Simon Gikandi's Books

Writing in Limbo

Modernism and Caribbean Literature

By: Simon Gikandi

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Writing in Limbo

Modernism and Caribbean Literature

By: Simon Gikandi

In Simon Gikandi’s view, Caribbean literature and postcolonial literature more generally negotiate an uneasy relationship with the concepts of modernism and modernity—a relationship in which the Caribbean writer, unable to escape a history encoded by Europe, accepts the challenge of rewriting it. Drawing on contemporary deconstructionist theory, Gikandi looks at how such Caribbean writers as George Lamming, Samuel Selvon, Alejo Carpentier, C. L. R. James, Paule Marshall, Merle Hodge, Zee Edgell, and Michelle Cliff have attempted to confront European modernism.

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Page Count

342

Publisher

Cornell University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1501722948

ISBN 13

9781501722943

Slavery and the Culture of Taste

By: Simon Gikandi

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Slavery and the Culture of Taste

By: Simon Gikandi

It would be easy to assume that, in the eighteenth century, slavery and the culture of taste--the world of politeness, manners, and aesthetics--existed as separate and unequal domains, unrelated in the spheres of social life. But to the contrary, Slavery and the Culture of Taste demonstrates that these two areas of modernity were surprisingly entwined. Ranging across Britain, the antebellum South, and the West Indies, and examining vast archives, including portraits, period paintings, personal narratives, and diaries, Simon Gikandi illustrates how the violence and ugliness of enslavement actually shaped theories of taste, notions of beauty, and practices of high culture, and how slavery's impurity informed and haunted the rarified customs of the time. Gikandi focuses on the ways that the enslavement of Africans and the profits derived from this exploitation enabled the moment of taste in European--mainly British--life, leading to a transformation of bourgeois ideas regarding freedom and selfhood. He explores how these connections played out in the immense fortunes made in the West Indies sugar colonies, supporting the lavish lives of English barons and altering the ideals that defined middle-class subjects. Discussing how the ownership of slaves turned the American planter class into a new aristocracy, Gikandi engages with the slaves' own response to the strange interplay of modern notions of freedom and the realities of bondage, and he emphasizes the aesthetic and cultural processes developed by slaves to create spaces of freedom outside the regimen of enforced labor and truncated leisure. Through a close look at the eighteenth century's many remarkable documents and artworks, Slavery and the Culture of Taste sets forth the tensions and contradictions entangling a brutal practice and the distinctions of civility.

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386

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

069116097X

ISBN 13

9780691160979

The Columbia Guide to East African Literature in English Since 1945

By: Simon Gikandi,Evan Mwangi

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The Columbia Guide to East African Literature in English Since 1945

By: Simon Gikandi,Evan Mwangi

The Columbia Guide to East African Literature in English Since 1945 challenges the conventional belief that the English-language literary traditions of East Africa are restricted to the former British colonies of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. Instead, these traditions stretch far into such neighboring countries as Somalia and Ethiopia. Simon Gikandi and Evan Mwangi assemble a truly inclusive list of major writers and trends. They begin with a chronology of key historical events and an overview of the emergence and transformation of literary culture in the region. Then they provide an alphabetical list of major writers and brief descriptions of their concerns and achievements. Some of the writers discussed include the Kenyan novelists Grace Ogot and Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Ugandan poet and essayist Taban Lo Liyong, Ethiopian playwright and poet Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin, Tanzanian novelist and diplomat Peter Palangyo, Ethiopian novelist Berhane Mariam Sahle-Sellassie, and the novelist M. G. Vassanji, who portrays the Indian diaspora in Africa, Europe, and North America. Separate entries within this list describe thematic concerns, such as colonialism, decolonization, the black aesthetic, and the language question; the growth of genres like autobiography and popular literature; important movements like cultural nationalism and feminism; and the impact of major forces such as AIDS/HIV, Christian missions, and urbanization. Comprehensive and richly detailed, this guide offers a fresh perspective on the role of East Africa in the development of African and world literature in English and a new understanding of the historical, cultural, and geopolitical boundaries of the region.

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219

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Columbia University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0231125208

ISBN 13

9780231125208

Foundational African Writers

Peter Abrahams, Noni Jabavu, Sibusiso Nyembezi and Es’kia Mphahlele

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Foundational African Writers

Peter Abrahams, Noni Jabavu, Sibusiso Nyembezi and Es’kia Mphahlele

The essays in this collection were written in celebration of the centenaries, in 2019, of Peter Abrahams, Noni Jabavu, Sibusiso Cyril Lincoln Nyembezi and Es'kia Mphahlele, all of whom were born in 1919. All four centenarians lived rich and diverse lives across several continents. In the years following the Second World War they produced more than half a century of foundational creative writing and literary criticism, and made stellar contributions to the founding and enhancement of institutions and repertoires of African and black arts and letters in South Africa and internationally. As a result, their lifeworlds and oeuvres present sharp and multifaceted engagements with and generative insights into a wide range of issues, including precolonial existence, colonialism, empire, race, culture, identity, class, the language question, tradition, modernity, exile, Pan-Africanism, and decolonisation.

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472

Publisher

NYU Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1776147510

ISBN 13

9781776147519

Slavery and the Culture of Taste

By: Simon Gikandi

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Slavery and the Culture of Taste

By: Simon Gikandi

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386

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Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

069116097X

ISBN 13

9780691160979

The Columbia Guide to East African Literature in English Since 1945

By: Simon Gikandi,Evan Mwangi

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The Columbia Guide to East African Literature in English Since 1945

By: Simon Gikandi,Evan Mwangi

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219

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Columbia University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0231125208

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9780231125208

Reading the African Novel

By: Simon Gikandi

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Reading the African Novel

By: Simon Gikandi

Simon Gikandi has written an insightful book for students of literature by examining the work of some major African writers.

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Page Count

172

Publisher

James Currey

Published Date

ISBN 10

0852555040

ISBN 13

9780852555040

The Victorians in the Rearview Mirror

By: Simon Joyce

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The Victorians in the Rearview Mirror

By: Simon Joyce

Simon Joyce examines heritage culture, contemporary politics, and the "neo-Dickensian" novel to offer a more affirmative assessment of the Victorian legacy, one that lets us imagine a model of social interconnection and interdependence that has come under threat in today's politics and culture.

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Page Count

225

Publisher

Ohio University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0821417614

ISBN 13

9780821417614

Foundational African Writers

Peter Abrahams, Noni Jabavu, Sibusiso Nyembezi and Es’kia Mphahlele

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Foundational African Writers

Peter Abrahams, Noni Jabavu, Sibusiso Nyembezi and Es’kia Mphahlele

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472

Publisher

NYU Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1776147510

ISBN 13

9781776147519

Maps of Englishness

Writing Identity in the Culture of Colonialism

By: Simon Gikandi

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Maps of Englishness

Writing Identity in the Culture of Colonialism

By: Simon Gikandi

Gikandi explores the politics of identity to analyze how the colonial experience inspired narrative forms that changed the nature of the English identity by surveying the British imperial tradition since the nineteenth century. He provides detailed readings of the works of Trollope, Carlyle, and others; through the narratives of imperial women travelers such as Mary Kingsley and Mary Seacole; and through Africanist texts by Joseph Conrad, Graham Greene and postcolonialists such as Salman Rushdie and Joan Riley.

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298

Publisher

Columbia University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0231105991

ISBN 13

9780231105996

Exit Capitalism

Literary Culture, Theory and Post-Secular Modernity

By: Simon During

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Exit Capitalism

Literary Culture, Theory and Post-Secular Modernity

By: Simon During

Exit Capitalism re-examines key moments of British cultural and literary history, analysing how the decline of the socialist ideal and the emergence of endgame capitalism helped to produce both modern theory and cultural studies as academic fields.

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208

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1135278695

ISBN 13

9781135278694

To A Nação, with Love: The Politics of Language through Angolan Poetry

By: Robert Simon

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To A Nação, with Love: The Politics of Language through Angolan Poetry

By: Robert Simon

This book serves as a study of poets' reflections on the use of the Portuguese language as a tool for the nation building project of Angola during and after the war of independence. The writers studied fall into two categories: those of a first phase, in the context of the war of independence, during which time poets often focused on linguistic unity as a reflection of the nation's plurality through the inscribing of notions of singular identity simultaneous to the incorporation of elements of linguistic plurality; and those of the second phase, within the context of the post-war and ensuing civil strife which, if taken as a more or less continuous Civil War, lasted from 1975 to 2002, and during which writers would use techniques seen in many postmodern poets to deconstruct the utopian discourse of poets from the previous generation.The essay elucidates existing arguments regarding political and social movement as well as to less-recognized arguments regarding literary evolution in Angola during this period.

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Page Count

205

Publisher

Lulu.com

Published Date

ISBN 10

1944508090

ISBN 13

9781944508098

Leadership Development

By: Wilfred N. Wainaina,Turkato Turto Duga,Simon Jundi,Anthony Sandag Tanyi,Khalifa Mohamed Almesafri

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Leadership Development

By: Wilfred N. Wainaina,Turkato Turto Duga,Simon Jundi,Anthony Sandag Tanyi,Khalifa Mohamed Almesafri

TOPICS IN THE BOOK Administrative Function of Principal as a Correlates to Teacher Training Colleges Effectiveness in Littoral Region of Cameroon Capacity Building and Women Leadership in Kenya Political Elective Positions Forest Governance Effectiveness in Gamo Zone, South Ethiopia Regional State, Ethiopia The Impact of Institutional Capacity on Public Performance in Upper Nile State, South Sudan Innovation and Excellence History in Dubai Since 1990

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144

Publisher

IPR Journals and Book Publishers

Published Date

ISBN 10

9914752721

ISBN 13

9789914752724

Dedan Kimathi on Trial

Colonial Justice and Popular Memory in Kenya’s Mau Mau Rebellion

By: Julie MacArthur

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Dedan Kimathi on Trial

Colonial Justice and Popular Memory in Kenya’s Mau Mau Rebellion

By: Julie MacArthur

The transcript from this historic trial, long thought destroyed or hidden, unearths a piece of the British colonial archive at a critical point in the Mau Mau Rebellion. Its discovery and landmark publication unsettles an already contentious Kenyan history and its reverberations in the postcolonial present. Perhaps no figure embodied the ambiguities, colonial fears, and collective imaginations of Kenya’s decolonization era more than Dedan Kimathi, the self-proclaimed field marshal of the rebel forces that took to the forests to fight colonial rule in the 1950s. Kimathi personified many of the contradictions that the Mau Mau Rebellion represented: rebel statesman, literate peasant, modern traditionalist. His capture and trial in 1956, and subsequent execution, for many marked the end of the rebellion and turned Kimathi into a patriotic martyr. Here, the entire trial transcript is available for the first time. This critical edition also includes provocative contributions from leading Mau Mau scholars reflecting on the meaning of the rich documents offered here and the figure of Kimathi in a much wider field of historical and contemporary concerns. These include the nature of colonial justice; the moral arguments over rebellion, nationalism, and the end of empire; and the complexities of memory and memorialization in contemporary Kenya. Contributors: David Anderson, Simon Gikandi, Nicholas Githuku, Lotte Hughes, and John Lonsdale. Introductory note by Willy Mutunga.

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Page Count

528

Publisher

Ohio University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0896805018

ISBN 13

9780896805019

Encyclopedia of African Literature

By: Simon Gikandi

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Encyclopedia of African Literature

By: Simon Gikandi

The most comprehensive reference work on African literature to date, this book contains over 600 entries that cover criticism and theory, its development as a field of scholarship, and studies of established and lesser-known writers.

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Page Count

629

Published Date

ISBN 10

0203373820

ISBN 13

9780203373828

Book's by Simon Gikandi

Writing in Limbo

Writing in Limbo

Slavery and the Culture of Taste

Slavery and the Culture of Taste

The Columbia Guide to East African Literature in English Since 1945

The Columbia Guide to East African Literature in English Since 1945

Foundational African Writers

Foundational African Writers

Slavery and the Culture of Taste

Slavery and the Culture of Taste

The Columbia Guide to East African Literature in English Since 1945

The Columbia Guide to East African Literature in English Since 1945

Reading the African Novel

Reading the African Novel

The Victorians in the Rearview Mirror

The Victorians in the Rearview Mirror

Foundational African Writers

Foundational African Writers

Maps of Englishness

Maps of Englishness

Exit Capitalism

Exit Capitalism

To A Nação, with Love: The Politics of Language through Angolan Poetry

To A Nação, with Love: The Politics of Language through Angolan Poetry

Leadership Development

Leadership Development

Dedan Kimathi on Trial

Dedan Kimathi on Trial

Encyclopedia of African Literature

Encyclopedia of African Literature

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