The ALA Lecture Series presents

African Literary Studies in Crisis?

November 21st 2020, 11:00am EST, 5.00pm Lagos, 6.00pm Johannesburg, 7.00pm Nairobi 

Join us on the ALA YouTube Channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaYYHGM8iraoQF48xeCnMKw

Lily Saint is Associate Professor of English at Wesleyan University and author of Black Cultural Life in South Africa: Reception, Apartheid and Ethics (University of Michigan Press, 2018).

Bhakti Shringarpure is Associate Professor of English at University of Connecticut, Editor-in-Chief of Warscapes and author of Cold War Assemblages: Decolonization to Digital (Routledge, 2019).

Respondents

• Cajetan Iheka (Yale University)
• Godwin Siundu (University of Nairobi)

Recently Africa is a Country published Lily Saint and Bhakti Shringarpure’s year-long survey of instructors of African literature to find out which African texts are taught. Among the essay’s many observations two stand out: the dominance of a few canonical texts despite the abundance of African literary works available, and the overwhelming presence of Anglophone writing from South Africa and Nigeria in the African literary canon taught in the Global North. Despite its astonishing growth, African literature still exists on the margins of the academic mainstream and is underrepresented within larger reading publics. In this talk, they discuss the results of their survey and consider the challenges that lie ahead for decolonizing African literary studies.

For more information:

Professor Akin Adesokan, Indiana University, adesokan@indiana.edu

Professor Ghirmai Negash, Ohio University, negashg@ohio.edu