1st Edition
An Anthology of African Cultural Studies, Volume II Directions
This volume focuses on the directions that African cultural studies has taken over the years and covers the following central themes: contemporary issues in African cultural studies; Gender and the making of identity; the dual discourses of Afropessimism and Afrofuturism; problematizing the African diaspora and methodology and African cultural studies.
The second of two volumes, the book predominantly pulls together a rich reservoir of previously published articles from Critical Arts: South-North Cultural and Media Studies. Taken together the two volumes re-expose for international readers sets of theories, methodologies and studies that not only have been influenced by global trends, but which themselves have contributed to shaping those trends. While the first volume addressed foundational themes and issues in African cultural studies, this second volume focuses on the directions that African cultural studies is taking; the complex ways in which gender can be seen at work in the making of identity; the juxtaposition of two relatively new themes in African cultural studies, namely Afropessimism and Afrofuturism; the ways in which the presence of continental Africans in the diaspora problematize taken-for-granted conceptions of diaspora and diasporic identity; identifying some of the methodological issues and approaches that have been taken up in African cultural studies work.
This book will be a key resource for academics, researchers and advanced students of African cultural studies, media and cultural studies, African studies, history, politics, sociology, and social and cultural anthropology, while also being of interest to those seeking an introduction to the sub-field of African cultural studies.
Directions: Introduction to An Anthology of African Cultural Studies, Volume II
Handel Kashope Wright and Keyan G. Tomaselli
Part I – African Cultural Studies: Directions
1. Contemporary orientations in African Cultural Studies
Jesse Arseneault, Sarah D’Adamo, Helene Strauss and Handel Kashope Wright
2. Cultural studies and the African Global South
Keyan G. Tomaselli
3. What has African Cultural Studies done for you lately? Autobiographical and global
considerations of a floating signifier
Handel Kashope Wright
Part II – Putting African Gender to Work
4. (West) African feminisms and their challenges
Naomi Nkealah
5. The female body in audiovisual political propaganda jingles: the Mbare Chimurenga Choir in Zimbabwe’s contested political terrain
Hazel Tafadzwa Ngoshi and Anias Mutekwa
6. Stylin’: The great masculine enunciation and the (re)fashioning of
African diasporic identities
Christine Checinska
Part III – Afropessimism/Afrofuturism
7. Afropessimism: a genealogy of discourse
Boulou Ebanda de B’béri and P. Eric Louw
8. The roots of Afropessimism: The British invention of the ‘dark continent’
Noah R. Bassil
9. Rainbow Worriers: South African Afropessimism Online
Martha Evans
10. ‘Did He Freeze?’: Afrofuturism, Africana Womanism, and Black Panther’s Portrayal of the Women of Wakanda
Tiffany Thames Copeland
11. Fashioning Africanfuturism: African comics, Afrofuturism, and Nnedi
Okorafor’s Shuri
James Hodapp
Part IV – Troubling the African Diaspora
12. Random thoughts provoked by the conference “Identities, democracy, culture
and communication in Southern Africa”
Stuart Hall
13. Marcus Garvey: the remapping of Africa and its diaspora
Rupert Lewis
14. Whose Diaspora is this anyway? Continental Africans trying on
and troubling diasporic identity
Handel Kashope Wright
15. Marking the unmarked: Hip-hop, the gaze & the African body in North America
16. Constructing consciousness: Diasporic remembrances and imagining Africa in late modernity
Jacinta K. Muteshi
Part V – Methodology and African Cultural Studies
17. Cultural Studies as ‘Psycho-babble’
Keyan G Tomaselli
18. South Africa in the global neighbourhood: Towards a method of cultural
Analysis
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19. Cultural studies as praxis: (making) an autobiographical case
20. Navigating the African archive – A conversation between Tamar Garb and Hlonipha
Mokoena
Biography
Handel Kashope Wright is Senior Advisor to the President on Anti-racism and Inclusive Excellence, Director of the Centre for Culture, Identity and Education and Professor of Education, University of British Columbia and Senior Research Associate, University of Johannesburg. He is also Associate Editor of Critical Arts.
Keyan G. Tomaselli is Distinguished Professor, Dean’s Office, Faculty of Humanities, University of Johannesburg, and Professor Emeritus and Fellow, University of KwaZulu-Natal. He is founder and now co-editor of Critical Arts.
