This also reminds me of my first encounter with Soyinka's drama when doing A levels.
All of our O levels was about Shakespeare drama: Merchant of Venice, Othello, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, the unities etc and here came The Jero Plays and The Lion and the Jewel with no such discernible structure. I started scratching my head whether these could be described as English drama (of course I was raised on the staple dramatic diets of dramatists like Duro Ladipo, Kola Ogumola etc, but that was YORUBA drama! And I didnt read the scripts.)
Yes, the point is that it is not an offence to have broad general similarities but local conditions will dictate the final forms. If every cultural attribute in the world is identical, what would be the point of having the comparative field? Would be a dull and dreary world for sure!
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
-------- Original message --------
From: 'Michael Afolayan' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: 04/09/2017 17:43 (GMT+00:00)
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - African Writing Systems
This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com) Add cleanup rule | More info Thank you so much, Ken, for the point you just made here, that, "The trouble with old school afrocentrism and egyptology is that it swallows european notions of civilization and one-ups it by saying, we too are civilized, and before anyone else." Wow, this notion has baffled my intellectual curiosity all lifelong! I recall as an undergraduate student when Ruth Finnegan came up with the idea that there was no epic tradition in African oral culture. It would take Isidore Okpewho to counter the claim many years after and then the African literary world breathed a sigh of relief that indeed we, too, have the epic tradition. I told myself "wow" so we now have what the west claimed we did not have because we were able to authenticate ours through their established model? Is that really ours? I mused to myself upfront that I believed what the Yoruba people had and would always have was the "Oriki" tradition and it should be good enough for our cultural and intellectual feed, having no connection with the western definition of the epic.
Anyway, Sorry for my rambling on this matter, but it is just my way of saying in three words "I agree absolutely" with what you just noted here, Ken, and that is whether or not my example delivers it.
Michael
On Monday, September 4, 2017 7:42 AM, Kenneth Harrow <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:
The word civilization is a term of colonial discourse used to justify the domination of one group over another, either intellectually or politically. That has been true especially with africa, and the whole point of things fall apart has been to demonstrate the fallaciousness of the term. Not simply because whites are hypocritical in the use of the term—after all, that was conrad's point in heart of darkness-but more to take a community that has no large buildings or writing system, or any of the other european notions of the attributes of civilization, and to show its civilized values.
The trouble with old school afrocentrism and egyptology is that it swallows european notions of civilization and one-ups it by saying, we too are civilized, and before anyone else.
I will stand by this claim forever. There is nothing worse that adopting european notions of civilization, from latin civitas, and claiming we too are civilized. It is completely as mudimbe has claimed to be trapped by accepting the european frame of epistemology, to be trapped by the notions of value and education generated by the very society that conquered you.
The key word in the posting below is "inferiority."
Last point: conrad saw the hypocrisy in colonialism, but not in the notion of civilization. It took achebe to go that next step because conrad was an outsider with no knowledge of africa people or society, except from the outside and through the colonial lens. Achebe attacked him for his racism, an underlying attribute of the european "civilized" man. I am not using scare quotes to be ironic, but to signal exactly what mudimbe has written.
ken
Kenneth Harrow
Dept of English and Film Studies
Michigan State University
619 Red Cedar Rd
East Lansing, MI 48824
517-803-8839
harrow@msu.edu
http://www.english.msu.edu/people/faculty/kenneth-harrow/
On 04/09/2017, 03:01, "'O O' via USA Africa Dialogue Series" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
>"It now seems convetional for any group that lays claim to civilization to show proof that it has a writing system equal to the West in evolutionary stages or in a completed format"
>
>But isn't a belief in the absence or presence of such a writing system as the determinant of the inferiority or non-inferiority of a civilization suspect logically and psychologically -- and thus a breeding ground for egregious inferiority or superiority complexes that continue to put much of black scholarship or historiography on a defensive and diversionary trajectory that keeps gnawing the (human) spirit?
>
>
>
>> On Sep 3, 2017, at 9:34 PM, Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emeagwali@ccsu.edu> wrote:
>>
>> It now seems convetional for any group that lays claim to civilization to show proof that it has a writing system equal to the West in evolutionary stages or in a completed format
>
>--
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The trouble with old school afrocentrism and egyptology is that it swallows european notions of civilization and one-ups it by saying, we too are civilized, and before anyone else.
I will stand by this claim forever. There is nothing worse that adopting european notions of civilization, from latin civitas, and claiming we too are civilized. It is completely as mudimbe has claimed to be trapped by accepting the european frame of epistemology, to be trapped by the notions of value and education generated by the very society that conquered you.
The key word in the posting below is "inferiority."
Last point: conrad saw the hypocrisy in colonialism, but not in the notion of civilization. It took achebe to go that next step because conrad was an outsider with no knowledge of africa people or society, except from the outside and through the colonial lens. Achebe attacked him for his racism, an underlying attribute of the european "civilized" man. I am not using scare quotes to be ironic, but to signal exactly what mudimbe has written.
ken
Kenneth Harrow
Dept of English and Film Studies
Michigan State University
619 Red Cedar Rd
East Lansing, MI 48824
517-803-8839
harrow@msu.edu
http://www.english.msu.edu/people/faculty/kenneth-harrow/
On 04/09/2017, 03:01, "'O O' via USA Africa Dialogue Series" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
>"It now seems convetional for any group that lays claim to civilization to show proof that it has a writing system equal to the West in evolutionary stages or in a completed format"
>
>But isn't a belief in the absence or presence of such a writing system as the determinant of the inferiority or non-inferiority of a civilization suspect logically and psychologically -- and thus a breeding ground for egregious inferiority or superiority complexes that continue to put much of black scholarship or historiography on a defensive and diversionary trajectory that keeps gnawing the (human) spirit?
>
>
>
>> On Sep 3, 2017, at 9:34 PM, Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emeagwali@ccsu.edu> wrote:
>>
>> It now seems convetional for any group that lays claim to civilization to show proof that it has a writing system equal to the West in evolutionary stages or in a completed format
>
>--
>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
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>Early archives at https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.utexas.edu_conferences_africa_ads_index.html&d=DwIFaQ&c=nE__W8dFE-shTxStwXtp0A&r=Zy8I_UX8z9DLbmf5YJ0EIg&m=vpVaQvp4H77aeWxmBxRFZ6LbTC_J2GWlj58btSveiJc&s=8ST5BUj1GOEN6gBFamO0XwB-cJ-bmMONh_RHmqpNTBU&e=
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