Routledge Handbook of Minority Discourses in African Literature

Routledge Handbook of Minority Discourses in African Literature
Author: Tanure Ojaide
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 526
Release: 2020-04-29
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1000053059

This handbook provides a critical overview of literature dealing with groups of people or regions that suffer marginalization within Africa. The contributors examine a multiplicity of minority discourses expressed in African literature, including those who are culturally, socially, politically, religiously, economically, and sexually marginalized in literary and artistic creations. Chapters and sections of the book are structured to identify major areas of minority articulation of their condition and strategies deployed against the repression, persecution, oppression, suppression, domination, and tyranny of the majority or dominant group. Bringing together diverse perspectives to give a holistic representation of the African reality, this handbook is an important read for scholars and students of comparative and postcolonial literature and African studies.

African Battle Traditions of Insult

African Battle Traditions of Insult
Author: Tanure Ojaide
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2023-04-26
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 303115617X

This book explores the “battles” of words, songs, poetry, and performance in Africa and the African Diaspora. These are usually highly competitive, artistic contests in which rival parties duel for supremacy in poetry composition and/or its performance. This volume covers the history of this battle tradition, from its origins in Africa, especially the udje and halo of the Urhobo and Ewe respectively, to its transportation to the Americas and the Caribbean region during the Atlantic slave trade period, and its modern and contemporary manifestations as battle rap or other forms of popular music in Africa. Almost everywhere there are contemporary manifestations of the more traditional, older genres. The book is thus made up of studies of contests in which rivals duel for supremacy in verbal arts, song-poetry, and performance as they display their wit, sense of humor, and poetic expertise.

Literature from the Peripheries

Literature from the Peripheries
Author: Anjum Khan
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2022-12-19
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1666927546

Literature from the Peripheries: Refrigerated Culture and Pluralism is a collection of chapters dealing with multiple minority cultures from all over the world. The book examines the status of several less known cultures or cultural communities which exist in the peripheries of space and time. In addition to this, the arguments and the discourses running through chapters prove the need of cultural diversity and pluralism. This well-thought and critically written book is a clarion call for humanity to look over the shoulder and see the ghost of civilization receding farther away. The book will interest the readers, scholars, practitioners, and activists who like to explore several cultures and cultural conflicts.

Disrupting Africa

Disrupting Africa
Author: Olufunmilayo B. Arewa
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 665
Release: 2021-07-29
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1009064223

In the digital era, many African countries sit at the crossroads of a potential future that will be shaped by digital-era technologies with existing laws and institutions constructed under conditions of colonial and post-colonial authoritarian rule. In Disrupting Africa, Olufunmilayo B. Arewa examines this intersection and shows how it encompasses existing and new zones of contestation based on ethnicity, religion, region, age, and other sources of division. Arewa highlights specific collisions between the old and the new, including in the 2020 #EndSARS protests in Nigeria, which involved young people engaging with varied digital era technologies who provoked a violent response from rulers threatened by the prospect of political change. In this groundbreaking work, Arewa demonstrates how lawmaking and legal processes during and after colonialism continue to frame contexts in which digital technologies are created, implemented, regulated, and used in Africa today.

The Literature and Arts of the Niger Delta

The Literature and Arts of the Niger Delta
Author: Tanure Ojaide
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2021-04-19
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1000379051

This book examines the depiction of the Delta region of Nigeria through literature and other cultural art forms. The Niger Delta has been thrust into the global limelight due to resource extraction and conflict, but it is also a region with a rich culture, environment, and heritage. The creative imagination of the area’s artists has been fuelled by the area’s pressing concerns of indigenous peoples, minority discourse, environmental degradation, climate change, multinational corporations' greed, dictatorship, and people’s struggle for control of their resources. Taking a holistic approach to the Niger Delta experience, this book showcases artistic responses from literature, visual arts, and performances (such as masquerades, dances, and festivals). Chapters cover authors, artists, and performers such as Ben Okri, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Isidore Okpewho, J.P. Clark, and Bruce Onobrakpeya, as well as topics like the famous Benin bronze figures and Urhobo Udje dance. Affirming the wealth and diversity of the region which continues to inspire creative artistic productions, The Literature and Arts of the Niger Delta will be of interest to researchers of African literature, arts, and other cultural productions.

Digital Orality

Digital Orality
Author: Cecelia Cutler
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 310
Release: 2022-10-31
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3031104331

This volume showcases innovative research on dialectal, vernacular, and other forms of “oral,” speech-like writing in digital spaces. The shift from a predominantly print culture to a digital culture is shaping people's identities and relationships to one another in important ways. Using examples from distinct international contexts and language varieties (kiAmu, Lebanese, Ettounsi, Shanghai Wu, Welsh English, and varieties of American English) the authors examine how people use unexpected codes, scripts, and spellings to say something about who they are or aspire to be. This book will be of particular interest to students and scholars interested in the impact of social media on language use, style, and orthography, as well as those with a broader interest in literacy, communication, language contact, and language change.

Futurism and the African Imagination

Futurism and the African Imagination
Author: Dike Okoro
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2021-12-31
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1000477347

This book investigates how African authors and artists have explored themes of the future and technology within their works. Afrofuturism was coined in the 1990s as a means of exploring the intersection of African diaspora culture with technology, science and science fiction. However, this book argues that literature and other arts within Africa have always reflected on themes of futurism, across diverse forms of speculative writing (including science fiction), images, spirituality, myth, magical realism, the supernatural, performance and other forms of oral resources. This book reflects on themes of African futurism across a range of literary and artistic works, also investigating how problems such as racism, sexism, social injustice and postcolonialism are reflected in these narratives. Chapters cover authors, artists, movements and performers such Wole Soyinka, Ben Okri, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Elechi Amadi, Mazisi Kunene, Nnedi Okorafor, Lauren Beukes, Leslie Nneka Arimah and the New African Movement. The book also includes a range of original interviews with prominent authors and artists, including Tanure Ojaide, Lauren Beukes, Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, Benjamin Kwakye, Ntongela Masilela and Bruce Onobrakpeya. Interdisciplinary in its approach, this book will be an important resource for researchers across the fields of African literature, philosophy, culture and politics.

The Cultural and Historical Heritage of Colonialism

The Cultural and Historical Heritage of Colonialism
Author: Kenneth Usongo
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2022-02-17
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1527580830

In the time since most African countries achieved independence from European colonial powers, it is unfortunate that these nations are still politically, economically, and culturally reordered by their former colonisers. This book argues that these nations often slavishly emulate Western values to the detriment of indigenous ones. It challenges the postcolony to ground itself in local experience and then nativise external values, which entails delicately sifting through both the domestic and foreign worlds to build a decent and humane society.

Lockdown Chronicles

Lockdown Chronicles
Author: Joyce Ashuntantang
Publisher: Spears Media Press
Total Pages: 148
Release: 2024-09-30
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

Lockdown Chronicles: A Journey through Memory captures a world thrust into an existential crisis by the COVID-19 pandemic. This poignant book comprises a collection of letters exchanged during the pandemic lockdown in the USA between two distinguished Cameroonians: the celebrated interdisciplinary scholar, poet, and professor, Dr. Joyce Ashuntantang and the accomplished international communication expert, Mr. Eric Chinje. Their heartfelt correspondence, spanning over a year, grapples with profound existential questions about the place of religion in our lives and the overarching question of human purpose on earth. However, what will stay with the reader are fragments of their personal life stories, which drip from memory as they cope with the boredom, stress, and anxiety brought about by the pandemic. These intimate glimpses into their lives create a rich tapestry of experiences, emotions, and reflections, making Lockdown Chronicles not just a book but a shared journey of discovery and resilience.

Multidisciplinarity and Interdisciplinarity in Health

Multidisciplinarity and Interdisciplinarity in Health
Author: Nima Rezaei
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 729
Release: 2022-08-02
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 3030968146

The contributed volume "Multidisciplinarity and Interdisciplinarity in Health" is a health-centered volume of the Integrated Science Book series. Lack of confidence, lack of expertise, complexities of healthcare, the confusing nature of healthcare environments, and lack of organization and standardization can become obstacles to successful communication. This volume establishes how extensive is the interface between formal sciences and medical sciences on health-related issues. The book provides an overview of the value of the integration of formal, biological, and medical sciences and related products, i.e., health informatics and biomedical engineering, to frame a holistic approach to health systems, healthcare, medical practice, drug discovery, and medical device design. The book also focuses on innovative solutions to the most critical issues of different health crisis, including obesity, infectious outbreaks, and cancer that can be found by using an integrative approach. It also contains the fascinating crossroads between medical sciences, physics, and mind that is discussed from multiple perspectives on cognition, neuroscience, and psychiatry. These multidisciplinary considerations will expand the concepts of creativity, leadership, aesthetics, empathy and mental health.