Download Free African Intellectuals Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online African Intellectuals and write the review.

Decades after independence for most African states, the struggle for decolonization is still incomplete, as demonstrated by the fact that Africa remains associated in many Western minds with chaos, illness, and disorder. African and non-African scholars alike still struggle to establish the idea of African humanity, in all its diversity, and to move Africa beyond its historical role as the foil to the West. As this book shows, Africa’s decolonization is an ongoing process across a range of fronts, and intellectuals—both African and non-African—have significant roles to play in that process. The essays collected here examine issues such as representation and retrospection; the roles of intellectuals in the public sphere; and the fundamental question of how to decolonize African knowledges. African Intellectuals and Decolonization outlines ways in which intellectual practice can serve to de-link Africa from its global representation as a debased, subordinated, deviant, and inferior entity. Contributors Lesley Cowling, University of the Witwatersrand Nicholas M. Creary, University at Albany Marlene De La Cruz, Ohio University Carolyn Hamilton, University of Cape Town George Hartley, Ohio University Janet Hess, Sonoma State University T. Spreelin McDonald, Ohio University Ebenezer Adebisi Olawuyi, University of Ibadan Steve Odero Ouma, University of Nairobi Oyeronke Oyewumi, State University of New York at Stony Brook Tsenay Serequeberhan, Morgan State University
An examination of the attempt by Western-educated African intellectuals to create a 'better Africa' through connecting nationalism to knowledge, from the anti-colonial movement to the present-day. This book is about how African intellectuals, influenced primarily by nationalism, have addressed the inter-related issues of power, identity politics, self-assertion and autonomy for themselves and their continent, from the mid-nineteenth century onward. Their major goal was to create a 'better Africa' by connecting nationalism to knowledge. The results have been mixed, from the glorious euphoria of the success of anti-colonial movements to the depressingcircumstances of the African condition as we enter a new millennium. As the intellectual elite is a creation of the Western formal school system, the ideas it generated are also connected to the larger world of scholarship.This world is, in turn, shaped by European contacts with Africa from the fifteenth century onward, the politics of the Cold War, and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union. In essence, Africa and its elite cannot be fully understood without also considering the West and changing global politics. Neither can the academic and media contributions by non-Africans be ignored, as these also affect the ways that Africans think about themselves and their continent. Nationalism and African Intellectuals examines intellectuals' ambivalent relationships with the colonial apparatus and subsequent nation-state formations; the contradictions manifested within pan-Africanism and nationalism; and the relation of academic institutions and intellectual production to the state during the nationalism period and beyond. Toyin Falola is the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities and University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
This book examines the role of African intellectuals in the years since the end of colonialism, studying the contribution that has been made by such individuals, both to political causes and to development within Africa. Studying the concept of the "intellectual" within an African context, this book explores the responses of such individuals to crucial issues, such as cultural identity and knowledge production. The author argues that since the end of colonialism in Africa, various, often intertwining, factors, such as nationalism and co-option, have been used by black politicians or the political elites to muddle the roles and functions of black African intellectuals. Focusing on these confused roles and functions, the book posits that, over the years, most intellectuals in Africa have found the practice of "cheerleading" for a political cause more productive than making valuable contributions towards dynamic and progressive leadership in their countries. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of African studies, politics, and development studies.
This title provides a study of the African intelligentsia in Africa and the diaspora.
Introducing the lives and works of five exceptional African intellectuals in the former Cape colony, this unique history focuses on the pioneering roles played by these coarchitects of South African modernity and the contributions they made in the fields of literature, poetry, politics, religion, and journalism. Offering an in-depth look into how they reacted to colonial conquest and missionary proselytizing, the intricate process by which these historical figures straddled both the Western and African worlds is fully explored, as well as the ways that these individuals formed the foundation of the modern nationalist liberation struggle against colonialism and apartheid.
West African intellectuals have a long history of engaging with European intrusion by reflecting on their status as colonial and postcolonial subjects. Against the tendency to view this engagement as a confrontation between the modern west and traditional Africa, Philip S. Zachernuk argues that the interaction is far more fluid and diverse. Challenging the frequent denigration of western-educated Africans as a culturally barren "kleptocratic" elite, Colonial Subjects shows that they occupied a shifting medial position between colonizers and colonized. In the process they created a distinctive intellectual culture grounded in indigenous and European sources. Looking carefully at southern Nigeria from 1840 to 1960, Zachernuk locates intellectuals in the contours of their society as it changed from late precolonial times to the beginning of independence. He examines their engagement with British and Black Atlantic assumptions and assertions about Africa's place in the world. These ideas, shaped by the needs of others, became the often awkward material with which these intellectuals endeavored to construct their own image of their home continent. In this context, a group of Nigerian intellectuals created a dynamic intellectual tradition motivated by self-interest and marked by innovation, counter-invention, and imitation within the confines of the Atlantic world. At different times they opposed and supported the colonial state, adopted and rejected notions of racial destiny, and advocated free market principles, cooperative self-help, and state socialism. Colonial Subjects provides a historical framework for connecting these divergent ideas, thereby recovering the complexity of an intellectual tradition both colonial and modern.
African American Political Thought offers an unprecedented philosophical history of thinkers from the African American community and African diaspora who have addressed the central issues of political life: democracy, race, violence, liberation, solidarity, and mass political action. Melvin L. Rogers and Jack Turner have brought together leading scholars to reflect on individual intellectuals from the past four centuries, developing their list with an expansive approach to political expression. The collected essays consider such figures as Martin Delany, Ida B. Wells, W. E. B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, and Audre Lorde, whose works are addressed by scholars such as Farah Jasmin Griffin, Robert Gooding-Williams, Michael Dawson, Nick Bromell, Neil Roberts, and Lawrie Balfour. While African American political thought is inextricable from the historical movement of American political thought, this volume stresses the individuality of Black thinkers, the transnational and diasporic consciousness, and how individual speakers and writers draw on various traditions simultaneously to broaden our conception of African American political ideas. This landmark volume gives us the opportunity to tap into the myriad and nuanced political theories central to Black life. In doing so, African American Political Thought: A Collected History transforms how we understand the past and future of political thinking in the West.
This book examines the process and events surrounding the migration of African scholars, as well as their lives and lived experiences within and outside of their colleges and universities. The chapters chronicle the lived-experiences and observations of African scholars in North America and examine a range of issues, ideas, and phenomena within North American colleges and universities. The contributors examine the political, ethnic, or religious upheavals that informed their migration or banishment; contrast the teaching-learning-research environment in Africa and North America; and discuss on and off-campus experience with segregation and racial inequality. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of the African Diaspora, migration, and African Studies.
This festschrift is composed in honor of a distinguished scholar and Pan-Africanist, Professor Sulayman S. Nyang, whose career and intellectual pursuits spans more than 45 years—much of it at Howard University. Nyang’s contributions to African affairs transcend the scope of the academic world as he served as First Secretary and Head of Chancery of the Gambian Embassy in Saudi Arabia from 1975 to 1977, and consultant to the World Bank and United Nations agencies. In addition, Professor Nyang served as the President of the Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington, DC, and a member of the boards of many academic journals, and organizations of Islamic Studies in the USA. He has published copiously on a variety of issues affecting continental Africans, Africans in the Diaspora, and beyond. He has published and collaborated on dozens of books and book chapters and more than 100 articles in referred journals.
Much of the work in the field of African studies still relies on rigid distinctions of ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’, ‘collaboration’ and ‘resistance’, ‘indigenous’ and ‘foreign’. This book moves well beyond these frameworks to probe the complex entanglements of different intellectual traditions in the South African context, by examining two case studies. The case studies constitute the core around which is woven this intriguing story of the development of black theatre in South Africa in the early years of the century. It also highlights the dialogue between African and African-American intellectuals, and the intellectual formation of the early African elite in relation to colonial authority and how each affected the other in complicated ways. The first case study centres on Mariannhill Mission in KwaZulu-Natal. Here the evangelical and pedagogical drama pioneered by the Rev Bernard Huss, is considered alongside the work of one of the mission’s most eminent alumni, the poet and scholar, B.W. Vilakazi. The second moves to Johannesburg and gives a detailed insight into the working of the Bantu Dramatic Society and the drama of H.I.E. Dhlomo in relation to the British Drama League and other white liberal cultural activities.