This second volume in the Critical Approached series is an exposition of the craft of Nigerian writer, theatre director, poet, dramatist and editor, Onuora Ossie Enekwe. The professor of dramatic literature spent thirty years developing and advancing the drama and graduate curriculum of the University Nsukka and had in addition been editor of Okike. An African Journal of New Writing which was founded by Chinua Achebe.
“A revelation. Reclaiming fashion from its European history.” – Shane White With a focus on sub-Saharan Africa, Fashioning the Afropolis provides a range of innovative perspectives on global fashion, design, dress, photography, and the body in some of the major cities, with a focus on Lagos, Johannesburg, Dakar, and Douala. It contributes to the ongoing debates around the globalization of fashion and fashion theory by exploring fashion as a genuine urban phenomenon on the continent and among its diasporas. To date, “fashion” and “city” have not been systematically related to each other in the African context and, for too long, a western-centric gaze has dominated scholarship, resulting in the perception of Africa as provincial and its visual arts and textile cultures as static and folkloristic. This perspective is all the more distorted, given Africa's rich sartorial past. With a huge number of tailors ready to adapt and renew clothing, reshaping garments into contemporary styles, and many cities in Africa becoming hot-spots for a steadily growing and well-connected scene of fashion designers in the past 20 years, the time is ripe for a reevaluation and reconsideration of the fashionscapes of Africa. Leading scholars offer an updated empirical and theoretical foundation on which to base new and exciting research on sub-Saharan fashion, challenging perceptions and offering new insights.
Chinua Achebe's influence on contemporary African literature is as much in evidence in his art of the novel as his theory of African literature and literary criticism. ISINKA (Igbo term for artistic purpose') establishes Achebe's legacy as a literary theorist and critic. In these essays scholars from around the globe assess and establish how much Achebe's extra-fictional ideas about African literature and literature in general are justified in his own creative works.'
Nadia Anwar analyzes selected post-independence Nigerian dramas using the conceptual framework of metatheatre, a theatrical strategy that foregrounds the process of play-making by breaking the dramatic illusion. She argues that distancing, as a function of metatheatre, creates a balanced theatrical experience and environment in terms of the emotive and cognitive levels of reception of a particular performance. Anwar's book is the first in-depth study to apply the concept of metatheatre to Nigerian drama. She brings the perspectives of Bertolt Brecht, Thomas J. Scheff, and other theoreticians of dramatic distancing to the analysis of plays by authors such as Wole Soyinka, Ola Rotimi, Femi Osofisan, Esiaba Irobi, and Stella ‘Dia Oyedepo.
Chinua Achebe has long been regarded as Africa’s foremost writer. In this major new study, Jago Morrison offers a comprehensive reassessment of his work as an author, broadcaster, editor and political thinker. With new, historically contextualised readings of all of his major works, this is the first study to view Achebe’s oeuvre in its entirety, from Things Fall Apart and the early novels, through the revolutionary Ahiara Declaration – previously attributed to Emeka Ojukwu – to the revealing final works The Education of a British Educated Child and There Was a Country. Contesting previous interpretations which align Achebe too easily with this or that nationalist programme, the book reveals Achebe as a much more troubled figure than critics have habitually assumed. Authoritative and wide-ranging, this book will be essential reading for scholars and students of Achebe’s work in the twenty-first century.
Society, Women and Literature in Africa explores the ideological, literary, political, cultural and ethical issues related to feminist writing. She discusses how contemporary African writers have tried to counteract men’s false assumptions about sex, love, society, fecundity and womanhood, and further details how African writers have responded to the demands of feminism. “Woman’s Cross Cultural Burden in the selected works of West African Female writers” explores the recurrent themes of motherhood, polygamy, abandonment and widowhood in the works of Nwapa, Emecheta, Alkali, Aidoo and Mariama Bâ. In “Prostitution: A Metaphor for the Degradation of Womanhood in Bode Osanyin’s the Noble Mistress”, the author approaches the subject of woman degradation in society from the perspectives of comprehensive research and an in-depth referencing. “Gendered Social Division of Labour in the African Novel” explores the theme of unfairness, of institutionalized differentiation in the African novel. It reveals the total emasculation of woman in patriarchy and her desire to be liberated from male-annexation. “The Prison World of Nigeria Woman: Female Reticence in Sefi Attah’s “Everything Good Will Come”, the author explores the dimensions of “gender silences”. She shows how woman’s voice has been stolen in patriarchy, thus rendering her a social and political mutant. “Womanhood as a Metaphor for Sexual Slavery in Nawal El Saddawi’s Woman at Point Zero” underscores that in patriarchy a woman is educated to make an object of herself for male pleasure. She is excluded from politics as a result of religion. “The Ugly Face of Ghana in the New Millennium: Alienation of Children in Amma Darko’s Faceless” is a stylistic study of the consequences of globalization in postindependent Ghana. In “The Theme of Dispossession in A.N Akwanya’s the Pilgrim Foot”, the author examines the myriad perspectives of dispossession and the dispossessor.
"Refreshing..." -- African Sudies Review "The entries are knowledgeable, thorough, and clearly written.... Highly recommended... " --Choice "...an ambitious reference guide to works on African literature." - African Studies Review "This comprehensive compendium will be a handy companion for anyone working on African literatures. The entries are authoritative and up-to-date, providing reliable information on the hundreds of authors and texts that have contributed to a whole continent's literary flowering." --Bernth Lindfors A comprehensive introduction and guide to African-authored works, with over 1,000 cross-referenced entries covering classics in African writing, literary genres and movements, biographical details of authors, and wider themes linking African, Afro-Caribbean and Afro-American literatures.
