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Fictions of Africa
COLT360g
Final paper:
Your final assignment is to select ONE
Fictions of Africa
COLT360g
Final paper:
Your final assignment is to select ONE of the prompts below and write a 7–10-page essay (double
spaced) that critically engages one or two passages or scenes from one of the course texts. The purpose is to practice skills in close reading, analyzing your selected passage(s)/scene(s) to support an argument (thesis) that responds to one of the prompts below. You are required to cite evidence from the text in your analysis and demonstrate attentiveness to the formal attributes and historical/political aspects of the text. Please provide citations, with page numbers, and a reference list.
You must submit your essay as a word doc (no PDFs) via email to ************* (and cc. ****************) by 11:59 pm on Monday, May 6, 2024.
It is very strongly recommended that you meet with Prof. Zondi and/or Jayson as you develop, draft, and revise your paper.
1. National Culture
What is the role of “national culture” for Frantz Fanon and Amilcar Cabral? Pick a passage/passages from each author and discuss how they describe the role of national culture in postcolonial and post-independence societies. How do each appraise and critique the return to indigenous culture/tradition? According to Fanon and Cabral, what are the strengths and limitations of such a return to the “roots,” and how does this return fall short in fulfilling the political aims of what they are defining as national culture?
In consultation with the instructor/TA, select a section/scene from ANY novel or film we have read/viewed this semester and put it in conversation with Cabral and Fanon’s discussions of national culture. Your reading of the novel/film should provide some historical and political context and not more than a brief summary of the plot.
2. ThePostcolonialSensoriuminTheBeautyfulOnes
This prompt requires you to attend to two related questions:
First, how does the narrator in Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Beautyful Ones use the senses (smell, touch, taste, hearing, etc.) to comment on the state of corruption in post-independence Ghana? Select a passage (or two) where the senses not only “set the scene,” but also elaborate upon the novel’s representation of corruption.
Your essay should also address the larger structural context for corruption in post- independence or neo-colonial Ghana. Which external or global factors contribute to the
“decay” described in the novel, and how do these factors make corruption the only seemingly possible mode of survival? You must rigorously and more attentively engage Mbembe’s “Time on the Move,” Getachew’s “Worldmaking after Empire” and Fanon’s “On National Culture” to support your argument.
***** (If you worked on the same prompt for the midterm essay, you should ensure that your revision both resolve the issues addressed in your feedback on the midterm, as well as expanding the paper to include the additional elements underlined above.)
3. The Politics of (In)Visibility in Queer African Cinema
Analyze ONE of the films listed below:
– Dakan
– Inxeba
– I am Sheriff
Your analysis must be guided or supported by Oyèwùmí’s “Visualizing the Body” which we discussed in class, as well as the readings on Queer African Cinema by Green-Simms and/or Ncube. Please limit plot summary to one to two brief paragraphs. Your engagement with the film should center on ONE or TWO specific scenes that you close-read alongside each other or comparatively.
Essay Guidelines:
Context
– Outline Oyèwùmí’s discussion of visibility over other senses [this will be an opportunity for you to engage her definition and critique of ocularcentrism (the ranking of sight above other senses)]. What is the link between visibility (or ocularcentrism) and what Oyèwùmí calls biological determinism? What consequences does such a link have for queer Africans?
– Consider the forms and methods that queer African filmmakers deploy to enter the field of mainstream visibility/ representation. This is an opportunity to engage Green- Simms’s discussion of the international networks of film circulation and distribution that determine how and where in the globe queer African films gain recognition, or get censored/banned.
Close reading
– How do the queer African characters in the film you’ve selected use either visibility or secrecy toward their own ends? What are the repercussions of revealing what is considered to be the individual/family secret or sacred Indigenous ritual? Using evidence from the scene(s) you selected, your close reading(s) should explore the benefits and limitations/dangers of visibility for queer Africans?
4. African Indigenous Knowledges/Igbo Spiritualities
Select ONE or TWO passage(s)/section(s) from Akwaeke Emezi’s Freshwater and close-read these passages to interpret how Freshwater draws on Indigenous/Igbo cosmology to question
or challenge Western conceptions of personhood, God/god, the spirit/flesh distinction, neurodivergence, or gender and sexuality.
Your analysis of Freshwater must attend to the following Context
– A brief historical account of the relationship between Christianity, colonialism, and printed modern African literature. Revisit Simon Gikandi’s “African Literature and the Colonial Factor” to situate the clashes and entanglements that exist between Igbo Cosmology and Christianity in Freshwater.
– Oyèwùmí discusses the importance of Indigenous knowledge systems or culture-specific methods of interpretation in assessing African topics. How does this attention to Igbo cosmology, a Nigerian Indigenous knowledge system, inform Freshwater?
Close reading
– How does the section or passage you selected explain Igbo cosmology? Discuss how Freshwater frames personhood (Is it individual or communal? Is the person defined as an individual or a plurality? Is existence defined as fleshly being or as flesh integrated with the spirit world?)
– How do ogbanje illustrate Igbo cosmology’s ambivalence or indifference to a binary model of thinking about sex-gender?
5. International Relations
How does NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names illustrate the postcolonial African state’s dependency? How is this dependency an indication of neocolonialism or neo- imperialism? Select one section from the novel that explains the economic and political conditions of the postcolony, the role of international aid (e.g. in the form of NGOs) in maintaining dependency, and the role of international diplomatic efforts (i.e. China’s diplomatic efforts in Zimbabwe as portrayed in the novel).
Your essay will also attend to conditions of migration and exile as either consequences of the destabilization of African economies, or as pursuits of cosmopolitanism. You will be expected to define your terms/concepts such as dependency, neocolonialism, cosmopolitanism etc.
You must support your reading of the selected sections from the novel alongside the following texts,
AdomGetachew’sWorldmakingAfterEmpire(whichdiscussesneocolonialism, dependency, and cosmopolitanism)
Achille Mbembe’s interview on Afropolitanism (Week 2 recommended reading)
Achille Mbembe’s “Africa as a Chinese Question” (an excerpt from the introduction
to Out of the Dark Night (2021) to be discussed during forthcoming lectures on Bulawayo’s We Need New Names).
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