I take the necessity of mastery of English and of disciplinary discourse for granted.
The language of communication and its specialized application to a particular disciplines in relation to their styles of thought, conceptual contexts and theories must be mastered.
The language of communication and its specialized application to a particular disciplines in relation to their styles of thought, conceptual contexts and theories must be mastered.
That last sentence provokes the question, what is the provenance and applicability in different contexts of these styles of thought, conceptual contexts and theories?
A scholar has mastered how to write well, in general terms, as well as in advancing an argument in terms of the specialized language and theoretical systems of a discipline.
To what end?
The scholar's work, adapting Moses, is ''choke full of compelling theoretical insights'' adequately] highlighted, signalled, or developed, ideas compellingly advanced and expressed, ''in the proper lingo or expressive protocols of the field or debate. ''
Again, adapting Moses, the scholarship demonstrates analytical acuity, a striking balance of empiricism, of inductive and deductive reasoning, of relationship between data and theory, sustaining arguments through rigorous interpretation and interrogation of data, enabling the important and radically revisionist perspective to shine through in its original theoretical contributions.
Again, adapting Moses, the scholarship demonstrates analytical acuity, a striking balance of empiricism, of inductive and deductive reasoning, of relationship between data and theory, sustaining arguments through rigorous interpretation and interrogation of data, enabling the important and radically revisionist perspective to shine through in its original theoretical contributions.
To what end?
So as to ''enter and influence the most consequential global academic debates in an increasingly Anglophone world [ and] ultimately influencing the academic/theoretical debates in the Global North''? as Moses sums up.
I see with Moses in his determination to meet on their own terms any academic determined to locate themself within debates arising from and often centrally conducted within universities and organs of scholarship based in Europe and North America.
But is it enough to address that base line?
But is it enough to address that base line?
Is this aspiration evidence of progress or retrogression?
Does developing a scholarly culture centred on being taken seriously by scholars outside your geo-discursive frame of inspiration and reference progress?
Did African scholarship not move beyond this stage as of the 70s and 80s?
What does what seems to be a reversion to this model suggest about the intrinsically creative and globally impactful capacity and potential of African academia?
The study of African literature, the study of African history as history of Africa driven by Africans, the development of modern African art and theory as creativities arising from African experience in Africa, the study of classical African medical systems, all these are foundational innovations that created the field of African studies and which were pioneered in such universities as those of Ibadan, Dar Es Salam, Zaria, Ife, etc and spread to other parts of the world.
How can scholars in Africa achieve a balance between intra-institutional dialogue-scholars in the same institution dialoguing with each other, extra-institutional dialogue-scholars in an institution dialoguing with those in other institutions, intra-continental dialogue-scholars dialoguing with each other within the continent and extra-continental dialogue-scholars dialoguing with each other across continents?
The current orientation seems to accord greater prestige to scholarship in Africa being taken seriously by scholars in Europe and North America.
Is this development or underdevelopment?
It is imperative scholars in Africa master the use of English, but to what end?
It is critical that scholars in Africa master the thought systems and theories of their disciplines, but to what end?
Primarily to be able to be respected by scholars in Europe and North America?
To be fluent in disciplinary paradigms emanating from Europe and America?
At what degree of critical relationship with those concepts and paradigms?
At what degree of critical relationship with those concepts and paradigms?
In developing one's own concepts and paradigms what should be one's relationship to the various potential audiences of these ideas?
Is it not vital to both assist in discursive extraversion, being the demand of the moment, along with suggesting how to move beyond an approach based upon the limiting needs of the moment, and thereby move towards endogenous empowerment in relation to external impact, the creation of multiple centres of discursive prominence?
Moses' long sustained campaign for ethical integrity in interpersonal relations in Nigerian universities, particularly between teachers and students, and for a strong research culture where creativity and humane order are central, is part of this struggle.
You cannot develop a robust research culture without emphasizing those values.
Beyond these fundamentals of institutional structure as composed of the attitudes, behavior and systems of institutions, are the questions of the orientation of the creativity generated by these institutions.
The art school of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, is the originator of one of the most impactful schools of African aesthetics, emerging from the study of classical Igbo Uli art in relation to classical Igbo cosmology, in the context of various strategies of engaging one's immediate physical and cultural environment as inspirations for artistic practice.
The quality of their training in art criticism and theory is evident in the achievements of their teachers and students, from Uche Okeke to Olu Oguibe, complementing the prominence of their artists, from Uche Okeke to El Anatsui.
Their ongoing virtual seminar series, the latest of which Moses was the central speaker, is another demonstration of the forward looking orientation of Nsukka.
El Anatsui has become the best known African artist from his Nsukka base, but Anatsui's achievement arises from decades long seeding of the intellectual, imaginative and creative climate at the Nsukka art school initiated by Uche Okeke when he arrived from ABU Zaria with his theory of Natural Synthesis, central to the Zaria Art Society that initiated modern Nigerian art as represented by university trained artists.
The Nsukka Zoom series represents a means of dialoguing with the world and with themselves.
What should be the goal of this dialogue?
Freeborn Odiboh, professor of art at the University of Benin, was the central speaker at a previous Nsukka Zoom session and his talk was on improving art history curricula in African universities.
Freeborn described the central role played in his research in this field by the support of Western institutions through the provision of fellowships and research grants.
Western institutions are vital to the development of the younger version of themselves represented by African academic institutions.
In what direction should this relationship be developed?
One-sided dependence or co-dependence?
thanks
toyin
On Sun, 1 Nov 2020 at 23:02, Oyeronke Oyewumi <oyeronke.oyewumi@stonybrook.edu> wrote:
Biko, my broda, thank you!E go good o.'RonkeOn Fri, Oct 30, 2020 at 6:27 PM Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com> wrote:--Earlier today, I had a Zoom session with the Music Study Group of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), Nigeria. Thanks toPeter Sylvanus, the HOD of Music at UNN, for organizing it.One of the questions put to me during the session is how the marginalized theoretical and scholarly perspectives of Nigeria/Africa can receive serious reception and respect in a global (read Western-dominated) academic culture that devalues Global South thinkers and thinking by default and values Euro-American ones also by default.There are several strategies, some of which I shared with the group, but one aspect of the answer that I didn't get to cover adequately is that of language. In my experience the cheapest, easiest excuse that the Western academy uses to exclude and disenfranchise African scholars and their perspectives is to say that their writing is poor—that they can't write.There are of course all kinds of racist and othering underpinnings to this tactic, but sometimes the excuse is based on an actually existing writing deficit. And I would argue, following our late friend, Pius Adesanmi, that to be taken seriously and be reckoned with in the Western academy, we have to write back to Western theorists as insurgents bypassing and crashing the gates and gatekeepers but we have to do so in a language that is intelligible to the gatekeepers, in their own academic lexicon. That way, you take that go-to alibi off the table and compel them to examine and engage with your work on its merit.You can have, as Africa-based scholars often do, radical, iconoclastic, novel, and revisionist perspectives, theories, and approaches, but if you do not deprive your Western interlocutors of the poor writing excuse, they'll always use it to exclude you.That is why I emphasize linguistic mastery and writing excellence, and lament the decline of writing in Nigerian universities. If the writing is bad no one is going to grasp or have the patience to comprehend the radically new theory and argument you're advancing. And this contention applies to all disciplines, including the hard sciences.Which is why I have no sympathy for the pseudo-Afrocentric nonsense that English (or other European languages) is not our mother tongue so proficiency, fluency, and mastery are not important. Whether we like it or not, English is the scholarly Lingua Franca of the world we live in and your access to global scholarly conversations and intellectual capital is directly proportional to your written and oral fluency in it. Ask the South Asian scholars of the subaltern collective how they broke through and forced their theories on the Western academy after going through a similar complaining phase as us.More importantly, if we're asking for a hearing at the theoretical table, it is not compromise or self-betrayal to adopt the prevailing paradigmatic linguistic medium. After all, we're the ones seeking to alter the global epistemological dynamic, force a reckoning with African and Africa-derived theories, and teach Western scholars our ways of knowing and seeing the world.
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAAHJfPpPFfiKp6GARbfmm_Agd7P5-uSCWUobORoHMd7oCdkoSg%40mail.gmail.com.
----Oyeronke OyewumiProfessor of Sociology, Africana & Gender StudiesStony Brook UniversityStony Brook, NY 11794Fax: (631) 632-8203email: equalityforafrica@gmail.com
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CALFdaiBTAWLTh2R18O1Xg053%2Bzfcr%2BcDLw7KG45Jd3e-T-%3DDEQ%40mail.gmail.com.
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CALUsqTSPWrFKK5%3Dfqik%3D5cO6%3DwvBFGy_X37ReWi4vxc1k-moPQ%40mail.gmail.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment