Scholarly studies on the Igbo have been scant and fragmented. Politics and Identity Formation in Southeastern Nigeria: The Igbo in Perspective fills an obvious gap, exploring the social, cultural,economic, political, and aesthetic traditions that distinguish the Igbo of southeasternNigeria from their neighbors. In scope, content, and analysis this book is both multi- and cross-disciplinary, focusing on the experiences and forces that have shaped the Igbo society, identity formation, and sociocultural, political, and aesthetic representations. Themes such as the importance ofIgbo names in understanding the people’s social, linguistic, religious, gender, and cultural identities, as well as the intersection of language, politics, socialization, education, and aesthetic expression in the Igbo experience in Nigeria, are interrogated in a refreshing fashion with an appreciable level of originality.
Growing Up with Two Languages provides a highly accessible account of the stages of language development, describes and evaluates the various systems and strategies that can be adopted and looks at the problems that can occur when a child is exposed to two languages and cultures. Combining research-informed advice and the experience of parents raising children as speakers of a wide range of languages in every populated continent in the world, this book and its associated web material will answer questions, offer tried and tested strategies to keep children speaking a minority language, and provide material to enlist the support of the extended family, teachers and others. The perspective of adults who were themselves raised speaking more than one language is included. New to this edition is a chapter focusing on families raising children as speakers of indigenous and threatened languages as well as chapters for teachers and health professionals who want to know more about multilingual child language development and how they can support parents to continue speaking their language with their children. With new and updated first-hand advice, Internet resources and examples throughout, this book also includes a chapter that introduces important recent research into multilingual children and further reading guides for those who want to know more. This book is for parents who are raising or plan to raise children as speakers of more than one language, and for the teachers and healthcare workers who meet and can support them.
A mentor, advisor, or even a friend? Making connections in college makes all the difference. What single factor makes for an excellent college education? As it turns out, it's pretty simple: human relationships. Decades of research demonstrate the transformative potential and the lasting legacies of a relationship-rich college experience. Critics suggest that to build connections with peers, faculty, staff, and other mentors is expensive and only an option at elite institutions where instructors have the luxury of time with students. But in this revelatory book brimming with the voices of students, faculty, and staff from across the country, Peter Felten and Leo M. Lambert argue that relationship-rich environments can and should exist for all students at all types of institutions. In Relationship-Rich Education, Felten and Lambert demonstrate that for relationships to be central in undergraduate education, colleges and universities do not require immense resources, privileged students, or specially qualified faculty and staff. All students learn best in an environment characterized by high expectation and high support, and all faculty and staff can learn to teach and work in ways that enable relationship-based education. Emphasizing the centrality of the classroom experience to fostering quality relationships, Felten and Lambert focus on students' influence in shaping the learning environment for their peers, as well as the key difference a single, well-timed conversation can make in a student's life. They also stress that relationship-rich education is particularly important for first-generation college students, who bring significant capacities to college but often face long-standing inequities and barriers to attaining their educational aspirations. Drawing on nearly 400 interviews with students, faculty, and staff at 29 higher education institutions across the country, Relationship-Rich Education provides readers with practical advice on how they can develop and sustain powerful relationship-based learning in their own contexts. Ultimately, the book is an invitation—and a challenge—for faculty, administrators, and student life staff to move relationships from the periphery to the center of undergraduate education.
The first global history of African linguistics as an emerging autonomous academic discipline, covering Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia, and Europe.
The Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies at the Northwestern University holds a unique collection of conference papers, and has recently made this important research literature accessible through a two-volume index listing 562 conferences and over 12,000 individual papers. The first volume contains a register of the conferences, with the indexed papers listed alphabetically by author, while the second volume provides an extensive keyword index. Although the list of conference papers reflects the paucity of scholarly work on Namibia during the 1960s and the early 1970s, it is nevertheless possible to find references to some valuable material. All papers are held by the Northwestern University Library and are available for either loan or by photocopy through the interlibrary loan department. (Eriksen/Moorsom 1989).
“A true classic of world literature . . . A masterpiece that has inspired generations of writers in Nigeria, across Africa, and around the world.” —Barack Obama “African literature is incomplete and unthinkable without the works of Chinua Achebe.” —Toni Morrison Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read Things Fall Apart is the first of three novels in Chinua Achebe's critically acclaimed African Trilogy. It is a classic narrative about Africa's cataclysmic encounter with Europe as it establishes a colonial presence on the continent. Told through the fictional experiences of Okonkwo, a wealthy and fearless Igbo warrior of Umuofia in the late 1800s, Things Fall Apart explores one man's futile resistance to the devaluing of his Igbo traditions by British political andreligious forces and his despair as his community capitulates to the powerful new order. With more than 20 million copies sold and translated into fifty-seven languages, Things Fall Apart provides one of the most illuminating and permanent monuments to African experience. Achebe does not only capture life in a pre-colonial African village, he conveys the tragedy of the loss of that world while broadening our understanding of our contemporary realities.
Africa's Informal Workers is a vigorous examination of the informalization and casualization of work, which is changing livelihoods in Africa and beyond. Gathering cases from nine countries and cities across sub-Saharan Africa, and from a range of sectors, this volume goes beyond the usual focus on household ‘coping strategies’ and individual agency, addressing the growing number of collective organizations through which informal workers make themselves visible and articulate their demands and interests. The emerging picture is that of a highly diverse landscape of organized actors, providing grounds for tension but also opportunities for alliance. The collection examines attempts at organizing across the formal-informal work spheres, and explores the novel trend of transnational organizing by informal workers. Part of the ground-breaking Africa Now series, Africa’s Informal Workers is a timely exploration of deep, ongoing economic, political and social transformations.
