Building on the idea of ‘articulation’ as a series of cultural connections, as a clearly voiced argument and as a dynamic social encounter, this stream looks at how various kinds of Africa-related cultural, textual and disciplinary networks are formed and interlocked, in ways that cannot be reduced to ‘global versus local’ dichotomies.
The stream highlights specific instances of textual and performative confluence and cross-linkage that characterize both Africa’s cultures and their academic study. Panels will focus on the intertwined histories of these interactions and the rich conceptual and disciplinary yields that have flowed from them. We will ask: in what ways can the historical specificity of one locality’s reading and writing practices be preserved within the broad frameworks of comparative and inter-disciplinary study? Can we define a methodology for addressing the global relevance of local textual histories? What is the relationship between an ‘articulated’ approach and the re-emphasis in mainstream literary studies upon formalism or close reading? Papers will include discussions of various kinds of elite literary production, the cultural politics of musical performance in literature, the interdisciplinary affiliations between law and literature and the links between popular and cosmopolitan cultural forms. The keynote speaker attached to this stream will be Aminatta Forna.
The stream will comprise the following panels:
Leeds and Literature (convened by James Currey and Brendon Nicholls, Leeds)
Music and the African Novel (convened by Pim Higginson, Bryn Mawr)
Law and Literature (convened by Stephanie Jones, Southampton, and Ambreena Manji, BIEA)
Re-Reading the Popular in Africa (convened by Ono Okome, Alberta)
African Texts and New Cosmopolitanisms (convened by Ranka Primorac, Southampton)
The ‘post-millennial context’ and African writing in English (convened by Katie Reid and Kate Haines, Sussex), and
Indian Ocean Africa (convened by Meg Samuelson and Tina Steiner, Stellenbosch)
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