Kenneth,
In my new status as a disabled person and therefore in the beginning throes of total dedication to a career as an unpaid writer, I have begun a close study of writing. Specifically creative non-fiction. I have solicited help from various academic sources in order to slowly build a small library of texts to help in my endeavour. Nothing to write home about: thesaurus, oxford dictionary, as well as "Elements of Style" and I have been given (thank God because there was no way I could purchase the books or even endure the pain necessitated by sitting in the library) a few books on play and screen writing. The other activity in which I've been involved is a close reading of biographies of non-fiction writers. I've begun with David Leeming's "James Baldwin."
Rigorous honesty is an absolute necessity to becoming a writer who possesses a modicum of skill. Great skill is diminished in an writing world which requires ridiculous changes to words such as "mankind" to "humankind" and on and on ad nauseum until the message is overburdened with attempts to make everyone feel good.
An English degree teaches the parameters of the playground but it cannot teach the child to play. I've had discussions with people who imagine themselves writers and even editors and have been held back from telling the person "sir, you're no writer." In actuality these people are the reason why the term, "critic" was invented. They have no idea that writing is the first step towards emote or "to feel." If you're concerned with what a gerund is or is not in favor of engaging a reader into a poem, song, or story? My good man and woman, you're no writer. You're a scribbler at best.
I have had opportunity to read many literary journals and most are disgustingly fraught with attention to social issues, are clearly tools (really weapons) for petty managing editors and some mainly function (in my opinion) as a means for shy boys and girls to finally get laid. I've seen too often and it is a particular source of sadness for me that Black editors, African and African American, are still RUSHING out to print the works of less than mediocre White authors in order to continue financial commitments from private and public entities as well as their university "places." What good are these specific types? They are no different from the catalogs little girls sell sponsorship adds in order to make the most money and win the beauty contest.
Seeing down this rabbit hole and knowing the truth after tasting (and regurgitating) the blue pill more than likely is an element of discontent with these English degrees. After all, writer's write and there is no degree which can teach one to do so. It's sad that the places which grant these degrees beat us all into awakening and therefore caused the reason for their decline.
La Vonda R. Staples
St. Louis MO
On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 11:12 AM, kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:
i liked this line of yours, shina, a lot:--
"But then, witness the gradual unfolding of their interest as the challenge of thinking and reflection begins"
thanks for that. in truth, that's really why we want to teach.
ken
On 6/26/13 1:59 AM, shina73_1999@yahoo.com wrote:
I'm with you on this. The experience of University education, especially in Nigeria, is pathetic. Even those in the sciences and technology are terribly pathetic. The humanities just barely manage in cowed silence. We seem to humbly bury our heads in the cloud or sand.
One of the joys of teaching comes when I enter my PHI 101 class where I take on the young minds of young chaps who have been sired on the Internet and the exigency of 'future prospect' as the sole factor in choosing a discipline. Their first day in class is a burden of resignation and depression. Philosophy? Yikes! (Classics and Religious Studies are even lower down the reject ladder).
But then, witness the gradual unfolding of their interest as the challenge of thinking and reflection begins. These are the moments of pedagogical exhilaration. These moments ought to be ubiquitous and constant all around. It isn't so at all. We all seem to teach within a depressing context of irrelevance.
Peter Ekeh notes in his classic "Colonialism and the Two Publics in Africa" that the absence of morality in africa politics explains the zero-sum nature of that politics.
Education, especially in the humanities, speaks volume to the contours of existence. I wonder why we have refused to explore its depth.
Adeshina Afolayan
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN
From: kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu>Date: Tue, 25 Jun 2013 20:26:12 -0700ReplyTo: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.comSubject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - FWD: The decline and fall of the English Major ( New York Times, Sunday Review – Opinion pages)i read a few years ago that senegalese women who had achieved a certain level of education (not much, say, but a few years maybe, and the ability to read and write) were able to raise healthier children than those who had no education.
it set me to thinking: all my life i've heard that the priority for education/development for africa is technical: health, sciences, practical sciences, etc
i began to wonder whether the most meaningful basis for a society to advance, in whatever sense that might mean, is grounded in a humanities education.
that there is a priority in our human qualities that begins with reading/thinking/analyzing/and expressing the analysis in words.
ken
On 6/25/13 1:16 PM, Cornelius Hamelberg wrote:
There are those who have thought that the pre-eminence of English Studies in third world and other Commonwealth countries is not a waste of time, that in fact English is still the real cream (icing on the cake) of what may be a true colonial education and that may be true when we look at the quality of Indian newspaper journalism today. In Africa, even at this late date, it's not everybody that's a Pius Adesanmi or consistently shows that kind of ire or fire – and in his case, the honourable Yoruba man is a product of studies in French Literature - indeed in as much as our Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka – another honourable Yoruba man - is partially a product of the University of Leeds.
What you say?
Me a tribalist?
So be it.
I suppose that gross inadequacies and grammatical lapses grate on the nerves of language purists like Media Professor, language buff Farooq Kperogi who would like to keep Nigerian journalists and men of letters who wield Her Majesty's English, on their toes or at least aware of their occasional lapses from blue blooded British English into benign Nigerian localisms.
My question is a very sensitive one: What is the future of English studies in post-colonial Africa?
We could read the following before suggesting a perfect answer to the question:
The decline and fall of the English Major ( New York Times, Sunday Review – Opinion pages)
http://www.thelocal.se/blogs/corneliushamelberg/
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-- kenneth w. harrow faculty excellence advocate distinguished professor of english michigan state university department of english 619 red cedar road room C-614 wells hall east lansing, mi 48824 ph. 517 803 8839 harrow@msu.edu--
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-- kenneth w. harrow faculty excellence advocate distinguished professor of english michigan state university department of english 619 red cedar road room C-614 wells hall east lansing, mi 48824 ph. 517 803 8839 harrow@msu.edu
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La Vonda R. Staples, Writer
BA Psychology 2005 and MA European History 2009
"If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough."
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, This Child Will Be Great; Memoir of a Remarkable Life by Africa's First Woman President.
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