Soyinka's representation of postcolonial African identity is re-examined in the light of his major plays, novels and poetry to show how this writer's idiom of cultural authenticity both embraces hybridity and defines itself as specific and particular. For Soyinka, such authenticity involves recovering tradition and inserting it in postcolonial modernity to facilitate transformative moral and political justice. The past can be both our enabling future and our nemesis. In a distinctive approach grounded in cultural studies, Postcolonial Identity in Wole Soyinka locates the artist's intellectual and political concerns within the broader field of postcolonial cultural theory, arguing that, although ostensibly distant from mainstream theory, Soyinka focuses on fundamental questions concerning international culture and political identity formations - the relationship between myth and history / tradition and modernity, and the unresolved tension between power as a force for good or evil. Soyinka's treatment of the relationship between individual selfhood and the various framing social and collective identities, so the book argues, is yet another aspect linking his work to the broader intellectual currents of today. Thus, Soyinka's vision is seen as central to contemporary efforts to grasp the nature of modernity. His works conceptualize identity in ways that promote and modify national perceptions of 'Africanness', rescuing them from the colonial and neocolonial logic of cultural denigration in a manner that fully acknowledges the cosmopolitan and global contexts of African postcolonial formation. Overall, what emerges from the present study is the conviction that, in Soyinka's work, it is the capacity to assume personal and collective agency and the particular choices made by particular subjects at given historical moments that determine the trajectory of change and ultimately the nature of postcolonial existence itself. Postcolonial Identity in Wole Soyinka is a major and imaginative contribution to the study of Wole Soyinka, African literature, and postcolonial cultural theory and one in which writing and creativity stand in fruitful symbiosis with the critical sense. It should appeal to Soyinka scholars, to students of African literature, and to anyone interested in postcolonial and cultural theory.

An intellectual biography of a modern African artist and his immense contribution to twentieth-century art history. The history of world art has long neglected the work of modern African artists and their search for forms of modernist expression as either irrelevant to the discourse of modern art or as fundamentally subservient to the established narrative of Western European modernist practice. With this engaging new volume, Sylvester Ogbechie refutes this approach by examining the life and work of Ben Enwonwu (1917-94), a premier African modernist and pioneer whose career opened the way for the postcolonial proliferation and increased visibility of African art. In the decades between Enwonwu's birth and death, modernization produced new political structures and new forms of expression inAfrican cultures, inspiring important developments in modern African art. Within this context, Ogbechie evaluates important issues such as the role of Anglo-Nigerian colonial culture in the development of modern Nigerian art, andEnwonwu's involvement with international discourses of modernism in Europe, Africa, and the United States over a period of five decades. The author also interrogates Enwonwu's use of the radical politics of Negritude ideology to define modern African art against canonical interpretations of Euro-modernism; and the artist's visual and critical contributions to Pan Africanism, Nigerian nationalism, and postcolonial interpretations of African modernity. First and foremost an intellectual biography of Ben Enwonwu as a modern African artist, rather than an exhaustive critical exploration of the discourse of modernism in African art history or in modern art in general, Ben Enwonwu situates the artist historically and interprets his work in ways that surpass traditional discourse around the canon of modern art. Sylvester Ogbechie is Associate Professor of Art History at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

A global history of 'Biafra', providing a new explanation for the ascendance of humanitarianism in a postcolonial world.

This volume was first published by Inter-Disciplinary Press in 2013. Play engages us entirely. It may absorb all our attention, experience, knowledge, wisdom, understanding, cunning and wit, as well as physical agility and strength. There definitely are more than two sides to the play story. This book addresses the broad questions of what play consists in, how it is perceived, why it is important, and in what way(s) it influences our life. With contributions from Canada, Great Britain, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, The United States of America as well as Trinidad and Tobago, this volume provides a comparative intercultural and interdisciplinary perspective on the complexity of the concept of play, traces its origins, patterns, and mechanisms, as well as sheds light on the inter-relationships of different aspects of play as they are present in and shape the human condition.

Post-Colonial Drama is the first full-length study to address the ways in which performance has been instrumental in resisting the continuing effects of imperialism. It brings to bear the latest theoretical approaches from post-colonial and performance studies to a range of plays from Australia, Africa, Canada, New Zealand, the Caribbean and other former colonial regions. Some of the major topics discussed in Post-Colonial Drama include: * the interactions of post-colonial and performance theories * the post-colonial re-stagings of language and history * the specific enactments of ritual and carnival * the theatrical citations of the post-colonial body Post-Colonial Drama combines a rich intersection of theoretical approaches with close attention to a wide range of performance texts.

This book explores in depth the uses of language in Wole Soyinka’s plays, poetry and prose. The author approaches Soyinka’s works through meticulous close readings, giving the writer his due by capturing the complexities, ambiguities, and nuances of his language.

The Present Book Is An Attempt To Analyse Some Of The Outstanding Post-Colonial Writers Like Arundhati Roy (Booker Prize Winner 1997), Vikram Chandra (Commonwealth Prize Winner 1997), Derek Walcott (Nobel Prize Winner), Margaret Atwood (Booker Prize Winner 2000), Jayanta Mahapatra, Dom Moraes, Nissim Ezekiel, Keki N. Daruwalla, Kamala Das, Shiv K. Kumar, Anita Desai, Shashi Deshpande, Ruskin Bond (All Sahitya Akademi Award Winners) In The Light Of Post-Colonial Theory. Apart From Analysing Individual Authors, An Attempt Has Also Been Made To Show The Trends In Post-Colonial Poetry, Indian English Fiction, Orissan Contribution To Post-Colonial Indian English Literature And Above All, Post-Colonial English Studies In India.

African sexualities are dynamic, multi-faceted and resilient. However, people with non-heterosexual sexualities and gender variant identities are often involved in struggles for survival, self-definition, and erotic rights. Queer in Africa forms an entry point for understanding the vulnerabilities of queer Africans as shaped by social, cultural and political processes, aiming to provide innovative insights about contentious disagreements over their lives. The volume mediates Southern and Northern scholarship, directing attention toward African-centred beliefs made accessible to a wide audience. Key concerns such as identity construction and the intersections between different social forces (such as nationalist traditionalism and sexualities) are addressed via engaging chapters; some empirically based and others providing critical cultural analysis. Highly interdisciplinary in nature, Queer in Africa provides a key resource for students, academics, and activists concerned with the international support of sex and gender diversity. It will appeal to those interested in fields such as anthropology, film studies, literary studies, political science, public health, sociology, and socio-legal studies.

Postcolonial Nigeria has been the subject of many literatures that identify and interrogate the many issues and problems that had made it near impossible for Nigerians to achieve the anticolonial aspirations that gave birth to independent Nigeria. The rationale for this volume is to situate the thematic inquiry into the problematic of postcolonial Nigerian within the ambit of the humanities and its concerns. These thematic issues include identity configurations, aesthetics, philosophical reflections, linguistic dynamics, sociological framings, and so on. The objective of the volume is to enable scholars and students to have new insights and arguments about possibilities that postcoloniality throws up for rethinking the Nigerian state and society.

This book is a unique introduction to studying the philosophy of religion, drawing on a wide range of cultures and literary sources in an approach that is both methodologically innovative and expansive in its cross-cultural and multi-religious scope. Employing his expertise in interdisciplinary and Wittgenstein-influenced methods, Mikel Burley draws on works of ethnography and narrative fiction, including Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov and Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman, to critically engage with existing approaches to the philosophy of religion and advocate a radical, pluralist approach. Breaking away from the standard fixation on a narrow construal of theism, topics discussed include conceptions of compassion in Buddhist ethics, cannibalism in mortuary rituals, divine possession and animal sacrifice in Hindu Goddess worship and animism in indigenous traditions. Original and engaging, Burley's synthesis of philosophical, anthropological and literary elements expands and diversifies the philosophy of religion, providing an essential introduction for anyone interested in studying the radical plurality of forms that religion takes in human life.