Naturalizing Africa

Erscheinungsjahr 2017
ISBN: 978-1-107-19917-0
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 220 Seiten, Format (B × H): 167 mm x 242 mm, Gewicht: 431 g

The problem of environmental degradation on the African continent is a severe one. In this book, Cajetan Iheka analyses how African literary texts have engaged with pressing ecological problems in Africa, including the Niger Delta oil pollution in Nigeria, ecologies of war in Somalia, and animal abuses. Analysing narratives by important African writers such as Amos Tutuola, Wangari Maathai, J. M. Coetzee, Bessie Head, and Ben Okri, Iheka challenges the tendency to focus primarily on humans in the conceptualization of environmental problems, and instead focuses on how African literature demonstrates the interconnection and 'proximity' of human and nonhuman beings. Through this, Iheka ultimately proposes a revision of the idea of agency based on human intentionality in African literary studies and postcolonialism: that texts yoke the exploitation of Africans to the despoliation of the environment, and they recommend responsibility toward human and nonhuman beings as crucial for ecological sustainability and addressing climate change.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Iheka, Cajetan

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Afrikanische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Postkoloniale Literatur

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction: naturalizing Africa; 1. African literature and the aesthetics of proximity; 2. Beyond human agency: Nuruddin Farah and Somalia's ecologies of war; 3. Rethinking postcolonial resistance: the Niger Delta example; 4. Resistance from the ground: agriculture, gender, and manual labor; Epilogue: rehabilitating the human.

Über Autor(innen)

Iheka, Cajetan
Cajetan Iheka is an assistant professor of English, specializing in African and postcolonial literatures, at the University of Alabama. He is an editor for African Studies Review, the journal of the African Studies Association.