
Who Owns the Problem?
Africa and the Struggle for Agency
Pius Adesanmi(Author)
Michigan State University Press
Published on 1. February 2020
Book
Paperback/Softback
207 pages
978-1-61186-355-0 (ISBN)
Description
How may we conceptualize Africa in the driver's seat of her own destiny in the twenty-first century? How practically may her cultures become the foundation and driving force of her innovation, development, and growth in the age of the global knowledge economy? How may the Africanist disciplines in the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences be revamped to rise up to these challenges through new imaginaries of intersectional reflection? This book assembles lectures given by Pius Adesanmi that address these questions. Adesanmi sought to create an African world of signification in which verbal artistry interpellates performer and audience in a heuristic process of knowledge production. The narrative and delivery of his arguments, the antiphonal call and response, and the aspects of Yoruba oratory and verbal resources all combine with diction and borrowings from Nigerian popular culture to create a distinct African performative mode. This mode becomes a form of resistance, specifically against the pressure to conform to Western ideals of the packaging, standardization, and delivery of knowledge. Together, these short essays preserve the
committed and passionate voice of an African writer lost far too soon. Adesanmi urges his readers to commit themselves to Africa's cultural agency.
committed and passionate voice of an African writer lost far too soon. Adesanmi urges his readers to commit themselves to Africa's cultural agency.
Reviews / Votes
"Long after you have read them, the insights of these essays stay with you, almost in the same manner in which the memory of his life and work, now that heis gone, remain indelible. No other person writes of Africa in the world and the world in Africa like Pius Adesanmi. Consistently passionate, witty, humorous,
and yet rigorously researched and thought through, the essays collected in this book are sure to create a new benchmark for activist intellectualism in public
discourse in the social media."
-BIODUN JEYIFO, former Professor in African and African American Studies and Comparative Literature, Harvard University
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
East Lansing, MI
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
286 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-61186-355-0 (9781611863550)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
PIUS ADESANMI (1972-2019) was a scholar, writer, literary critic, satirist, and columnist.
Content
Contents
More Than Just a Name, by Toyin Falola
Foreword, by Kenneth W. Harrow
Preface. Form as Resistance: The Story of This Book
Part One. Crossfire
#WhoOwnsTheProblem?
Culture, Development, and Other Annoyances
For Whom Is Africa Rising?
Africa Is People, Nigeria Is Nigerians: Provocations on Post-mendicant Economies
The Disappeared African Roots of Emma Watson's UN Feminism
The Africa Just Outside of Your Hilton Hotel Window
Part Two. Imagining Culture, Figuring Change
Capitalism and Memory: Of Golf Courses and Massage Parlors in Badagry, Nigeria
Ode to the Bottle - For Ken Harrow, Who Laughed
Aso Ebi on My Mind
Ara Eko, Ara Oke: Lagos, Culture, and the Rest of Us
A Race through Race in Missouri
Part Three. Variations on Love and Self
Dowry: Managing Africa's Many Lovers
Caribbean Self, African Selfie
Face Me, I Book You: Writing Africa's Agency in the Age of the Netizen
What Does (Nigerian) Literature Secure?
Post-centenary Nigeria: New Literatures, New Leaders, New Nation
Bibliography
Index
More Than Just a Name, by Toyin Falola
Foreword, by Kenneth W. Harrow
Preface. Form as Resistance: The Story of This Book
Part One. Crossfire
#WhoOwnsTheProblem?
Culture, Development, and Other Annoyances
For Whom Is Africa Rising?
Africa Is People, Nigeria Is Nigerians: Provocations on Post-mendicant Economies
The Disappeared African Roots of Emma Watson's UN Feminism
The Africa Just Outside of Your Hilton Hotel Window
Part Two. Imagining Culture, Figuring Change
Capitalism and Memory: Of Golf Courses and Massage Parlors in Badagry, Nigeria
Ode to the Bottle - For Ken Harrow, Who Laughed
Aso Ebi on My Mind
Ara Eko, Ara Oke: Lagos, Culture, and the Rest of Us
A Race through Race in Missouri
Part Three. Variations on Love and Self
Dowry: Managing Africa's Many Lovers
Caribbean Self, African Selfie
Face Me, I Book You: Writing Africa's Agency in the Age of the Netizen
What Does (Nigerian) Literature Secure?
Post-centenary Nigeria: New Literatures, New Leaders, New Nation
Bibliography
Index