Afropolitan Literature as World Literature

by James Hodapp (Editor)

Overview

African literature has never been more visible than it is today. Whereas Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, and Ngugi wa Thiong'o defined a golden generation of African writers in the 20th century, a new generation of “Afropolitan” writers including Chimamanda Adichie, Teju Cole, Taiye Selasi, and NoViolet Bulawayo have taken the world by storm by snatching up prestigious awards and selling millions of copies of their works.

But what is the new, increasingly fashionable and marketable, Afropolitan vision of Africa's place in the world that they offer? How does it differ from that of previous generations? Why do some dissent? Afropolitanism refuses to reinforce images of Africa in world media as merely poor, war-torn, diseased, and constantly falling into chaos. By complicating the image of Africa as a hapless victim, Afropolitanism focuses on the wide-ranging influence Africa has on the world. However, some have characterized this kind of writing as light, populist fare that panders to Western audiences.

Afropolitan Literature as World Literature examines the controversy surrounding Afropolitan literature in light of the unprecedented circulation of culture made possible by globalization, and ultimately argues for expanding its geographic and temporal boundaries.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501342592
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	01/23/2020
Series:	Literatures as World Literature
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	248
File size:	614 KB

About the Author

James Hodapp is Assistant Professor of English at Northwestern University in Qatar. He has published in ARIEL, The Global South, English in Africa, The Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, Short Fiction in Theory&Practice, African Studies Review, Wasafiri, The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Postcolonial Studies, and in several anthologies on world cinema and literature.
James Hodapp is Associate Professor of English at Northwestern University in Qatar. He has published in The Journal of Postcolonial Writing, African Literature Today, Research in African Literatures, Journal of Commonwealth Literature, ARIEL, The Global South, English in Africa, Critical Arts, The Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, Short Fiction in Theory&Practice, African Studies Review, Wasafiri, The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Postcolonial Studies, and in several anthologies on world cinema and literature.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Africa and the Rest
James Hodapp (Northwestern University, Qatar)
2. The Worlds of Afropolitan World Literature: Modeling Intra-African Afropolitanism in Yvonne Adhiambo Owuour's Dust
Birgit Neumann (Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany)
3. Strategic Label: Afropolitan Literature in Germany
Anna von Rath (University of Potsdam, Germany)
4. Afropolitanism and the Afro-Asian Diaspora in M.G. Vassanji's And Home Was Kariakoo
Shilpa Daithota Bhat (Ahmedabad University, India)
5. "White Man's Magic": A. Igoni Barrett's Blackass, Afropolitanism, and (Post)Racial Anxieties
Julie Iromuanya (University of Chicago, USA)
6. Toward an Environmental Theory of Afropolitan Literature
Juan Meneses (University of North Carolina, Charlotte, USA)
7. How Afropolitanism Unworlds the African World
Amatoritsero Ede (University of the Bahamas)
8. Afropolitan Aesthetics as an Ethics of Openness
Chielozona Eze (Northeastern Illinois University, USA)
9. Fingering the Jagged Grain: Rereading Afropolitanism (and Africa) in Taiye Selasi's Ghana Must Go
Aretha Phiri (Rhodes University, South Africa)
10. "Part Returnee and Part-Tourist": The Afropolitan Travelogue in Noo Saro-Wiwa's Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria
Rocío Cobo-Piñero (University of Seville, Spain)
11. "Something Covered But Not Hidden": Obscurity in Teju Cole's Oeuvre as an Afropolitan Way of Worlding
Julian Wacker (University of Muenster, Germany)
12. The Hesitant Local: The Global Citizens of Open City and Americanah
Lara El Makkawi (American University of Beirut, Lebanon)

Notes on Contributors
Index

Editorial Reviews

Afropolitan Literature as World Literature brings together a series of essays that inscribe and extend the contested concept of Afropolitanism and the emerging disciplinary formation known as World Literature. By putting these discourses in conversation and identifying convergences and divergences, this book challenges us to think beyond the limits and limitations of the current critical axioms that have taken the foreground. James Hodapp's book opens a discursive space for critical thought and reflexivity on the worldliness of literary Afropolitanism.” —Harry Garuba, Professor of English and African Studies, University of Cape Town, South Africa

“This collection of essays makes a valuable contribution to the discourse of Afropolitanism. Neither dismissive nor harshly critical of the term, the essays by established and younger scholars critically expand the notion of Afropolitanism to include different genres and spaces in the West and on the African continent. The essays argue for a more nuanced appreciation of the term and show how it can be useful to understand what an Afropolitan text might be beyond the usual novels and writers labeled as such. Individual essays introduce us to texts not readily in circulation in the West and in doing so help the reader understand the relationship between Afropolitan and world literature.” —Sangeeta Ray, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of Maryland, USA

From the Publisher