African Perspectives (Series)

African Perspectives publishes the highest quality and most innovative research from scholars based in and beyond Africa. We seek exemplary work that unsettles conventions of Africanist scholarship. Our remit spans disciplinary approaches from anthropology to politics to public health, qualitative to quantitative methods, and thematic interests from musicology and literary studies to development and urban planning. The series privileges work grounded in field research in any of the countries of Africa and publishes studies by both well-established and emerging scholars. Monographs that offer imaginative solutions to contemporary social, cultural, technological and environmental problems are especially welcome.

Series editors Kelly Askew, Laura Fair, and Pamila Gupta are building upon the University of Michigan’s distinctive position in the field of African studies, as exemplified by the African Studies Center and the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, wherein interdisciplinary and international research clusters in the humanities, social sciences and STEM disciplines have flourished.

Series Editors

Kelly Askew, University of Michigan
Laura Fair, Columbia University
Pamila Gupta, University of the Witwatersrand

Editorial Board

Akosua Adomako Ampofo, University of Ghana
Leonardo Arriola, University of California, Berkeley
Mamadou Diouf, Columbia University
Gabrielle Hecht, Stanford University
Daniel Herwitz, University of Michigan
Judith Irvine, University of Michigan
Lauren MacLean, Indiana University
Noor Nieftagodien, University of the Witwatersrand
Elisha Renne, University of Michigan

For more information, contact  Sara Jo Cohen, Editorial Director, at sjco@umich.edu.

 

Showing 1 to 25 of 28 results.

Typologies of Humor in African Literatures

Examining humor and four of its archetypes in twentieth century African literature

Between HIV Prevention and LGBTI Rights

The Political Economy of Queer Activism in Ghana

Examining the impacts of global development processes and HIV response on queer politics and activism in Ghana

Protest Arts, Gender, and Social Change

Fiction, Popular Songs, and the Media in Hausa Society across Borders

The role of literature and popular songs in the cultural politics of Hausa society

The Imaginative Vision of Abdilatif Abdalla’s Voice of Agony

Poems Translated by Ken Walibora Waliaula

First English literary translation of Abdilatif Abadalla’s influential Voice of Agony

Congo Style

From Belgian Art Nouveau to African Independence

Examines the impact of colonial Belgium’s influence on the Congo’s visual culture

Lagos Never Spoils

Nollywood and Nigerian City Life

Examines the relationship between Nollywood and the city of Lagos

Continuous Pasts

Frictions of Memory in Postcolonial Africa

Investigates the ways in which postcolonial African fiction deals with or, in some cases, becomes the source of memory friction

Writing on the Soil

Land and Landscape in Literature from Eastern and Southern Africa

How representations of land and landscape perform important metaphorical labor in African literatures

In Search of Tunga

Prosperity, Almighty God, and Lives in Motion in a Malian Provincial Town

The lives of young male Muslim “adventurers” in a Malian town

Power / Knowledge / Land

Contested Ontologies of Land and Its Governance in Africa

Explores contested truths surrounding land governance in Africa and beyond

The Infrastructures of Security

Technologies of Risk Management in Johannesburg

The shift from dependence upon human decision-making in security services to Artificial Intelligence

African Performance Arts and Political Acts

Explores how performance arts, whether staged or in daily life, regularly interface with political action across the African continent

There Used to Be Order

Life on the Copperbelt after the Privatisation of the Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines

Privatization and social change in the Copperbelt region of Zambia

Animated by Uncertainty

Rugby and the Performance of History in South Africa

Examines the political significance of rugby in South Africa’s post-apartheid present

Elites and the Politics of Accountability in Africa

Studying elites through the framework of accountability

Aso Ebi

Dress, Fashion, Visual Culture, and Urban Cosmopolitanism in West Africa

The visual culture of aso ebi fashion in Nigerian and West African society

Filtering Histories

The Photographic Bureaucracy in Mozambique, 1960 to Recent Times

Highlights the role of photography and other forms of aesthetic practice in processes of state formation and bureaucratic transition

The Black and White Rainbow

Reconciliation, Opposition, and Nation-Building in Democratic South Africa

A multifaceted study of identity in South Africa exploring themes of nationalism, democracy, and nation building

Textile Ascendancies

Aesthetics, Production, and Trade in Northern Nigeria

The authors examine handwoven and manufactured textiles, aesthetic preferences as well as textile production, and trade in northern Nigeria

The Postcolonial Animal

African Literature and Posthuman Ethics

Argues for an innovative and overdue posthuman reading of African postcolonial literature

Developing States, Shaping Citizenship

Service Delivery and Political Participation in Zambia

In fledgling democracies marked by patronage, ethnic politics, and elite capture, what motivates citizens to participate in politics?

Nimrod

Selected Writings

The first English translations of key essays, stories, and poems by Nimrod, a major figure in contemporary African letters

Black Cultural Life in South Africa

Reception, Apartheid, and Ethics

Explores the shaping of black ethical consciousness by popular culture in apartheid-era South Africa

The Rise of the African Novel

Politics of Language, Identity, and Ownership

Engaging questions of language, identity, and reception to restore South African and diaspora writing to the African literary tradition