The African World in Dialogue: An Appeal to Action! is a probing and politically timely collection of essays, interviews, speeches, poetry, short stories, and proposals. These rich works illuminate the struggles, dreams, triumphs, impediments, and diversity of the contemporary African world. The African World in Dialogue contains five sections: "Listen: The Ink Speaks"; "Restitutions, Resolutions, Revolutions"; "Africanity, Education, and Technology"; "Life Lines from the Front Lines"; and "Gender, Power, and Infinite Promise." Each section brims with provocative and compelling insights from elder-warriors, wordsmiths, journalists, and academics, many of whom are also activists. The volume's contributors include Tunde Adegbola, Muhammad Ibn Bashir, Jacqueline Bediako, Charlie Braxton, Alieu Bundu, Baba A. O. Buntu, Chinweizu, Ricardo Cortez Cruz, Oyinlola Longe, Jumbe Kweku Lumumba, Morgan Miller, Asiri Odu, Chinwe Ezinna Oriji, Kevin Powell, Blair Marcus Proctor, Ishola Akindele Salami, Aseret Sin, Teresa N. Washington, and Ayoka Wiles. The book also features interviews with Hilary La Force, Mandingo, Kambale Musavili, and Prince Kuma N’dumbe. With selections designed to critique and in many cases upend conventional political thought, educational norms, fantasies of social progress, and gender myths, The African World in Dialogue challenges its audience. The book’s “Appeal to Action” is literal: Rather than offering eloquent elaborations of African world woes, The African World in Dialogue offers detailed plans and paths for emancipation and elevation that readers are urged to implement. Activists and scholars of African studies, African American studies, Pan-Africanism, criminal justice, Black revolutionary thought and action, gender studies, sociology, and political science will find this book to be both inspirational and indispensable.

When Africans dialogue with citizens of the United States of America, the continent in its parts through the perspectives of nationals engage each other in conversations. The conversations flow like streams in many directions yielding fruits of different sorts. It is possible for a systematic observer-researcher to fish out important themes and ideas. This book, Diaspora and Imagined Nationality: USA-Africa Dialogue and Cyberframing Nigerian Nationhood, traces the hegemony of Western ideas in postings and conversations online. In the process it frames Nigeria''s presence online as a postcolonial nation (or nation space) through various communicative activities of citizens at home and in the diaspora. These communicative activities and political activism have led to a wide range of scholarly interrogations and interventions in media, communication, and migration studies against the backdrop of globalization, democratization, and modernization theories. It has been amply documented that communication and social interaction produce ideas that can be evaluated along the lines of deliberative democracy. These approaches have produced outcomes without the benefit of the complex debates, dialogues, and disagreements that come with popular participation and creation of variegated knowledge by a collective. As part of the conclusion, the study posits that the concept of nationhood is not fixed but is a symbolic construct that evolves through unstructured conversations, sharing, and intense debates. This book navigates the unstructured virtual terrain of dialogues, debates, and seas of information available online. One of the objectives of this book is to bring together the multiple voices and transitions of individuals who left their home-countries to new host-communities by attending to one of the fruits of this technology-driven mode of communication and knowledge production. Diaspora and Imagined Nationality does not pretend to be a universal representation of all Nigerians in the diaspora; it instead focuses on what a small group of intellectuals of African descent and their friends talk and gripe about, and how these themes affect the larger collective. This book is part of the African World Series, edited by Toyin Falola, Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities, University of Texas at Austin. "The world wide web''s impact on global communication has been phenomenal and it is becoming increasingly more so as technology advances. As a result of this, institutions and individuals are able to share ideas on the internet. The Nigerian Community is not immune to this activity and this brilliant book examines various issues that are developing from online discussions amongst Nigerians in the diaspora. Thus, Odutola explores how and why the notion of National Identity plays a significant role in online conversations. For him, Cyberframing Nigerian nationhood has created a radical new way of discussing the idea of the Nation as it has also allowed marginalised communities and people to (re) tell their own stories and create their own concepts of National identity without fear of being subjugated or challenged by dominant groups. Since the issue of National identity is now in cyberspace, it allows for endless definitions and discussions of this already complex concept and raises such question like ''Whose National Identity is it anyway?'' Overall, it is remarkable to see how communities in the diaspora have found their voices in their new ''imagined spaces'' on line to make ideas, discussions and projects become real." -- Ekua Andrea Agha "Among other things, information and telecommunications technology has made it possible to expand the meaning of community without propinquity. This book shows that despite the ongoing Diasporization of Africans as a result of the world''s most recent encounters with globalization, epistemic communities are in formation. These communities are composed of people who remain concerned about their countries of origin, and those who study those countries, engaged in conversation with people located there on matters of common concern and interest. The book in particular, considers the nature, forms, content and meanings of conceptualizations of nation, as well as discourses of nationalism by Nigerians at home and abroad, and consequences of these discussions and debates on clarifying what it means to be a nation. It is well-researched, thought-provoking, and constitutes a significant contribution to Nigerian, African, and Communication Studies." -- Mojubaolu Olufunke Okome, Professor, Brooklyn College CUNY "A wonderful read! One of the most original contributions to the cutting-edge body of work on netizenship and the public sphere in Africa. Theoretical acuity meets narrative savvy in Kole Odutola''s brilliant study of the impact of the USA-AfricaDialogue listserv on African studies. This book should be read and reread by all lovers of Africa and knowledge!" -- Professor Pius Adesanmi, Winner, the Penguin Prize for African Writing "Koleade Odutola''s recent book provides an essential scholarly contribution to two areas of digital humanities that one can argue are still under-theorized--Africa''s digitalscape and its relationship with the post-colonial emigres living in the West." -- Africa: Journal of the International African Institute "[A]n essential scholarly contribution to two areas of digital humanities that one can argue are still under-theorized--Africa''s digitalscape and its relationship with the postcolonial emigres living in the West." -- Journal of Africa Featured in The Nation Online, December 2014

Many have argued that ubuntu was a formative influence on the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), South Africa’s famous transitional justice mechanism. A Discourse on African Philosophy: A New Perspective on Ubuntu and Transitional Justice in South Africa challenges and contextualizes this view in a way that not only provides new findings and reflections on ubuntu and the TRC, but also contributes to the field of African philosophy. One of Christian B. N. Gade’s key findings, founded on qualitative interviews in South Africa, is that some former TRC commissioners and committee members question the importance of ubuntu in the TRC process. Another is that there are several differing and historically developing interpretations of ubuntu, some of which have evident political implications and reflect non-factual and creative uses of history. Thus ubuntu is not a shared cultural heritage, in the ethnophilosophical sense of a static property characterizing a group. In fact, throughout this book Gade argues that the ethnophilosophical approach to African philosophy as a static group property is highly problematic. Gade’s research presents an alternative collective discourse on African philosophy (“collective” in the sense that it does not focus on any single individual in particular) that takes differences, historical developments, and social contexts seriously. This book will be of interest to scholars in African philosophy, transitional justice, politics and cultural heritage, and law in South Africa.

In a city that has lost its shimmer, Lindanathi and his two friends Ruan and Cecelia sell illegal pharmaceuticals while chasing their next high. Lindanathi, deeply troubled by his hand in his brother’s death, has turned his back on his family, until a message from home reminds him of a promise he made years before. When a puzzling masked man enters their lives, Lindanathi is faced with a decision: continue his life in Cape Town, or return to his family and to all he has left behind. Rendered in lyrical, bright prose and set in a not-so-new South Africa, The Reactive is a poignant, life-affirming story about secrets, memory, chemical abuse and family, and the redemption that comes from facing what haunts us most.

The Locations and Dislocations of African Literature: A Dialogue Between Humanities and Social Science Scholars brings together classic studies by some of the best known scholars in the field. It places these studies for the first time in disciplinary frameworks and alongside one another, as in the several conversations that gave rise to them. In essence, the book puts Africanist humanities and social science scholars in rigorous and productive dialogue with one another.

From one of Africa’s most influential and eloquent essayists, a posthumous collection that highlights his biting satire and subversive wisdom on topics from travel to cultural identity to sexuality “A fierce literary talent . . . [Wainaina] shines a light on his continent without cliché.”—The Guardian “Africa is the only continent you can love—take advantage of this. . . . Africa is to be pitied, worshipped, or dominated. Whichever angle you take, be sure to leave the strong impression that without your intervention and your important book, Africa is doomed.” Binyavanga Wainaina was a pioneering voice in African literature, an award-winning memoirist and essayist remembered as one of the greatest chroniclers of contemporary African life. This groundbreaking collection brings together, for the first time, Wainaina’s pioneering writing on the African continent, including many of his most critically acclaimed pieces, such as the viral satirical sensation “How to Write About Africa.” Working fearlessly across a range of topics—from politics to international aid, cultural heritage, and redefined sexuality—he describes the modern world with sensual, emotional, and psychological detail, giving us a full-color view of his home country and continent. These works present the portrait of a giant in African literature who left a tremendous legacy.

Never less than profound, Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka's fierce and provocative contribution to the debate on multiculturalism brings together 19 iconoclastic essays on African, European, and American literature, culture, and politics. "Unquestionably Africa's most versatile writer".--New York Times

As part of the ongoing effort to create a United Nations that is representative of its members, this collection of essays attempts to present the African perspective clearly and persuasively. This book is a valuable contribution to African efforts to engage the United Nations to achieve goals, including debt relief and a more equitable world, and to strengthen the understanding of this critical topic world wide.

Dialogue between African Religion and other world religions has, regrettably, been a much neglected area in formal religious discourse in Africa to date. Moreover, up to now, the imperative of dialogue in the process of evangelism figures only peripherally - if at all - in the study of African Christian Theology. This book is probably the first deliberate, extensive and well-argued attempt by an African theologian to fill this unfortunate lacuna. How can Christian and African spiritualities interact with and enrich each other on the basis of mutual respect, without - as has historically been the case - the one necessarily seeking to eradicate the other? This is the fundamental question of dialogue discussed in the pages of this book. Dr. Laurenti Magesa is Senior Lecturer in African Theology at the Maryknoll Institute of African Studies and the Jesuit School of Theology, Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Nairobi, Kenya.

Calling for inclusion and dialogue, these essays by an international group of feminist scholars and activists stress the need to put into relation seemingly discrepant approaches to reality and to scholarship in order to build coalitions across the usual North/South and East/West divides. This diverse group of authors, who spent fourteen weeks working collaboratively, dispense with unity and seek instead to use dialogue and difference in their production of knowledge about effective political action. The dialogues materialized here among women's movements that have emerged within different contexts and cosmologies take feminisms' challenges to contemporary corporate globalization in new empirical and theoretical directions.