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When Nigeria hosted the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC) in 1977, it celebrated a global vision of black nationhood and citizenship animated by the exuberance of its recent oil boom. Andrew Apter's The Pan-African Nation tells the full story of this cultural extravaganza, from Nigeria's spectacular rebirth as a rapidly developing petro-state to its dramatic demise when the boom went bust. According to Apter, FESTAC expanded the horizons of blackness in Nigeria to mirror the global circuits of its economy. By showcasing masks, dances, images, and souvenirs from its many diverse ethnic groups, Nigeria forged a new national culture. In the grandeur of this oil-fed confidence, the nation subsumed all black and African cultures within its empire of cultural signs and erased its colonial legacies from collective memory. As the oil economy collapsed, however, cultural signs became unstable, contributing to rampant violence and dissimulation. The Pan-African Nation unpacks FESTAC as a historically situated mirror of production in Nigeria. More broadly, it points towards a critique of the political economy of the sign in postcolonial Africa.
This volume is the first sustained attempt to provide an overview of the First World Festival of Negro Arts, held in Dakar in 1966, and of its multiple legacies.
The Baganda people of Uganda enjoy an extraordinarily rich oral tradition, which serves as a window into their culture, history, and experiences as a people. This comprehensive, multigenre work is both a study of the Baganda people's oral literature--framed within the broader contexts of the African oral tradition genre, modern African literature, and global literary studies--and a collection of representative stories. Cultural explanations throughout the text explore the living culture of this unique East African nation. Particular attention is paid to the history of Uganda, thus placing the oral tradition within its proper context. An appendix offers sample Luganda songs.
The role of literature and popular songs in the cultural politics of Hausa society
Writings about and depictions of 'savage' peoples by conquering races as a form of textual practice.
Rev. ed. of: Introduction to African oral literature. c1991.
Nigeria has become the arena of one of the most remarkable religious movements of recent times, reflecting the shift in the global center of Christianity from the North to the South. This book tells the story of one sector of this movement from its root in the Nigerian civil war to the turn of the new millenium. It describes a revival that occurred among the Igbo people of Eastern Nigeria and the new Pentecostal churches it generated and documents the changes that have occurred as the movement has responded to global flows and local demands. As such, it explores the nature of revivalist and Pentecostal experience but does so against the backdrop of local socio-political and economic developments, such as decolonization and civil war, as well broader processes, such as modernization and globalization.
This probing collection of essays bring together a stellar group of Muslim and Christian, African and Western scholars. Together they explore the question, Where does one community's right to commend itself to others leave off, and another community's right to be left alone begin?
In songs, dance and drama the fame of the Yoruba of Nigeria is firmly established and universally acknowledged. Also an established writing and literary tradition, the Yoruba have asserted themselves as a dominant force in the world of creativity. Such stars are represented here, as in the works of Wole Soyinka and Zulu Sofola. The future of language in the making of new idioms and dictionaries is also examined in an attempt to position the Yoruba and their cultures in the ever-changing world of cultural inventions.
Nigeria is Africa's most populous country and the world's eighth largest oil producer, but its success has been undermined in recent decades by ethnic and religious conflict, political instability, rampant official corruption and an ailing economy. Toyin Falola, a leading historian intimately acquainted with the region, and Matthew Heaton, who has worked extensively on African science and culture, combine their expertise to explain the context to Nigeria's recent troubles through an exploration of its pre-colonial and colonial past, and its journey from independence to statehood. By examining key themes such as colonialism, religion, slavery, nationalism and the economy, the authors show how Nigeria's history has been swayed by the vicissitudes of the world around it, and how Nigerians have adapted to meet these challenges. This book offers a unique portrayal of a resilient people living in a country with immense, but unrealized, potential.