Kosmos-Workshop
Herausgabe des Sammelbands zur Tagung aktuell in Vorbereitung
Crossings and Comparisons in African Literary and Cultural Studies
Humboldt University, Berlin, October 8-12, 2018
In the past decades, African literary and cultural productions have predominantly explored the notions of duality, binarity, hybridity, alterity, in varied dimensions; centre-periphery, colonised-coloniser, orality–written literature etc., triggered by historical landmarks like slavery, colonialism, postcolonialism, and migration. Cultural productions and theoretical debates have, validly, not only echoed the complexities of these times with regards to ethnicity, class, gender, but have also critiqued the repercussions of these indelible historical moments and movements on language, culture, identity, local and diaspora communities, and individual/collective memory. However, much of the work that has been done, so far, still puts African literatures and cultural productions in regional and linguistic boxes. There is an evident lack in comparative research that would open up new critical horizons from the perspective of cross-language, cross-regional and cross-theoretical studies. Therefore, this workshop aims to move beyond the trend of comparing African literatures within the realms of just one language (Francophone, Lusophone, Anglophone, Arabic and the diverse Afriphone literatures) to inspire a comparative scholarship of African literatures that cuts across all languages and regions of the continent, including the traditional, yet artificial ‘boundary’ of the Sahara. There is an urgent need to put different schools of thinking and paradigms of literary theory into dialogue in order to advance African literary and cultural studies. The major aim of the workshop is, therefore, to cross over language barriers, regional settings, disciplines and theories.
We invite scholars and PhD students from our African partner universities in Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania and Togo as well as colleagues/PhD students based in Berlin to take up the challenge and contribute reflections on cultural production in more than one language, on hermeneutic dualities and multiplicities in African literatures, theatre, cinema and performance arts. A critical assessment of ideological, theoretical, aesthetic, thematic and linguistic models that invoke categories of difference, but also similarities, should be highlighted in ways that they could possibly be put in conversation with one another and critically evaluated across genres and disciplines.
The workhop is sponsored by HU-Berlin's Kosmos programme and with further support by IAAW and KSBF. Speakers include guests from the universities of Nairobi, Ibadan, Stellenbosch, Lomé, Hannover, Mainz and FU Berlin.
Institute for Asian and African Studies
Invalidenstraße 118, room 315
Programme
Monday, 8 October 2018
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During the Day
19:00 am-21:00 pm |
Arrival of Participants
Opening Ceremony Welcome Addresses from Baz Lecocq, Head of Department African Studies, Humboldt University Sarah Hartmann, The Representative of the KOSMOS Initiative, Humboldt University Berlin Susanne Gehrmann, Chair of African Literatures and Cultures, Humboldt University Berlin Pepetual Mforbe Chiangong, Department of African Studies, Humboldt University Berlin
Multilingual Poetry Reading/Performance
Refreshments
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Tuesday, 9 October 2018
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9:00 am- 9:20 am
9:30 am -10:30 am |
Light Breakfast at the Department of African Studies
Panel 1: Investigating Swahili/English Literatures: Distance and Interaction in East Africa
Miriam Maranga-Musonye (University of Nairobi) The Compartmentalization of Literature in Kiswahili and Literature in English
Lutz Diegner (Humboldt University Berlin) Wearing Two Kofia at the Same Time: Swahilanglophone Writing in East Africa
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10.30 am -11:00 am |
Coffee/Tea Break |
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11:00 am - 12:30 pm |
Panel 2: Reading across Languages, Genres and Histories
Lucia Weiss (Free University Berlin): The Representation of History in the Poetic Space: A Dialogic Reading of Boubacar Boris Diop and Mia Couto
Gbandé Daré (Université de Lomé) From Francophone Novel to Anglophone Film: Emmanuel Dongala’s Johnny chien méchant and Jean-Stéphane Sauvaires Johnny Mad Dog
Charlott Schönwetter (Humboldt University Berlin): Child Soldier Narratives in Children’s Literature. A Cross-Regional and Cross-Language Comparison
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12:30 pm-13:30 pm |
Lunch Break |
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13:30 pm-14:30 pm
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Panel 3: Exploring Multilingual, Multi-ethnic and Multi-media Intersections in East-Africa
Godwin Siundu (University of Nairobi) BanianiMbayaKiatudawa: the Incomplete Otherness of the Asian in East African Media
Obala Musumba (Humboldt University Berlin) Linguistic Strategies in Fighting Gender Biases in Traditional Luo Community in Grace Ogot’s Miaha |
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14:30pm-15:00 pm |
Coffee/Tea Break |
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15:00 pm -16:00 pm
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Panel 4: Investigating Theoretical Challenges in Postcolonial and Media Studies
Ricarda de Haas (University of Vienna) The Im/possibility of Communication through Technology
Ellen Grünkemeier (Leibniz University Hannover) Postcolonial Cultural Studies- Merits and Demerits of Comparative Research and Teaching in African Literatures and Cultures
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16:30 pm – 18:00 pm |
Guided tour to the exposition “Unvergleichlich/Beyond Comparison” at the Bode Museum in Berlin, Am Kupfergraben, 10117 Berlin
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Wednesday, 10 October 2018
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9:00 am- 9:20 am
9.30 am-10:30 am |
Light Breakfast at the Department of African Studies
Panel 5: Juxtaposing Anglophone/Francophone Representations in Cameroon Literature
Pepetual Mforbe Chiangong (Humboldt University Berlin) Political Practice and Irate Ironies in Cameroonian Literature: A Cross-language Exploration of What God has Put Asunder by Victor Epie Ngome and La Chèvre du Sous-Préfetby Charles Soh
Clara Schumann (Humboldt University Berlin) A Gender-specific Survey of Migration Literature in English and French by Authors of Cameroonian Descent
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10:30 am -11:00 am |
Coffee/Tea Break
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11:00 am -12:30 am |
Panel 6: Reading Feminism across Languages
Eyiwumi Bolutito Olayinka (University of Ibadan) The Female Condition in the Interstices of Time and Space in African Novels: Cultural Divergences and Convergences in the Landscape of Women’s Oppression
Isabel Schröder (Humboldt University Berlin) Gender and Space in African Prison Literature. A Comparative Analysis of Calixthe Beyala’s Tut’appelleras Tanga and Petina Gappah’s The Book of Memory
Babatunde Ayeleru (University of Ibadan) Exploring the Linguistic and Cultural Interplay in Europhone West African Feminist Writings: Examples of Shoneyin, Fassinou and Koulibaly
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12:30am-14.00 pm |
Lunch Break
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14:00 am-15:00 pm
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Panel 7: Exploring South African Linguistic and Transnational Outreach
Uhuru Portia Phalafala (University of Stellenbosch/University of Michigan) Restless Natives, Indigenous Languages and Revolution
Tina Steiner (University of Stellenbosch) Voyaging to India in Pursuit of Peace. D.D.T. Jabavu’s Travelogue E-Indiayanase East Africa and the World Pacifist Meeting of 1949
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15:00 pm - 15:30 pm |
Coffee/Tea Break
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15:30 pm- 17:30 pm |
Screening of "Durch afrikanische Türen/ Through African Doors", a film project by Poliana Baumgarten, Marc Sebastian Eils, Manuela Goschy & Marine Lucina, based on the Janheinz Jahn archive at HU-Berlin
Roundtable in Honor of Jahnheinz Jahn (1918-1973) with Interventions by Ibou Diop, Barbara Ischinger, Anja Oed & Almut Seiler-Dietrich, moderated by Flora Veit-Wild |
Thursday, 11 October 2018
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9:00 am -9:20 am
9:30 am -10:30 am |
Light Breakfast at the Department of African Studies
Panel 8: Configuring Constellations of New/Old Genres in African Literature
Alex Nelungo Wanjala (University of Nairobi) The African Postcolonial Gothic
Aderemi Raji-Oyelade (University of Ibadan) Travelling Tongues, Aesthetic Collisions and Dis/junctions: Research in Postproverbial Discourse in African Studies
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11:30 am-11:00 am |
Coffee/Tea Break
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11:00 am-13:00 pm |
Panel 9 : Broadening Trajectories across the Franco/Anglophone World |
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13:00 - 14:00 pm |
Lunch Break
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14:00 - 15:00 pm |
Joint Open Discussion on Further Collaboration
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15:00-15:30 |
Coffee Break
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15:30 – 17:00 |
Workshops on Further Collaboration in Split Groups
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20:00 |
Conference Dinner |