dc.contributor.author | Mpofu, William | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2014-07-28T06:51:03Z | |
dc.date.available | 2014-07-28T06:51:03Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2014 | |
dc.identifier.citation | Mpofu, W. 2014. A decolonial "African mode of self-writing": The case of Chinua Achebe in Things fall apart. New Contree : A journal of Historical and Human Sciences for Southern Africa. 69:1-25, Jul. [http://dspace.nwu.ac.za/handle/10394/4969] | en_US |
dc.identifier.issn | 0379-9867 | |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10394/10904 | |
dc.description.abstract | Against a background of arguments that Africa does not possess powerful
modes of self-expression, the present paper explores Chinua Achebe’s
Afrocentric literary vision that became his crowning reaction to colonialist
imagination of Africa as an ahistorical and dark space that is bereft of
humanity. Reactions to colonialist description of Africa have ranged, in the
African academy, from the search for the origins of the name Africa to a
critique of “the invention of Africa” after the colonial imaginary. Monumental
research and writing has also been done on how in the transantlantic slavery
of Africans and pursuant colonial settlement, Europe developed itself at the
expense of Africa. Chinua Achebe has erected his work on a stubborn concern
with the “image of Africa” as represented by colonialist and racist writers.
This paper fleshes out Decolonial Critical Theory as its tool of reading and
making sense of Chinua Achebe’s own decoloniality in defending Africa as a
continent that has a wealth of history and humanity. The ability of Chinua
Achebe to creatively appropriate the colonial English language and use it
as a tool to rebuke Eurocentric imperialism and sensibility is understood as
projecting a rebellious decoloniality and Afrocentricism that installs Achebe as one of Africa’s “whistle blowers against ideologies of Otherness.” It is a
crowning argument of this paper that Achebe envisions, in terms of power and
knowledge, a “world where other worlds are possible”, in so far as he gestures
towards a conversation rather than a clash of civilisations in the globe. | en_US |
dc.language.iso | en | en_US |
dc.publisher | School for Basic Sciences, Vaal Triangle Campus, North-West University | en_US |
dc.subject | Coloniality | en_US |
dc.subject | Decoloniality | en_US |
dc.subject | Afrocentricism | en_US |
dc.subject | Epistemic disobedience | en_US |
dc.subject | Border thinking | en_US |
dc.subject | Pluriversality | en_US |
dc.title | A decolonial "African mode of self-writing": The case of Chinua Achebe in Things fall apart. | en_US |
dc.type | Article | en_US |