree in the Department of English at the University of Ife and became a lecturer in the Department of Dramatic Arts before he relocated to the US in the 1980s, where he earned another master's degree and a PhD at Cornell University. The first time I heard about Teju was in 2008 while I was in the final year of my undergraduate studies at Ife. With the fantastic stories of Teju's exploits I heard and his works I encountered, my respect and admiration for him grew. I didn't have a chance to meet Teju until summer 2012 when he visited his alma mater, where I was then a young and enthusiastic lecturer. In 2013, Teju sent me an email to invite me to the inaugural conference on D. O. Fagunwa at Akure. Meeting Teju, again, was an exciting experience. He and I continued to interact and exchange emails and in 2015, I joined Teju at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where I pursued my graduate career. Indeed, I continued to interact with Teju; maintaining a healthy and respectful relationship after I left the university. Fortunately enough, he and I met again in Ohio for the African Literature Association conference, just about seven weeks after he turned sixty. Teju began as an assistant professor at the University of Virginia before he joined the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he was Louise Durham Mead Professor of English and African Cultural Studies. Shortly before his death at the age of sixty, he was named Wole Soyinka Professor of the Humanities. He had many roles in the Department of African Cultural Studies, including as chair. His thoughts and scholarship provided much inspiration, as well as provocations [End Page 215] and debates among both students and colleagues, whose respect and confidence he earned, largely. It was my habit to visit his office and discuss my intellectual findings with him. Via emails, physical conversations, panel presentations, and other avenues, I would engage him in discussions on intellectual matters and issues I encountered in his works that I read. On virtually every Thanksgiving, Teju opened his house to his colleagues and graduate students, including myself. Intellectual giant that he was, Teju died with dozens of laurels on his forehead, like an Olympic athlete who was decorated with multiple gold medals. Teju died a champion. He died an achiever. When he turned sixty, his teacher and mentor Biodun Jeyifo wrote a tribute to celebrate Teju's accomplishments. I never anticipated having to write my own so soon after. Till the moment of his death, Teju was the editor in chief of the Journal of the African Literature Association (JALA). Teju was the president of the African Literature Association between 2014 and 2015 and was a visible presence in the African Studies Association. A gregarious man with a great sense of humor, tall and lanky with a deep and unmistakable voice, Teju was brilliant and thorough, calculative and strategic. He was ambitious and enthusiastic. Well-composed and dynamic, Teju was full of confidence and courage. He was innovative. He will be greatly missed—great scholar that he was. May his soul rest in peace. [End Page 216] Copyright © 2020 The Trustees of Indiana University

In praise of my mentors and mentees: mentoring as an institution of African literature

Mentoring represents an Institution of the African literature association. Consolidating this great tradition begins, for every member, to express gratitude to the mentors of the past and present. Translating this appreciation into action supposes a commitment to guide young generations of scholars who are the future of the association.

Response

HomeHypertensionVol. 0, No. 1Response Free AccessOtherPDF/EPUBAboutView PDFSections ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload citationsTrack citationsPermissions ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InMendeleyReddit Jump toFree AccessOtherPDF/EPUBResponse Brian J. Morris, Ruby C.Y. Lin and Xing Li Wang Brian J. MorrisBrian J. Morris Search for more papers by this author , Ruby C.Y. LinRuby C.Y. Lin Search for more papers by this author and Xing Li WangXing Li Wang Search for more papers by this author Originally published23 Jun 2003https://doi.org/10.1161/01.HYP.0000081966.99503.83Hypertension. 2003;0Other version(s) of this articleYou are viewing the most recent version of this article. Previous versions: August 1, 2018: Ahead of Print "Response." Hypertension, , pp. – Previous Back to top Next FiguresReferencesRelatedDetailsCited By Mukherjee R (2016) Living in Subalternity: The Becoming of the Subaltern in Bessie Head’s A Woman Alone, A Gesture of Belonging , and When Rain Clouds Gather , Journal of the African Literature Association, 10.1080/21674736.2013.11690206, 7:2, (37-55), Online publication date: 1-Jan-2013. January 2019Vol 0, Issue 1 Advertisement Article InformationMetrics https://doi.org/10.1161/01.HYP.0000081966.99503.83 Originally publishedJune 23, 2003 PDF download Advertisement

Nuruddin Farah in conversation: good fiction is never far from the truth

Nuruddin Farah, accomplished Somali novelist, dramatist, and essayist was in Nigeria as the headliner of the Ake Arts and Book Festival held in Lagos from 25–28 October 2018. As part of the events, he sat down with Kunle Ajibade, veteran journalist, author, and Executive Editor/Director of TheNews and PM News, for a wide-ranging interview before a packed live audience. Farah was born in 1945 in Baidoa, Somalia. His father was a merchant and a translator for colonial officials while his mother was an oral poet. He had his primary and secondary education in Somalia and Ethiopia. He then went to Panjab University in India, where he studied Philosophy and Literature and later to the University of Sussex in the UK, where he studied playwriting. He published his first novel, From a Crooked Rib, in 1970. He is uniquely popular as the author of three novelistic trilogies: “Variations on the Theme of an African Dictatorship,” which comprises of Sweet and Sour Milk (1979), Sardine (1981), and Close Sesame (1983); “Blood in the Sun,” which includes Maps (1986), Gifts (1993), and Secrets (1998); and “Past Imperfect,” which ties together Links (2004), Knots (2007), and Crossbones (2011). His most recent novels are Hiding in Plain Sight (2014), and North of Dawn (2018). A universally acclaimed master prose stylist, Farah’s works have been translated into many languages and he has won numerous awards and prizes, including the African Literature Association (ALA) Fonlon-Nichols Award, and the Neustadt International Prize for Literature.

The Promise of Lesbians in African Literary History

The Promise of Lesbians in African Literary History Taiwo Adetunji Osinubi (bio) IMPLIED LESBIAN READERS AND AFRICAN LITERARY FEMINISMS Although scholars have now acknowledged the frequency of samesex desire and same-sex relationships in African literatures, they have yet to recognize that the sexually queer subjects in African writing are overwhelmingly male. When women's same-sex desire is found, it is inevitably roomed in the short story. This scarcity of women's same-sex sexuality in the novel has enshrined the short story as the genre in which writers stake claims about women's same-sex desire (Munro 2017). The genre's domination has produced some effects: (1) an emphasis on depictions connecting Africa and outer-continental locations in Europe and the United States; (2) the predominance of twenty-first-century perspectives; and, (3) the focus on private affective attachments or failed solidarities between individuals. The publication of Chinelo Okparanta's Bildungsroman, Under the Udala Trees, changes this literary landscape. Okparanta joins Unoma Azuah and Lola Shoneyin as another Nigerian novelist to feature women's same sex desire in a novel. Her novel, however, makes critical interventions in literary history. Its evident turn to earlier novels by Nigerian women rekindles stalled conversations about lesbian representations and African literary feminisms.1 By coupling [End Page 675] female same-sex desire and sex with the vast premises of civil war, law, national identity, and literary history, Okparanta forefronts the relationship between sexuality and literary and political authority. This decidedly meta-fictional novel introduces a lesbian teacher and a lesbian reader to promote alternative literacies for the enmeshments of sexuality and political authority. In The Sexual Constitution of Political Authority, Aleardo Zanghellini (2015) argues that the disavowal of same-sex desire has been central to the construction of political authority and good political conduct across cultures. Although he focuses on political trials in which allegations of homosexuality or non-normative sexualities damage political reputations, his work illuminates recent deployments of homosexuality in African political cultures in which the denials of homosexuality or antagonistic attitudes toward sexual minorities reinforce political authority. Under the Udala Trees portrays how similar attitudes shore up political authority, but its brilliance lies in replicating the dispersal and deployments of sexuality in pursuit of multiple forms of authority that are incorporated into the fabric of the everyday. This exploration of relations between sexuality and authority becomes evident when the protagonist, Ijeoma, makes the bildungsroman's requisite encounter with a library in her lover's home: I read many books, many months of consistent reading, at least two hours every evening: Agatha Christie's crime novels, Amos Tutuola's The Palm Wine Drinkard. Efuru, by Flora Nwapa. Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights. I had already read Things Fall Apart, as it was on her shelf, I read it again. (Okparanta 2015, 188) Having Ijeoma reread Achebe within the lover's library flags the drive toward alternative reading protocols in Okparanta's novel. In all of his novels, Chinua Achebe exhumes the relations between sexuality and the "constitution of political authority" (Zanghellini 2015, 2–3). That examination is apparent in Things Fall Apart, which features two gender non-conforming children in Okonkwo's household and the latter's anxieties over family successions. The novel also portrays the suppression of same-sex desire in the constitution of political masculinity and the deployment of aggressively competitive homosociality in service of colonial conquest (see Osinubi 2016). That relation between sexual activity and political authority appears [End Page 676] forcefully in the final pages of Okparanta's novel but it is turned toward women's complicity in the diffusion of political authority and sexual normativity. Although African feminist scholars and women writers critiqued Achebe's Things Fall Apart, the argument can be made that African feminisms smoothened its ascendance to literary and scholarly authority, in part, by disavowing same-sex desire. Historically, African feminists nursed a difficult relationship to non-normative sexualities (Arnfred 2009; Currier & George-Migraine 2017; Lewis 2008; Nfah-Abbenyi 1997). Julianna Makuchi Nfah-Abbenyi recalls objections to a conference presentation on lesbian figurations in African literature at a conference of the African literature association despite the notable...

Postcoloniality, Idiomatic Allusion and Intercultural Communication in theTranslation of Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God into German

(2015). Postcoloniality, Idiomatic Allusion and Intercultural Communication in theTranslation of Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God into German. Journal of the African Literature Association: Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 112-139.

It’s Safe to Kill Negroes: Racial Profiling in Selected Works of African-American Literature and Film

(2015). It’s Safe to Kill Negroes: Racial Profiling in Selected Works of African-American Literature and Film. Journal of the African Literature Association: Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 205-218.

Repealing Traditional Patriarchy in Two Male-Authored Narratives

(2015). Repealing Traditional Patriarchy in Two Male-Authored Narratives. Journal of the African Literature Association: Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 152-187.

Interview with Poet Professor Chimalum Nwankwo

(2015). Interview with Poet Professor Chimalum Nwankwo. Journal of the African Literature Association: Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 256-268.

In Conversation with Tess Osonye Onwueme

"In Conversation with Tess Osonye Onwueme." Journal of the African Literature Association, 9(1), pp. 127–138

Demystifying the Unfamiliar: Competing Discourses and the Pedagogy of Agency in Things Fall Apart and Poems from Sierra Leone

"Demystifying the Unfamiliar: Competing Discourses and the Pedagogy of Agency in Things Fall Apart and Poems from Sierra Leone." Journal of the African Literature Association, 9(1), pp. 10–31

City Limits: Possibilities Beyond Violence in Abdoulaye Sadji’s Maïmouna and Nini

(2014). City Limits: Possibilities Beyond Violence in Abdoulaye Sadji’s Maimouna and Nini. Journal of the African Literature Association: Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 123-151.

A Bibliography of Critical and Related Works on Selected Black South African Writers, Published in Southern Africa, 2000-2013

"A Bibliography of Critical and Related Works on Selected Black South African Writers, Published in Southern Africa, 2000-2013." Journal of the African Literature Association, 9(1), pp. 187–202 Additional informationNotes on contributorsAndrew MartinAndrew Martin is a research curator and Lynne Grant is a librarian, both based at the National English Literary Museum in Grahamstown, South Africa. Enquiries for material contained in this bibliography or other research needs can be sent to Lynne Grant at l.grant@nelm.org.za

Sub-Saharan Literatures and the Conquest of the Self

(2014). Sub-Saharan Literatures and the Conquest of the Self. Journal of the African Literature Association: Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 219-236.