Nearly four decades ago, Terence Ranger questioned to what extent
African history was actually African, and whether methods and concerns
derived from Western historiography were really sufficient tools for
researching and narrating African history. Despite a blossoming and
branching out of Africanist scholarship in the last twenty years, that
question is still haunting. The most prestigious locations for
production of African studies are outside Africa itself, and scholars
still seek a solution to this paradox. They agree that the ideal
solution would be a flowering of institutions of higher learning
within Africa which would draw not only Africanist scholars, but also
financial resources to the continent. While the focus of this volume
is on historical knowledge, the effort to make African scholarship
"more African" is fundamentally interdisciplinary. The essays in this
volume employ several innovative methods in an effort to study Africa
on its own terms. The book is divided into four parts. Part 1,
"Africanizing African History," offers several diverse methods for
bringing distinctly African modes of historical discourse to the
foreground in academic historical research. Part 2, "African Creative
Expression in Context," presents case studies of African art,
literature, music, and poetry. It attempts to strip away the exotic or
primitivist aura such topics often accumulate when presented in a
foreign setting in order to illuminate the social, historical, and
aesthetic contexts in which these works of art were originally
produced. Part 3, "Writing about Colonialism," demonstrates that the
study of imperialism in Africa remains a springboard for innovative
work, which takes familiar ideas about Africa and considers them
within new contexts. Part 4, "Scholars and Their Work," critically
examines the process of African studies itself, including the roles of
scholars in the production of knowledge about Africa. This timely and
thoughtful volume will be of interest to African studies scholars and
students who are concerned about the ways in which Africanist
scholarship might become "more African."
Les mer
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781351324380
Publisert
2017
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Vendor
Routledge
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter