Beautiful.
Great thanks for all those references.
Soyinka is currently very controversial in that regard.
I recurrently encountered mentions of that Spivak essay but I've not read it. I'll read it.
That's the Derrida essay I referenced. I'll return to it.
I'll start my Bhaba reading with " Unpacking my Library, Again" evoking the beautiful essay with a similar title by Walter Benjamin, which I've read.
I tried to read Mudimbe's The Invention of Africa but it could not hold my interest and so I did not proceed beyond it's entry points. I'll go back to him.
I have Appiahs In My Father's House, which I've not read, and Thinking it Through, the latter of which I've read a little of, a fine introduction to philosophy as "thinking it through".
I enjoyed chapter 1 of Heidegger's Being and Time. I have long thought of returning to him.
Looked into Foucault but it was his essays that captivated me.Will go back.
I love Irele.
I'll keep all these references in mind moving forward as I become more systematic in my reading.
I've had two dreams about Pius Adesanmi since he passed away. I don't know why since I was not close to him and did not follow his work much though some of it inspired me and I wrote two essays on him even as his pro APC politics did not impress me.
The complete scope of his work needs to be mapped and studied, across digital and print verbal text in prose and poetry and in still images and video.
He was a superb public speaker, as evident from his iconic " The Broken Showerhead" video.
His use of still images on social media was magnificent, picturing his life across various contexts, from family man to scholar, the picture of him backing his infant daughter with a sash like a traditional Nigerian woman being one of those particularly compelling ones that comes immediately to mind.
His public activity and writing career spans a range of online and print publications over years, from the online spaces represented by Yahoo listserves which no longer exist and affiliated platforms to the Nigerian Village Square to Paul Tiyambi Zeleza's blog to USAAfrica Dialogues Series Google group to Twitter to his Facebook wall, to the still active Facebook group The African Doctoral Lounge which he founded, to debates on various Facebook walls different from his own to his activity in various offline academic fora, from representing an international body in relation to African scholarship to being a regular speaker and facilitator at the Abiola Irele seminar series at Kwara State University, opportunities, which, along with the explosion in his social media followership, emerged after his win of the Penguin Prize for African Writing, if I recall the prize correctly, an elevation that transformed his visibility as he escalated his Facebook and Twitter activity using his personal brand as a focus in a manner beyond his previous social media and other online activity.
How would he have managed the fall out from his 2015 support for APC?
Would he have sustained that support?
Soyinka is currently very controversial in that regard.
During the Buhari certificate scandal, when the APC Presidential candidate was unable to produce his secondary school leaving certificate even as he was running for office with a professor of law, Osinbajo, Pius dissapeared from his regular Facebook postings that unfailingly attracted a large number of commentators, and reappearred after the scandal had subsided, claiming he had experienced an infection in his fingers that had prevented him from typing, and never made any reference to the controversy to the best of my knowledge, the controversy arising from a situation that I see as fundamentally contravening the values he had described himself as standing for in the journey to a better Nigeria, his response to the controversy representing a compromise he may be described as making in commitment to his previous Facebook post stating that whoever became the APC's candidate would be his candidate, a point at which he may be seen as crossing the line from politically disinterested social critic to political partisanship.
Why did he criss that line and into that party?
How would he have responded to the currently ongoing Tinubu certificate controversy?
His friend and fellow poet, social critic and one time student union activist Ogaga Ifowodu eventually became a member of APC leadership, the last I knew.
Could Pius have gone in the same or a similar direction?
How would such allegiances have affected the teeming nos who were active on his wall?
Could he have had political ambitions? There was a Facebook group promoting him as a future governor of Kogi State, if I recall the state correctly.
Prominent Nigerian Facebook figure Kennedy Emetulu once ignited a rich debate before the APC crystallized as the 2015 elections approached, about developing a counter to the dominance of the major political parties through an alliance of progressives with Pius as an arrowhead, the kind of role that many later saw Peter Obi as playing in the last elections, well after Pius had passed away, although I don't recall Pius being anything more than simply a participant in that debate rather than a person significantly interested in the suggestion of his role in such a movement.
His life and work require at least a solid essay to adequately address and perhaps even a book, along with an interactive site mapping his Facebook, Twitter and other online and offline engagements.
Thanks
Toyin
On Fri, Sep 29, 2023, 7:44 PM Harrow, Kenneth <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:
--Hi toyin, spivak's "Can the Subaltern Speak?" has been cited more than almost any other essay that i can think of.The Comaroff's "Millenium CApitalism" came out with Public Culture before it was republished as an opening chapter in his book.Cheah's "What Is a World" i think also had an essay with similar title.Derrida it's everything. "Structure, Sign, and Play" was his lecture that came out as a chapter in Writing, Sign and Difference.
I have always found him difficult to read, and he is my favorite theorist/philosopher. He pushes my thinking, although the truth is heidegger and all the others who became deconstructionists and poststructuralists also impressed me, people like bhabha and spivak. We needed their thinking and writing, influenced by foucault, to get us to mudimbe, and from him to mbembe.
Consider for a moment: mudimbe fled from mobuto's congo, came to american, eventually duke, and greatly influenced our field, while building a solid base for african-black studies with gates and appiah. Consider mbembe leaving cameroon for south africa, where he's had a monumental impact. Consider simon gikande fleeing kenya, to come to the states, eventually in that stronghold of black studies with toni morrison, princeton.
Not all the greats came and stayed. Soyinka came, but returned. Pius adesanmi wound up in canada; of course toyin f is in texas; irele came to ohio state; biodun jeyifo was also part of the cornell mafia, and then jumped ship to harvard.
I could go on, but you get my point. For african studies to be afro-centered, we have to address the realities of what drove the greatest scholars (forgive me if i left out many others) to go abroad, to form families abroad, etc. in the end, if you wanted to be a scholar of these great thinkers, you often attended conferences or lectures at centers focused on african studies, like wisconsin, cornell, ohio state, michigan, etc. less so at the ivy league schools; less so abroad. We of the ALA tried to get the assn to hold its annual conferences in africa, and that was a real battle. The ASA has not done so, though its ties with african institutes are deep.
These are issues to center/recenter african studies in africa, that require us to foster conditions where scholars are not afraid to speak out against the ruling parties, for fear of winding up inprison like ngugi or soyinka; and where african institutes see reason to invest in our field significant, and not regard it as peripheral to stem or development studies.Ken
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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovdepoju@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, September 29, 2023 1:41:38 PM
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Announcing the Publication of Dis Life No BalanceGreat thanks Ken.--
In referencing Nigeria, I was using the trajectory of the Nigerian immigrant academics who authored and wrote the foreword for the book I was responding to as an entry into the larger subject of Africa/West/global publishing, not to assume Nigeria can stand for Africa, although I suspect the issues in question resonate across Africa on account of shared economic indices amongst African countries.
I am interested in plurality of centres of African Studies, with Africa being one such centre.
Is that not a more realistic goal?
The earlier emergence of such a centre in Africa was before the unraveling of the structures created by colonialism, a process that will continue until African countries generate an adequate sense of commitment to the artificially constructed nations they live in and are able to achieve healthy co-dependence with the rest of the world, developments that look to me to be well in the future.
So, creating the conditions for generating Africa into such a centre would need significant time to grow, growth represented partly by the kinds of suggestions you are making.
You have a point about e books as a saving grace and steps about taking advantage of that.
Thanks for confirming my thinking on the question of publishing prestige, although I wonder if academic book publishing in Africa is conceived in terms of the mandatoriness you describe of the US and Europe.
Such a requirement implies a thriving academic book industry, which itself implies a thriving book industry generally and which in turn implies a level of industrialisation and literacy, conditions which African countries generally might not meet although e books would help to bypass the industrialisation challenge.
I think I can handle this, but it's just a thought for now-
" such presses might be doubled with western presses, so that what's published in new york is also published in accra or dakar or nairobi (ok, or lagos). That would be possible if the financial questions are addressed."
Could you let me know the titles of the essays by Spivak and the Comaroffs which you referenced?
Could you recommend any essays by Derrida and by Cheah that particularly strike you?
I read one intriguing and puzzling essay by Derrida some time ago, it read like a cross between theology/ metaphysics and history of philosophy.
I was not sure of what to make of it, that being perhaps a mark of original thinkers, creating texts that stretch readers even as the thinkers are being stretched by the efforts they are making.
Thanks
Toyin
On Fri, Sep 29, 2023, 6:07 PM Harrow, Kenneth <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:
--Hi toyin, you are addressing an issue that is at the heart of afro-centrism, that is, how do we move the core of african studies to africa, that is, to locations that are available throughout africa.
You mention nigeria a lot; nigeria is not all of africa. And anglophone africa is not all of africa.Even more, the question of books as physical objects poses enormous questions of cost. Not just shipping, but especially publication, that runs into thousands of dollars per book. The only way publishers here recover those costs is by selling hardcover copies to libraries, at a cost of $170 or so, beyond what most people would be willing to spend. After a year or 18 months, as with my book on Space andTime, it will come out in paper.
Meanwhile it is available in electronic form for about $45 or so. That is roughly the cost of a paper version. We should probably envision the future as being dominated by e-books, work to get access to those books throughout africa. That would solve enormous problems of "leaky" libraries, and the limitations of access to library copies. We should ask publishers for dispensations that permit cheaper ebook sales in africa. We should try to press to make that a common expectation of all publishers, including african publishers.
You address, additionally, the question of audience and prestige. To get tenure at most american, and i would guess african and european universities, you have to produce a book in the first 6 years after being hired. And a revised dissertation may be common, but not necessarily ideal. University presses are generally the most prestigious, as opposed to self-publishing venues which give you no credit toward tenure. Promotion is the same. Another book or two is expected, from a solid press with a good reputation. In our field there are half a dozen such presses, and i've worked to give us such a valuble series as well at msu press.
I'm retired. I chose routledge for my last two books since the effort of getting them accepted there—especially the Space and Time book—was easier, but frankly i resented one press's dismissal of my project. A lot of hidden ego goes into this process. You mention someone very very close to my heart, pius adesanmi. His presence on the internet was amazing, and he and a few others i know merit enormous credit for using the internet to our scholarly and public advantage.(thinking of bhakti shringapure here).
You gesture toward essays, and sometime journal publications matter a lot. A key essay by gayatri spivak transformed and transfixed the field of feminism studies. Some journals published essays that were very widely cited--the comaroffs on millenial capitalism is another. Many brilliant theorists are important for their essays, like cheah or derrida.
Lastly, i know things are changing; have changed in the last 5-10 years, where publications are less the gold-star requirement than they used to be; where attacks on theory have altered the fields; where shifts in interest toward material studies have supplanted older theory driven studies. That's for the good; we can't remain stagnant.
How to move the prestige of publication to african presses? It wouldn't hurt to have important africanist writers like toyin falola and moses uchano have their work come out in african presses; additionally, such presses might be doubled with western presses, so that what's published in new york is also published in accra or dakar or nairobi (ok, or lagos). That would be possible if the financial questions are addressed. The university presses struggle to get enough money to continue; they aren't wealthy. And commercial presses couldn't care a damn about our scholarship.Ken
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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovdepoju@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, September 29, 2023 2:14:31 AM
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Announcing the Publication of Dis Life No BalanceCorrection
"How much would the answers change if the publishers of all these books are also based in Nigeria and perhaps DISTRIBUTE beyond Nigeria?"
Indian publishers, such scholarly book publisher Motilal Barnasidas distribute beyond India and into the West.
--On Fri, Sep 29, 2023, 7:02 AM Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovdepoju@gmail.com> wrote:
Edited
Magnificent.
Publishing strategy is also striking in demonstrating Nigerian immigrant scholars in the Western academy publishing in Nigeria and working with a Nigeria based bookseller to distribute widely in Nigeria as well as making the book available to the international market through Amazon.
Both book title and choice of publisher are instructively similar to those of Pius Adesanmi's Naija No Dey Carry Last, a particularly successful North American academic whose greatest visibility might have been through his online activity and who also published a pidgin English titled book in Nigeria, I think, which perhaps collected some of his online essays.
The choice of a publisher in Nigeria as well as using a Nigerian bookseller as a primary sales and distribution center in Nigeria has enabled the selling price in Nigeria to be lower than the international, Amazon price, along with using flexible payment options represented by various installmental payment plans, an ingenious approach in itself, within a canny distribution strategy.
Ken's observation comparing his own latest book with this one is striking, inspiring reflection.
Responding to Ken's observation, one must note, however, the broader spectrum of issues involved in relation to book publication, particularly by academics, scholars working in higher education, such as Moses and Farooq and ex-academics, such as Ken, particularly in Western academia.
What factors influence how people in such demographics publish their work?
If this new book were to be what is conventionally understood as a scholarly text instead of a more general interest set of reflections which I understand it to be would the authors be likely to publish with the publisher they used?
A trade publisher and one in Lagos?
There are so many issues involved.
Are Plato's books not closer to the idea of general reflections in terms of which I described Moses et al's new book and with the book's inclusion of what seems to a dialogical essay, the dialogical essay being an exploratory form which seems never to have been a favoured approach In Western academia, an attitude diffused through it's global dominance, even though its a form represented by Plato, regarded as the greatest Western philosopher and played a central role in such a long standing tradition as Hindu scholarship?
In relation to publishing locations, it would be great to find a way in which academics in the West can publish with those Western publishers they conventionally publish with, such pro-academic publishers as university presses, eg Cambridge, Harvard, Oxford etc and others such as Routledge and Bloomsbury Academic, if I recall the name correctly, all these being publishers whose print prices are often not cheap, even in terms of Western currencies, and whose Africa penetration is often weak, as well as publish with other kinds of publishers in other places
I understand, and wish to be educated if the facts are different, that academics in Western institutions need to publish with publishers with a strong record of scholarly publishing if their work is to carry adequate weight in their institutional contexts and the most recognized of such publishers by the Western academy are in the West.
These are different from trade publishers although Bloomsbury, famous for publishing J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, make themselves an exception through their scholarly arm, Bloomsbury Academic, while Penguin seems to have informally achieved a degree of crossover status, as with Robert McFarlane's Mountains of the Mind, combing narrative and history with scholarship in a manner engaging for the general reader, McFarlane being an academic whose publishing choices as a Cambridge Uni Reader in English whose choices of publishers may be seen as unconventional in Western academia, publishing almost solely with trade publishers, specifically Penguin, choices that look logical in relation to his style of writing and it's consequent audience penetration.
My earlier considerations about the privileging of Western scholarly/academic publishers in the Western academy may have influenced the fact that all Moses' sole authored books I can find on Amazon, except one, and his edited book on African entrepreneurship, conventional scholarly texts, are published by Indiana University Press, one of the strongest in African Studies, even though they have many other interests.
His other sole authored book, a collection of essays, is published by Kwasi Konadu's Diasporic Africa Press, another scholarly publisher, with a rising profile.
I get the impression, though, that Moses' scholarly credentials are likely defined by the books published by Indiana on account of being books developing a sustained argument across the expansive range of a text of a particular length, as well as by his publications in scholarly journals.
I get the impression that sole authored books of such scope are understood in the Western academy as vital in demonstrating a scholar's capacity.
I understand essay collections are also valued but not as much as books, except in rare cases, as with that of Abiola Irele, who made his name through essays and one book well before his entry into the Western academy, and in even rarer cases, scholars who do not even collect their essays into books but are recognized as strategic figures in their fields, such as Oxford Hinduism prof emeritus Alexis Sanderson, who wrote no book nor even put his essays together into a book, as far as I know, but the exceptional character of those essays in terms of their combination of penetrating analysis and encyclopedic range within a painstaking grounding in the native language of the subject, Sanskrit, being evident even to a person with a basic acquaintance with the field.
It just occured to me that I could approach Sanderson to organize his essays into a book, and sell through print on demand on Amazon, and after making enough profit, plough some of it into print publishing.
It would be interesting to compare the publishing careers of Farooq, Adesanmi and Moses as Diaspora Nigerian scholars in the Western academy who are also keenly engaged with Nigeria and Africa, particularly through social media, and that of Toyin Falola, a scholar in the same demographic, whose social media activity is different and possibly with those of such Diaspora and/or ex Diaspora scholars who are not Nigerian, and with diaspora African academics who are not based in the West.
What is the significance of the publishing histories of these scholars in terms of institutionally shaped and individually driven publishing decisions at various stages of an academic's career, in relation to the scholar's social origins- diaspora or native- and institutional placement?
Such a mapping feeds into the question of expectations for audience interest and of how to address audiences in the writing process and in publishing
Which audiences are likely to be reached by Moses and Farooq's conventional scholarly texts as different from those more likely to be reached by this new books of theirs and their social media activity which this book is likely to be closer to?
Who are those likely to be reached by Falola's book on Farooq, a scholar who is perhaps most visible as a public intellectual in his online activity even as he functions effectively as a US academy scholar?
How do choice of publishers shape these issues?
How much would the answers change if the publishers of all these books are also based in Nigeria and perhaps distributed beyond Nigeria?
Falola has published one or perhaps both of his autobiographies with Bookcraft in Nigeria. What are the implications of that in comparison with almost all his other books being published in the West and his relatively recent distribution of his publishing choices among some of the more prestigious Western publishers, such as Cambridge, Bloomsbury Academic and perhaps Routledge, if I recall correctly?
On another note, I suspect that a strategic frontier for the scholarly text market is social media, particularly in countries like Nigeria, where smartphone penetration is high and social media is vibrant within a weak library and bookshop culture.
Thanks
ToyinShow quoted text
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovdepoju@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Sep 29, 2023, 6:32 AM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Announcing the Publication of Dis Life No Balance
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Magnificent.
Publishing strategy is also striking in demonstrating Nigerian immigrant scholars in the Western academy publishing in Nigeria and working with a Nigeria based bookseller to distribute widely in Nigeria at well as making the book available to the international market through Amazon.
Both book title and choice of publisher are instructively similar to those of Pius Adesanmi's Naija No Dey Carry Last, a particularly successful North American academic whose greatest visibility might have been through his online activity and who also published a pidgin English titled book in Nigeria, I think, which perhaps collected some of his online essays.
The choice of a publisher in Nigeria as well as using a Nigerian bookseller as a primary selling point in Nigeria has enabled the seeling in price in Nigeria to be lower, along with using flexible payment options represented by various installmental payment plans, an ingenious approach initself, within a canny distribution strategy.
Ken's observation comparing his own latest book with this one is striking inspiring reflection.
Responding to Ken's observation, one must note, however, the broader spectrum of issues involved in relation to book publication, particularly by academics, scholars working in higher education, such as Moses and Farooq and ex-academics, such as Ken, particularly in Western academia.
What factors influence how people in such demographics publish their work?
If this book were to be what is conventionally understood as a scholarly text instead of a more general interest set of reflections would the authors be likely to publish with the publisher they used?
A trade publisher and one in Lagos?
There are so many issues involved.
It would be great to find a way in which academics in the West can publish with those Western publishers they conventionally publish with, such pro-academic publishers as university presses, eg Cambridge, Harvard, Oxford etc and others such as Routledge and Bloomsbury Academic, if I recall the name correctly, all these being publishers whose print prices are often not cheap, even in terms of Western currencies, and whose Africa penetration is often weak, as well as publish with other kinds of publishers in other places
I understand, and wish to be educated if the facts are different, that academics in Western institutions need to publish with publishers with a strong record of scholarly publishing if their work is carry weight in their institutional contexts and the most recognized of such publishers by the Western academy are in the West.
These are different from trade publishers although Bloomsbury, famous for publishing J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, make themselves an exception through their scholarly arm, Bloomsbury Academic.
These considerations may have influenced the fact that all Moses' sole authored books I can find on Amazon, except one, and his edited book on African entrepreneurship, conventional scholarly texts, are published by Indiana University Press, one of the strongest in African Studies, even though they have many other interests.
His other sole authored book, a collection of essays, is published by Kwasi Konadu's Diasporic Africa Press, another scholarly publisher, with a rising profile.
I get the impression, though, that Moses' scholarly credentials are likely defined by the books published by Indiana on account of being books developing a sustained argument across the expansive range of a text of a particular length, as well as by his publications in scholarly journals.
I get the impression that sole authored books of such scope are understood in the Western academy as vital in demonstrating a scholar's capacity.
I understand essay collections are also valued but not as much as books, except in rare cases, as with those of Abiola Irele, who made his name through essays and one book well before his entry into the Western academy, and in even rarer cases, scholars who do not even collect their essays into books but are recognized as strategic figures in their fields, such as Oxford Hinduism prof emeritus Alexis Sanderson, who wrote no book nor even put his essays together into a book, as far as I know, but the exceptional character of those essays being evident even to a person with a basic acquaintance in the field.
It just occured to me that I could approach Sanderson to organize his essays into a book, and sell through print on demand on Amazon, and after making enough profit, plough some of it into print publishing.
It would be interesting to and compare the publishing careers of Farooq, Pius Adesanmi and Moses Ochonu as Diaspora Nigerian scholars in the Western academy who are also keenly engaged with Nigeria and Africa, particularly through social media, and that of Toyin Falola, a scholar in the same demographic, whose social media activity is different and possibly with those of such Diaspora and/or ex Diaspora scholars who are not Nigerian, and with diaspora African academics who are not based in the West.
What is the significance of the publishing histories of these scholars in terms of institutionally shaped and individually driven publishing decisions at various stages of an academic's career, in relation to the scholar's social origins- diaspora or native- and institutional placement?
Such a mapping feeds into the question of expectations for audience interest and of how to address audiences in the writing process and in publishing
Which audiences are likely to be reached by Moses and Farooq's conventional scholarly texts as different from those more likely to be reached by this new books of theirs and their social media activity which this book is likely to be closer to?
Who are those likely to be reached by Falola's book on Farooq, a scholar who is perhaps most visible as a public intellectual in his online activity even as he functions effectively as a US academy scholar?
How do choice of publishers shape these issues?
How much would the answers change if the publishers of all these books are also based in Nigeria and perhaps distribute beyond Nigeria?
Falola has published one or perhaps both of his autobiographies with Bookcraft in Nigeria. What are the implications of that in comparison with almost all his other books, published in the West and his relatively recent distribution of his publishing choices among some of the more prestigous Western publishers, such as Cambridge, Bloomsbury Academic and perhaps Routledge, if I recall correctly?
On another note, I suspect that a strategic frontier for the scholarly text market is social media, particularly in countries like Nigeria, where smartphone penetration is high and social media is vibrant within a weak library and bookshop culture.
Thanks
Toyin
On Fri, Sep 29, 2023, 12:23 AM Harrow, Kenneth <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:
--What a wonderful accomplishment!! I congratulate you also on your platform of distribution which is so important. I felt helpless before my publisher when informed how my books were to be priced and distributed. Let your new volume be a model for us all to try to emulate. The essays and topics look compelling and highly significant. Mabruk! Congrats guys, great work.Ken
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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2023 3:53:16 PM
To: USAAfricaDialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Announcing the Publication of Dis Life No Balance--
I am thrilled to announce the publication of our new book of essays titled Dis Life No Balance: An Anthology of Nigerian Diaspora Voices. My coauthors are Professor Farooq Kperogi and Dr. Osmund Agbo.
Published by Parresia, Dis Life No Balance contains 36 essays as well as three extensive, back-and-forth conversations by the authors on important existential questions confronting Nigeria, and is introduced by a foreword by Professor Toyin Falola, eminent historian and globally renowned man of letters.
The book, which will be officially released on October 1st, 2023, can be purchased at the Roving Heights bookstore in Lagos and Abuja or from https://rhbooks.com.ng/, the bookstore's website. They deliver nationwide and they have arranged to make the book available in many cities across Nigeria through their network of partner bookstores.
Dis Life No Balance is also available on amazon.com as a downloadable e-copy and as a print-on-demand book. Ahead of its official release, you can preorder the book at 20 percent discount from Roving Heights bookstore.
In the essays, we tackle a variety of Nigerian socioeconomic, political, cultural, and human-interest topics, bringing our unique perspectives as diaspora Nigerians and as professionals in our respective fields to bear on a wide range of Nigerian, African, and global issues.
Nigeria takes center stage in the reflections, analyses, and discussions contained in the book. The essays constitute our intervention on issues affecting Nigeria and connecting her to a fast-changing world of competition and opportunities. The essays are also our way of thinking of home from abroad, and of expressing both the anxieties of exile and the discursive freedoms that distance from home confers.
Some topics covered in the essays are:
Restructuring
Japa
Electoral Reform
Ethnicity
Corruption
Patriotism
Nigerian Onomastics
Federal character
ASUU and University Education
Here are some advance reviews of the book:
OKEY NDIBE: In their thematic breadth, analytic rigor, sweeping command of facts Nigeriana and global, and stylistic vitality and wit, Farooq Kperogi, Moses Ochonu and Osmund Agbo stand out as three of Nigeria's most compelling, fearless and principled commentators and pundits. In Dis Life No Balance, the trio have pooled their respective gifts into a rich, riveting smorgasbord. Here's a harvest of illuminating insights, provocative reflections and alluringly irreverent takes on some of the major social, cultural and political debates in Nigeria, Africa and the world. I emerged from the book giddy and transformed. Do yourself a favor – read it!
KINGSLEY MOGHALU: A riveting book that illuminates Nigeria's contemporary politics, society and history. The authors, professionally accomplished Nigerians in the Diaspora, write from the combined perspective of looking in from the outside and looking out from the inside as homegrown Nigerians. Dis Life No Balance is a rare gift, a must-read for anyone who wants to understand contemporary Nigeria and trends in the wider world that hold lessons for the largest country of the black race.
KADARIA AHMED: Dis Life No Balance is a provocative and sometimes uncomfortable read by the trio of Kperogi, Ochonu and Agbo who examined the complications that bedevil Nigeria today with a brutal honesty that is often only made possible by distance and even absence. This book is a must read for those who seek authentic informed commentary on the many dysfunctions of Nigeria but who also want to understand the deep pull the country has on her people and why even those who have left continue to engage with, fight for and live in hope for her future.
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On Fri, Sep 29, 2023, 6:32 AM Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovdepoju@gmail.com> wrote:
Magnificent.
Publishing strategy is also striking in demonstrating Nigerian immigrant scholars in the Western academy publishing in Nigeria and working with a Nigeria based bookseller to distribute widely in Nigeria at well as making the book available to the international market through Amazon.
Both book title and choice of publisher are instructively similar to those of Pius Adesanmi's Naija No Dey Carry Last, a particularly successful North American academic whose greatest visibility might have been through his online activity and who also published a pidgin English titled book in Nigeria, I think, which perhaps collected some of his online essays.
The choice of a publisher in Nigeria as well as using a Nigerian bookseller as a primary selling point in Nigeria has enabled the seeling in price in Nigeria to be lower, along with using flexible payment options represented by various installmental payment plans, an ingenious approach initself, within a canny distribution strategy.
Ken's observation comparing his own latest book with this one is striking inspiring reflection.
Responding to Ken's observation, one must note, however, the broader spectrum of issues involved in relation to book publication, particularly by academics, scholars working in higher education, such as Moses and Farooq and ex-academics, such as Ken, particularly in Western academia.
What factors influence how people in such demographics publish their work?
If this book were to be what is conventionally understood as a scholarly text instead of a more general interest set of reflections would the authors be likely to publish with the publisher they used?
A trade publisher and one in Lagos?
There are so many issues involved.
It would be great to find a way in which academics in the West can publish with those Western publishers they conventionally publish with, such pro-academic publishers as university presses, eg Cambridge, Harvard, Oxford etc and others such as Routledge and Bloomsbury Academic, if I recall the name correctly, all these being publishers whose print prices are often not cheap, even in terms of Western currencies, and whose Africa penetration is often weak, as well as publish with other kinds of publishers in other places
I understand, and wish to be educated if the facts are different, that academics in Western institutions need to publish with publishers with a strong record of scholarly publishing if their work is carry weight in their institutional contexts and the most recognized of such publishers by the Western academy are in the West.
These are different from trade publishers although Bloomsbury, famous for publishing J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, make themselves an exception through their scholarly arm, Bloomsbury Academic.
These considerations may have influenced the fact that all Moses' sole authored books I can find on Amazon, except one, and his edited book on African entrepreneurship, conventional scholarly texts, are published by Indiana University Press, one of the strongest in African Studies, even though they have many other interests.
His other sole authored book, a collection of essays, is published by Kwasi Konadu's Diasporic Africa Press, another scholarly publisher, with a rising profile.
I get the impression, though, that Moses' scholarly credentials are likely defined by the books published by Indiana on account of being books developing a sustained argument across the expansive range of a text of a particular length, as well as by his publications in scholarly journals.
I get the impression that sole authored books of such scope are understood in the Western academy as vital in demonstrating a scholar's capacity.
I understand essay collections are also valued but not as much as books, except in rare cases, as with those of Abiola Irele, who made his name through essays and one book well before his entry into the Western academy, and in even rarer cases, scholars who do not even collect their essays into books but are recognized as strategic figures in their fields, such as Oxford Hinduism prof emeritus Alexis Sanderson, who wrote no book nor even put his essays together into a book, as far as I know, but the exceptional character of those essays being evident even to a person with a basic acquaintance in the field.
It just occured to me that I could approach Sanderson to organize his essays into a book, and sell through print on demand on Amazon, and after making enough profit, plough some of it into print publishing.
It would be interesting to and compare the publishing careers of Farooq, Pius Adesanmi and Moses Ochonu as Diaspora Nigerian scholars in the Western academy who are also keenly engaged with Nigeria and Africa, particularly through social media, and that of Toyin Falola, a scholar in the same demographic, whose social media activity is different and possibly with those of such Diaspora and/or ex Diaspora scholars who are not Nigerian, and with diaspora African academics who are not based in the West.
What is the significance of the publishing histories of these scholars in terms of institutionally shaped and individually driven publishing decisions at various stages of an academic's career, in relation to the scholar's social origins- diaspora or native- and institutional placement?
Such a mapping feeds into the question of expectations for audience interest and of how to address audiences in the writing process and in publishing
Which audiences are likely to be reached by Moses and Farooq's conventional scholarly texts as different from those more likely to be reached by this new books of theirs and their social media activity which this book is likely to be closer to?
Who are those likely to be reached by Falola's book on Farooq, a scholar who is perhaps most visible as a public intellectual in his online activity even as he functions effectively as a US academy scholar?
How do choice of publishers shape these issues?
How much would the answers change if the publishers of all these books are also based in Nigeria and perhaps distribute beyond Nigeria?
Falola has published one or perhaps both of his autobiographies with Bookcraft in Nigeria. What are the implications of that in comparison with almost all his other books, published in the West and his relatively recent distribution of his publishing choices among some of the more prestigous Western publishers, such as Cambridge, Bloomsbury Academic and perhaps Routledge, if I recall correctly?
On another note, I suspect that a strategic frontier for the scholarly text market is social media, particularly in countries like Nigeria, where smartphone penetration is high and social media is vibrant within a weak library and bookshop culture.
Thanks
Toyin
On Fri, Sep 29, 2023, 12:23 AM Harrow, Kenneth <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:
--What a wonderful accomplishment!! I congratulate you also on your platform of distribution which is so important. I felt helpless before my publisher when informed how my books were to be priced and distributed. Let your new volume be a model for us all to try to emulate. The essays and topics look compelling and highly significant. Mabruk! Congrats guys, great work.Ken
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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2023 3:53:16 PM
To: USAAfricaDialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Announcing the Publication of Dis Life No Balance--
I am thrilled to announce the publication of our new book of essays titled Dis Life No Balance: An Anthology of Nigerian Diaspora Voices. My coauthors are Professor Farooq Kperogi and Dr. Osmund Agbo.
Published by Parresia, Dis Life No Balance contains 36 essays as well as three extensive, back-and-forth conversations by the authors on important existential questions confronting Nigeria, and is introduced by a foreword by Professor Toyin Falola, eminent historian and globally renowned man of letters.
The book, which will be officially released on October 1st, 2023, can be purchased at the Roving Heights bookstore in Lagos and Abuja or from https://rhbooks.com.ng/, the bookstore's website. They deliver nationwide and they have arranged to make the book available in many cities across Nigeria through their network of partner bookstores.
Dis Life No Balance is also available on amazon.com as a downloadable e-copy and as a print-on-demand book. Ahead of its official release, you can preorder the book at 20 percent discount from Roving Heights bookstore.
In the essays, we tackle a variety of Nigerian socioeconomic, political, cultural, and human-interest topics, bringing our unique perspectives as diaspora Nigerians and as professionals in our respective fields to bear on a wide range of Nigerian, African, and global issues.
Nigeria takes center stage in the reflections, analyses, and discussions contained in the book. The essays constitute our intervention on issues affecting Nigeria and connecting her to a fast-changing world of competition and opportunities. The essays are also our way of thinking of home from abroad, and of expressing both the anxieties of exile and the discursive freedoms that distance from home confers.
Some topics covered in the essays are:
Restructuring
Japa
Electoral Reform
Ethnicity
Corruption
Patriotism
Nigerian Onomastics
Federal character
ASUU and University Education
Here are some advance reviews of the book:
OKEY NDIBE: In their thematic breadth, analytic rigor, sweeping command of facts Nigeriana and global, and stylistic vitality and wit, Farooq Kperogi, Moses Ochonu and Osmund Agbo stand out as three of Nigeria's most compelling, fearless and principled commentators and pundits. In Dis Life No Balance, the trio have pooled their respective gifts into a rich, riveting smorgasbord. Here's a harvest of illuminating insights, provocative reflections and alluringly irreverent takes on some of the major social, cultural and political debates in Nigeria, Africa and the world. I emerged from the book giddy and transformed. Do yourself a favor – read it!
KINGSLEY MOGHALU: A riveting book that illuminates Nigeria's contemporary politics, society and history. The authors, professionally accomplished Nigerians in the Diaspora, write from the combined perspective of looking in from the outside and looking out from the inside as homegrown Nigerians. Dis Life No Balance is a rare gift, a must-read for anyone who wants to understand contemporary Nigeria and trends in the wider world that hold lessons for the largest country of the black race.
KADARIA AHMED: Dis Life No Balance is a provocative and sometimes uncomfortable read by the trio of Kperogi, Ochonu and Agbo who examined the complications that bedevil Nigeria today with a brutal honesty that is often only made possible by distance and even absence. This book is a must read for those who seek authentic informed commentary on the many dysfunctions of Nigeria but who also want to understand the deep pull the country has on her people and why even those who have left continue to engage with, fight for and live in hope for her future.
![71grSsIhu9L._AC_UY436_QL65_.jpg]()
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