1. Introduction: City, text, future Ranka Primorac
2. A city that keeps a country going: In praise of Dakar Donal Cruise O’Brien
3. Corresponding with the city: Self-help literature in urban West Africa Stephanie Newell
4. Philly Lutaaya: Popular music and the fight against HIV/AIDS in Uganda Joel Isabirye
5. Remapping urban modernities: Julie Ward’s death and the Kenyan grapevine Grace A. Musila
6. The modern city and citizen efficacy in a Zambian novel Ranka Primorac
7. Lusaka Laura Miti-Banda
8. The urban palimpsest: Re-presenting Sophiatown Meg Samuelson
9. Myth and legend in urban oral memory: Bulawayo, 1930–60 Terence Ranger
10. Afterword: Modernity and transformation in African cities Jennifer Robinson
11. Ivan Vladislavic and the possible city James Graham
12. City, identity and dystopia: Writing Lagos in contemporary Nigerian novels Rita Nnodim
Biography
Ranka Primorac is a Teaching Fellow at the University of Southampton. Previously, she has taught Africa-related courses in several institutions of higher learning, including Cambridge and the London branch of New York University, and has authored The Place of Tears: The Novel and Politics in Modern Zimbabwe (2006) and co-edited Zimbabwe in Crisis: The International Response and the Space of Silence (2007).
"Ranka Primorac's small collection of essays deserves attention as a worthwhile departure from the routine of even relatively diverse cultural studies scholarship."
-- Seth Graebner, Washington University in St Louis
