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African Identities

Pan-Africanisms and Black Identities

By Kadiatu Kanneh

Published April 9th 1998 by Routledge – 216 pages

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Description

This fascinating and well researched study explores the meaning generated by `Africa' and `Blackness' throughout the century.

Using literary texts, autobiography, ethnography, and historical documents, African Identities discusses how ideas of Africa as an origin, as a cultural whole, or as a complicated political problematic, emerge as signifiers for analysis of modernity, nationhood and racial difference.

Kanneh provides detailed readings of a range of literary texts, including novels by:

* Toni Morrison

* Alice Walker

* Gloria Naylor

* Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

* Chinua Achebe

* and V.S. Naipaul.

For anyone interested in literature, history, anthropology, political writing, feminist or cultural analysis, this book opens up new areas of thought across disciplines.

Reviews

'African Identities is a study richly detailed and admirably sophisticated in its use of cultural theory and its engagement with the large number of writers it treats . . . The work's interdisciplinary nature will make it an invaluable resource in African studies, African-American studies, and cultural studies in general.' - Margo Hendricks, The Modern Language Review

'African Identities is a brilliant and sustained effort to deconstruct and reconstruct the varied conceptualisation of African identity, …' - Contemporary Review

'Kanneh has given students of African and African-American literatures a useful tool to navigate successfully the difficult terrain of reading not only the literature of Africa and its Diaspora but also 'the meanings of African identities'without a doubt, this is a book worth reading.' - Margo Hendricks, University of California, Santa Cruz

Name: African Identities: Pan-Africanisms and Black Identities (Paperback) – Routledge 
Description: By Kadiatu Kanneh. This fascinating and well researched study explores the meaning generated by `Africa' and `Blackness' throughout the century. Using literary texts, autobiography, ethnography, and historical documents, African Identities discusses how...
Categories: Post-Colonial Studies, African Cultural Studies, African Literature