Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2023 11:48:26 AM
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Menace of "Theoretical Framework" Hazing in Anglophone Africa
I meant to complete the opening sentences by saying no one like cornelius can take us back to the 60s and 70s when we began to study african literature. He was there w the founding scholars and authors, and i find his memories truly invaluable.Ken
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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Harrow, Kenneth <harrow@msu.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2023 7:43:12 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Menace of "Theoretical Framework" Hazing in Anglophone AfricaI'd love to respond to moses's two postings and cornelius's recollections and posting. No one on this list can go back to the 70s or before and tell us about what it was like to have studied african literature, then at its inception. He forces us to return to that question, what is african literature, and a little bit, what might "inception" mean.Of course it dates back much earlier than the 50s, when people like achebe or laye were writing, or the even earlier south african authors who predated them.And of course the still earlier oral performances and traditions go back a while, with the griots, and then back further and further, with a dash of sundiata and other epics that go back hundreds of years.There is no "beginning" to african literature, in a meaningful sense, any more than there is to any other literature since the genres and languages in which they were composed always, always, had predecessors who influenced the creators.So maybe we can talk about some kind of preliminary moment, not entirely arbitrary, when this movement back in search of the origins of meaning is temporarily halted, as in putting a tack into a piece of fabric. This is the figure used by derrida, coming from lacan, to stop the movement of signifiers coming from previous signifiers, differentiated from others into order to establish, temporarily, meaning.
I don't mind referring to lacan or derrida or soyinka or anyone else whose notions might help me figure out some literary issue.That said, i have to say i agree with moses that the usefulness of the theory needs to somehow work, somehow be relevant to the immediate context in which meaning or affect is being produced by the book or art or film. Nothing nothing nothing is so awfully tedious is reading papers about african works that are, somehow, artificially evoked in some play of meaning that just is not part of the world of experience and history that gave meaning to the images and words used. Africa is real, no matter how hybrid, and only feet on the red soil can really give a place from which to view its world.
To make moses's point more meaningful to me, as he cited a bunch of marxist thinkers, it would make little sense to attempt a class based classical marxist reading on african social structures. On the other hand, it makes little sense to try to read sembene ousmane's novels stories and films without understanding precisely his intellectual formation in marseilles, working as a union man, ensconced in an intellectual milieu driven largely by the marxist of the 1950s in france. He returned with ideas of revolution, of class conscious thinking, of religion as the opiate of thepeople, etc etc., that blatantly marked his early and middle works—along with his evocations of race and racism, and his attacks on neocolonialism, not least of which included senghor.Too much to say here: the theoretical apparatus used to explore sembene's work could betray it if applied mechanically, as althusser might well be; or as hegel might be, with the dialectuic,etc. but if a useful dialogue might result, let's give it a chance.
The african voices i hear in my ears—let's say the inimitable, the most wonderful of wonderful, birago diop or hampate ba,—might well serve moses's program of fostering african grounded thought; even as approaching diop's "contes" always benefits from harold scheub and other experts in oral literature; and hampate ba's islam was profoundly marked by sufism, with its african roots reaching far and wide, so that echoes of what cornelius cites, the classic Conference of Birds, helps us to understand his masterworks of Islamic masters, notably Thierno Bokar, or Kaidara , and much more.
But i need more to understand the overriding concepts at play in constructing genres, in working around past connections without being lost in originary thought; so i reread glissant again to help get me there; and as we know, glissant was himself influenced byDeleuze and guattari.I read moses's piece, alongside cornelius's radically different approach, and try to talk with them in writing this. This is how theory is developed, by a dialogue, not a monologue. A dialogue with past writers, with fellow thinkers, and with texts. Moses's dialogue insists, rightly, that we find a way to bring into the discussion, and into those who hear it, the relevant language formed by the relevance to the location.Ken
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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of cornelius...@gmail.com <corneliushamelberg@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2023 4:34:17 PM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Menace of "Theoretical Framework" Hazing in Anglophone Africa
Thanks for the explanations
Just a short aside:
Dear Professor Kenneth Harrow,
Convener and host of that wonderful 12th Annual African Literature Association conference at Michigan State University in April, 1986, at which, among many others, this paper was presented.
Given the diversities in background it should be good that all suggestions/ recommendations ought to be on the table, yours, Edward Said's , Bernth Lindfors' - a united/disunited/disparate composite approach. Back in Sierra Leone Michael Brunson made a difference to bringing Eliot and Shakespeare back to life, as you too must have done for your students with some of the literary icons at the various venues of Higher education where you have taught at the Cheikh Anta Diop and Mongo Beti and Albert Camus Countries.
Back in the Ghana of 1970 , in very unctuous tones friend Cyprian Lamar Rowe proclaimed to me personally, at some length, the glories of Chinua Achebe, who he venerated as a genuine African pioneer holding African traditions high - this was at a time when I had hardly read any Achebe, friend James Ngugi as he was called then, was writer in residence, and Ayi Kwei Armah was the man of the moment, the new kid on the block with his then much celebrated "The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born" and "Fragments". Cyprian thought that Armah seemed to be looking in , into Africa and African society, as an outsider.To this day, it would seem that the African-American prefers the pristine , idyllic picture of pastoral Africa as things were before the White Man came, started kidnapping people, and mucked up everything; prefer that to the other complex realities of post colonial modernities.
When asked to comment on corruption in Nigeria, Hon. Minister Louis Farrakhan was furious
I presume that the African Literature under purview has been mostly authored in English and French, , is mostly read by English and French-speaking readers, and of course various translations of the originals into Hausa, Xhosa, Zulu, Yoruba, Igbo etc, perhaps even into some of the other languages that Abdul Bangura speaks (a good reason for learning other languages of course being to be able to read some of the great works written in those languages - thinking of the ancient world's Greek and Latin and Sanskrit, and that in modern times Sweden's Gunnar Ekelöf learnt Persian in order to read Hafez, whilst Finland's Georg Henrik Von Wright acquired the English Language so that he could inherit Ludwig Wittgenstein's chair of philosophy at Cambridge
Another presumption is the various backgrounds/ lack of background of the teachers, readers, students and authors of the distinct category that's referred to as " African Literature" - the literary output of Africans, by which definition, at this stage even if Mo Yan were to have written "Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out" in the Kalabari Language , he would still remain Chinese , just as Conrad remains "Polish British" , V.S. Naipaul, "a Trinidadian-born British writer", Kwame Akroma-Ampim Kusi Anthony Appiah "a British American philosopher and writer ", and ours truly, Toyin Omoyeni Falola of course, Pure Yoruba Nigeria. Somebody wants to make a theory out of that? As Einstein famously quipped, "If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew"
Right on ! Other assumptions, this and that writer's alleged racism , Conrad, Joyce Cary making fun and having a good time at someone else's expense in Mister Johnson, the itinerant Naipaul's non-fiction ( some of it Islamophobia too) some of Paul Theroux ( Fong and the Indians, as inevitably what happens in anybody's travelogues - the perspectives of one civilizational background entering the time zones of another kind of civilizations, be it Marco Polo, Sir Richard Burton's pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, and I assume that what Marx said about his friend Lassalle fits nicely into the categories known as racism and antisemitism.
And, what if - God forbid Lord Lugard and Achebe, and his lot had never existed, how would you have planned introducing African Literature to your blue-eyed American students? How, for example would you set about teaching African literature to Joe Biden ( I assume that the only "African Literature" that he has ever read would be "Dreams From My Father" and "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream" written by his former boss, Barack Obama, the Kenyan-American.
What about Donald J. Trump ( I watched him, same blonde shock of hair, cheerful & upbeat delivering a speech in South Carolina yesterday) how would you go about teaching him Great African Literature , if he were your student, you must admit, a no ordinary run of the mill American student ? In both cases, I'd cut out Said and all that jazz about Joseph Conrad in his Orientalism , and I'd dispense with Chinua Achebe and Okonkwo altogether, I'd start with some down to earth poetry, request that he read to me and the class, aloud, The Tragedy of White Injustice by Marcus Garvey , that he sing some of Mzwakhe Mbuli, and round him off with some James Baldwin; and I'm sure that he would have become very interested in Black Literature after those three, Garvey, Mbuli, and Baldwin , especially Trump on his way to making America Great Forevermore.
This excerpt from pages 190 -191 of Edward Said's Orientalism sounds like what's happening in Nigeria the African Diaspora right now with the Africanisation of knowledge etc .
"It was certainly true that by the middle of the nineteenth century France ,no less than England and the rest of Europe , had a flourishing knowledge industry of the sort that Flaubert feared, Great numbers of texts were being produced, and more important, the agencies and institutions for their dissemination and propagation were everywhere to be found. As historians of science and knowledge have observed, the organisation of scientific and learned fields that took place in the nineteenth century was both rigorous and all encompassing. Research became a regular activity; there was a regulated exchange of information, and agreement on what the problems were as well as consensus on the appropriate paradigms for research and its results." and then it gets even more interesting further down the page fast forward to 2053 and we would be reading about people at post -Cornel West's Harvard clutching their laptops and demonstrating " Africa for African scholars y'all…
"
On Tuesday, 26 September 2023 at 07:05:04 UTC+2 Harrow, Kenneth wrote:
Hi cornelius,conrad played an important role in Said's own work. He saw conrad as subverting the rationality of colonial discourse, and did it brilliantly in Heart of Darkness. Said and Achebe debated the question of conrad, conrad's racism. Maybe achebe won that debate in explaining how conrad manifested that racism, but since he wrote around 1900, he had to be placed in the perspective of that period. I thought said's interpretation of Heart of Drkness was stronger than Achebe, and Achebe was stronger in attacking conrad's racism.
But said wanted us to view african literature through the optic of resistance to european thought, i.e., the critique of orientalism.As i taught more and more african literature i came resent the view that held that the only or best way to convey to students how to undo western conventional/racist/colonialist views of africa was to begin with tarzan (or heart of darkness). Eventually i decided that instead of losing a week ormore to such an approach, i'd devote it to african texts which implicitly or explicitly laid before the students the real values of african culture and peoples, and they would come to be able to forge arguments that could counter the dumb tv images they had been fed on.
Achebe's Things Fall Apart, or Arrow of God, presented igbo (Ibo, he'd say), unapologetically accomplished this,, and many other works of the 50s, like L'enfant noir or une vie de boy or le pauvre christ de bomba or birago diop's wonderful contes, or negritude poetry; or soyinka's early plays, etc did the same, without my having to lose a week. And i think it became more convincing to the students, approaching it that way. I.e., i avoided the defensiveness implicit in beginning with graham greene etc. or other colonial authors, and showing their faults. Another example is the film, Sanders of the River!!!!! Paul robeson ultimately had to apologize for having made it.Ken
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From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of cornelius...@gmail.com <cornelius...@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, September 25, 2023 7:18:33 PM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Menace of "Theoretical Framework" Hazing in Anglophone AfricaRe -" when Said, who was the greatest figure of his time, told us, africanists, to begin with Conrad, that was horrible," ( according to one Kenneth Harrow who would have much preferred that " us africanits" should have begun with Achebe instead, by which I suppose he means that it's better to begin with the devil that you know, the one you love….black man, critical race theory, standing ovation etc talking shop, where is Wofa Akwasi when I need him? "Restless intelligence" indeed, like Karl Marx…
With Tarzan in the picture (at the cinema) when elephants rumble and tumble in the jungle, we know that it's the grass that suffers and all that; but this juicy bit of literary gossip preceding and following the line that begins " A subliminal awareness that his visions of social transformation might be deceptive may explain Russell's friendship with Conrad" has contributed to my still not being able to figure out why a literary icon of the stature of Joseph Conrad should be singled out or assigned as an unlikely recommendation from Edward Said
Yes, in this forum, Conrad has occasionally been lumped together with the man some people here love to despise and hate, namely V.S.Naipaul: but let us not forget what the not so unaware or unwary Edward Said did singlehandedly did with his Orientalism which since then has impacted mightily on African Studies with new insightful approaches which have been transposed to critical receptions/ studies of African Literature, so called.
Afrocentric :Jimmy Dludlu : Inyoni Iya phapha
On Monday, 25 September 2023 at 04:20:18 UTC+2 Harrow, Kenneth wrote:
moses, thanks so much for engaging me with your points.i generally agree with everything you said. when Said, who was the greatest figure of his time, told us, africanists, to begin with Conrad, that was horrible, but expectable because, like spivak, had not spent any real time in africa, did not know it, and barely knew its literature. they were important for us to move on to what we came to know as postcolonial theory.but when i cited mbembe and gikandi, or i should have added mudimbe—as is the case when i cite you or falola—these are thinkers formed by a ecumenical library of texts. if i were to cite friends in senegal or cameroon whose work had not led them to living abroad, they still would have been drawing upon a library that included european as well as african thinkers.
my experience at the universities in africa was unfortunately often as you painted it: the prestige was applied too often to european thinkers, even to very old-fashioned works as with structuralism. structuralism which should have gone out of fashion 50 years ago.
but if i were to characterize your thinking, or that of the others i cite above, how can we say it is not marked by a plethora of african and western texts. how can we cite, for instance, the incredibly wonderful glissant, without seeing that amalgam; or fanon; or more recently michelle wright or you name them.
can you draw a line between the euro-american and african thought so neatly?
you know my work is primarily focused on african film. it is impossible to cite african filmmakers whose work was not marked by collaboration that ultimately enjoined european or american workers. even the great tunde kelani, with his own studios, began in the old days where brits were involved in the cinema studios inherited from colonial days.the same is largely true of african literature. how much of the early classics were penned by young africans living in europe, from senghor to diop to beti to oyono to ouolaguem to soyinka to kenyatta, etc etc.
now as we look at african authors, like chiminanda adichie, or teju cole, like mati diop and tons of young filmmakers, they are first generation immigrants who went to school abroad and carry their parents' africanness into their european/american framed works.
lastly, how could people like myself, ensconced in 50 years of work with african texts and peoples, not be marked by that experience and see the world differently from those living around us with their notions of africa limited by safaris at best?
we are mentally and culturally mixed, as bhabha really said it best. or, as appiah said, repeatedly, brilliantly.
ken
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, September 24, 2023 9:30 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Menace of "Theoretical Framework" Hazing in Anglophone AfricaKen,
Thanks for your thoughtful contribution. As you guessed, I appreciate Skip Gates' answer of using what strengthens your argument. My only caveat would be that if it comes down to a choice between an African and a Euro-American theory, the African scholar in Africa should gravitate towards the former.
The problem we have in Nigeria (and now I'm hearing Ghana and Kenya) is that our scholars there default to Euro-American theorists. So, in a rather perverse and reversed sense, they're choosing their theorists based on race--on the Whiteness of the thinker/theorist. And that choice is predicated on the age-old phenomenon of colonial mentality: anything produced by the white man is superior, foundational, and universal and would give a credibility and prestige to my work that the formulation of a black or African theorist would not.
This is a xenophilic reversal of the discrimination you speak of, which you, as a Jewish white male scholar may not be familiar with. For me as an African, I think this is a serious problem and needs to be addressed. One way to address it is to encourage African scholars on the continent to seek out theories and philosophical thought formations from Africa and African thinkers where possible and not default to the thinking that the white man owns the world of theory and should supply the theoretical formulation for their work by default.
There's an additional point: there's an experiential component to theorizing, philosophizing, and knowledge production. I am convinced that, just as Euro-American theorists and South Asian ones theorized from their experiences and the social milieus that produced and shaped them, African thinkers and theorists' thoughts and theoretical formulations are inflected by their African socializations and experiences.
It seems logical therefore that African scholars on the continent looking for theoretical instruments to strengthen their arguments on African topics and issues would, in most cases, benefit more from the thoughts and theories of theorists grounded in an African or Africa-centered experience than they would from Euro-American or even South Asian theorists whose thoughts were informed by their own non-African experiences and worlds.
There is yet another point: All theories and knowledges are not equal and do not enter the global epistemic marketplace with equal power. African knowledges and theories being marginalized and devalued relative to those of other regions, it seems to me that African scholars based in Africa should see and execute their work as part of an insurgent epistemological project of disrupting the dominant Euro-American system of knowledge and forcing Western thinkers and scholars to reckon with Africa-centered theories and thoughts. That project can only be carried out by privileging Africa-centered philosophies and theories, not by centering Western theories and ways of knowing and seeing.
On Sun, Sep 24, 2023 at 7:25 PM Harrow, Kenneth <har...@msu.edu> wrote:
Dear friends,I suppose those who share the view that white theorists are to be shunned should shun my contribution. Why not, you can make these discriminations if you want. I agree with moses's 5 points, generally, except not point 5 where he states that it is preferable to find an african theorist when possible. I don't totally agree that there is a meaningful difference between african or non-african, in many if not most cases. We read the same texts, we argue the same theoretical points, regardless whether they are foucault or mbembe, and force a philosophical discussion that is either fruitful or ends.The theorists i have turned to most in recent decades happened to be african—gikandi, mbembe. Prior to that i learned to love the work of an algerian jew named derrida; and indian deconstructionist named spivak, and another indian theorist named bhabha. None of these people picked their "theory" regionally, ie as western or indian or african.
When i hosted my first african literature assn conference at msu around 40 years ago i had as the goal to bring as many strong theorists together as i could. Some came from africa, some from europe or america. Edward Said gave a talk in which he stated african scholars should begin their work using conrad (which he himself did). I was profoundly disappointed that he, the great scholar on orientalism, would want us to speak from the ground of speaking back to, rather than affirming positively. I felt achebe was a much stronger place to begin. Skip gates spoke at that conference, as did appiah, spivak, palmer, and others. Gates spoke to the question of using "white" theorists, or europeans or not, and he answered in a manner that i think moses would appreciate: use whatever strengthens your argument.That has always been the truest answer to the claim that you should choose a theorist based on race.We should not have to use theory in our writings; i agree completely with those who criticize it as a pointless mechanical requirement. But if we can use any writing from any author from anyplace, it would be cutting off our own noses to spite our faces to pick the theorists based on race.
There is one caveat i'd make to this. I agree that any writing about african texts should come from a perspective or location that is centered in african realities, thought, tastes, creative spaces, lived experiences. If these imbue our thought, they are grounded and make sense. But i would not want a judge to decide on the appropriateness of the theorist based on other criteria besides the one major rule: does this thought enrich my argument.Ken
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From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Moses Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, September 24, 2023 4:11:14 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Menace of "Theoretical Framework" Hazing in Anglophone AfricaBiko, I don't think Professor Njoya or any other critic of the "theoretical framework" tyranny in Anglophone African academies will say Africans embracing theory are embracing the traps of disciplined White knowledge bromides.
I think the problem lies in our people mandating and enforcing "theoretical framework" as a basis for validating a work of scholarship and, in the process, creating a situation in which our scholars, in order to fulfill the mandate and mollify gatekeepers and peers alike, are uncritically borrowing largely unrelated, Eurocentric, and even racist theories from Euro-America and, in doing so, neglecting to 1) theorize from their own Africa-inflected work, and/or 2) drawing on a rich wellspring of African theoretical knowledge and thought.
What Njoya and others are saying is that when theory is mandated in such a mechanical, draconian, and unintellectual way, it wittingly or unwittingly validates the offensively racist notion that the West is the site of theory and Africa is a land of raw or empirical data, so for Africa-originated knowledge to enter the global epistemological marketplace, it must be dressed up, however awkwardly, in Western theory.
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On Sep 24, 2023, at 2:56 PM, 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
Theories are systematic ideas about the nature of phenomena and Africana Theories (AT) represent critical ideas about the world of people of African descent with a centered focus on Africana peoples and for their own interests rather than against them, to end oppression and exploitation. This is what Terry Kershaw defined as the Africana Paradigm – critical, centered, scholar-activism. Molefi Asante defines it as Afrocentricity. The field of Africana Studies is vast and theory is only a part of it. But as in every field, theory is the defining subject and theorists tend to be the most influential in every field. If you want to make your name in any discipline, then you must pay attention to theory in order to understand the subject better and to make your own original contribution to knowledge. Because theory is so important in higher education, dead white men tend to monopolize it and they are called the founding fathers of this or that.
Have you ever wondered why theory books are so white in a world where white people are a minority? The answer is that white people had been trying to stop us from learning, they have been stealing our ideas, and they want us to believe that we cannot do theory, we should only be native informants for the benefit of white theorists. We resist that with the knowledge that we invented writing long before there was any European in history and we have our theorists to study. We have also studied white theorists and white students are welcome to study AT for the benefit of all.
Some may say that we may be playing into the traps of white men if we seek to develop interest in theory while our people suffer indignities afflicted by capitalism, sexism and racism. Do you think that theory is a waste of time? Are you excited to learn about the AT you may not have been familiar with before?
Biko
On Sunday, 24 September 2023 at 11:38:31 GMT-4, Toyin Falola <toyin.f...@gmail.com> wrote:
This is not what I was told, unfortunately.
I was told that a thesis must follow a prescribed structure.
I think our colleagues in Africa have to talk so that it does not become the regular trope: diasporan scholars--- which is a way of shutting down a debate.
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Moses Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com>
Date: Sunday, September 24, 2023 at 10:29 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Menace of "Theoretical Framework" Hazing in Anglophone AfricaOga,
They are not entirely powerless. Yes, regulators impose draconian rules and requirements that stifle institutional flexibility and constrain, in some cases, what individual academic advisers and mentors can do, but not all meaningless and intellectually unproductive practices are imposed or required by regulators.
A good example: I know for a fact that the NUC does not require all Masters and PhD theses to have a theoretical framework or whatever name it's called. Yet it is now vigorously enforced by humanities and social science colleagues.
You hardly read a work emanating from Nigeria without it and it is usually jarringly irrelevant to the work and makes an awkward cameo appearance only because it's a tradition to have a "theoretical framework."
One colleague in the natural sciences in Nigeria even told me recently that they have started seeing it in their field, so it has become a fad and a hazing ritual.
Of course, the problem is not theory or theoretical framework, which in some cases are not only useful but imperative. However, it's blanket gatekeeping enforcement and the fact that in 90 percent of cases the theory adopted is ill-fitting, arbitrary, irrelevant, and is not justified or critically engaged. It is rather simply used to spruce up the work and add "glamor" to it, and, of course, to mollify the gatekeepers and peer reviewers within the system.
Sent from my iPhone
On Sep 24, 2023, at 10:07 AM, Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:
Moses:
The US does not have the equivalent of the NUC or the powerful agency in Rwanda that also probits words and language you are not allowed to use, as in referring to a person as Igbo or Hausa. Thus, as you always argue, comparison is a wahala!
Same thing is with the promotion system. The point system is imposed, and those in History cannot change it. An essay is 3 points, and a book is 5 points. If you breakdown a book into 5 essays, you collect 15 points. Thus, why blame someone who refuses to write a book?
Thus, perhaps, the focus is on what to do with the regulation agencies. Our colleagues in Uganda and Nigeria know all these things, but they are so powerless.
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Moses Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com>
Date: Sunday, September 24, 2023 at 9:54 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Menace of "Theoretical Framework" Hazing in Anglophone AfricaTechnical requirements such as formatting are a separate matter, having to do with archiving and dissemination. That happens and should happen everywhere. I have no quarrel with that.
The mechanical, blanket imposition of "theoretical framework" on every academic work as a standard of valuation is my issue and that of a joys and others who have weighed in.
Where you and I teach, those issues are worked out on a case by case and discipline by discipline basis. They're also worked out with flexibility to allow the authorial voice to come through and for the original contribution to be highlighted unencumbered by rigid impositions.
On relevance, I agree with you, but I argue in a piece I'm working on that relevance and theory are actually part of the same crisis of Nigerian social science and humanities scholarship: the struggle for identity under the pressure of instrumentalist expectations from the state, parents, and even students.
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