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Dieser Sammelband präsentiert die Ergebnisse der Arbeit der didaktischen Sektion bei der Konferenz des Tschechischen Germanistenverbandes in Pilsen im Mai 2018. Die Beiträge spiegeln die Vielfalt der diskutierten Themen wider, haben aber alle eines gemeinsam: das Bestreben, neue Wege zu suchen, wie – im Einklang mit dem Motto der Konferenz – Deutsch immer effektiver vermittelt werden kann, und dabei auch didaktische Experimente zu wagen.
With the demographic explosion of young people in major African cities, we are witnessing the emergence of youth languages and new speech forms. In search of well-being, these young people, plagued by poverty, social injustice, unemployment and idleness, invent linguistic codes that allow them to find themselves. The linguistic and sociolinguistic description of these youth languages is the object of this volume. The contributions inform on the statutes and functions of the youth languages of Africa, their forms and structures, their representations, and envisage perspectives and prospective didactics.
Over the past fifteen years, Weaver Press has published seven anthologies of some one hundred short stories giving voice to new and established Zimbabwean writers. In Windows into Zimbabwe Franziska Kramer and Jürgen Kramer have selected from these anthologies twenty-three stories, which they consider the best or most representative of a particular period in the Zimbabwean narrative since 1980. They present the stories within sections which frame certain themes such as Independence, Gukurahundi, Land, Gender Relations, Money Matters, Social Relations, Exile and Resilience. For the general reader, Windows into Zimbabwe contains some wonderful stories rich in insight, perception, nuance and humour. Writers such as Charles Mungoshi, Petina Gappah, NoViolet Bulawayo, Valerie Tagwira and Shimmer Chinodya are included as well as relative newcomers with new perceptions and fresh voices. The compilers have also provided an introductory overview casting light on the relationship between fiction and society; and for teachers(in schools, colleges and universities) each story is accompanied by explanatory notes, questions and study tasks to further the reader's understanding. Windows into Zimbabwe will positively deepen your appreciation of the country and its people.
Phenomenology of decolonizing the university : essays in the contemporary thoughts of afrikology
(2019)
The epistemic Eurocentric boarders, expand towards the global south, they dehumanise and obliterate existing forms of thinking through colonialism and coloniality. In doing so, the global south has lost the sense of being self, Africans have become non-thinking objects. This has led to a series of ceaseless conflicts, poor leadership, and developmental crisis and provides fertile ground for Eurocentric superiority. This book Phenomenology of Decolonizing the University: Essays in the Contemporary Thoughts of Afrikology is a diagnosis of the problems of the mind in the global south and provides solutions in the decolonisatiom of the mind such as humanising the university, the rewriting of African stories and facilitates an epistemic rebellion.
Why do we need to communicate science? Is science, with its highly specialised language and its arcane methods, too distant to be understood by the public? Is it really possible for citizens to participate meaningfully in scientific research projects and debate? Should scientists be mandated to engage with the public to facilitate better understanding of science? How can they best communicate their special knowledge to be intelligible? These and a plethora of related questions are being raised by researchers and politicians alike as they have become convinced that science and society need to draw nearer to one another. Once the persuasion took hold that science should open up to the public and these questions were raised, it became clear that coming up with satisfactory answers would be a complex challenge. The inaccessibility of scientific language and methods, due to ever increasing specialisation, is at the base of its very success. Thus, translating specialised knowledge to become understandable, interesting and relevant to various publics creates particular perils. This is exacerbated by the ongoing disruption of the public discourse through the digitisation of communication platforms. For example, the availability of medical knowledge on the internet and the immense opportunities to inform oneself about health risks via social media are undermined by the manipulable nature of this technology that does not allow its users to distinguish between credible content and misinformation. In countries around the world, scientists, policy-makers and the public have high hopes for science communication: that it may elevate its populations educationally, that it may raise the level of sound decision-making for people in their daily lives, and that it may contribute to innovation and economic well-being. This collection of current reflections gives an insight into the issues that have to be addressed by research to reach these noble goals, for South Africa and by South Africans in particular.
African visionaries
(2019)
In over forty portraits, African writers present extraordinary people from their continent: portraits of the women and men whom they admire, people who have changed and enriched life in Africa. The portraits include inventor, founders of universities, resistance fighters, musicians, environmental activists or writers. African Visionaries is a multi-faceted book, seen through African eyes, on the most impactful people of Africa. Some of the writers contributing to the collection are: Helon Habila, Virginia Phiri, Ellen Banda-Aaku, Véronique Tadjo, Tendai Huchu, Solomon Tsehaye, Patrice Nganang and Sami Tchak.
The green building evolution
(2019)
The Green Building Evolution illuminates global examples and makes use of case studies mainly from South Africa. This book is in five parts: Part I is a single introductory chapter centred on the evolution of the green building movement; Part II addresses the green building terrain; Part III presents selected case studies; Part IV focuses on chapters that address pushing the boundaries in the green building space; while Part V presents emerging trends and policy perspectives. Further details are contained in the main body of the book. It is our sincere hope that readers will experience the book as an informative and ground-breaking adventure. Written by 14 authors from different academic disciplines and areas of specialisation, the book comes as the sixth in a series that addresses global and national concerns on climate change, sustainable development and the green economy transition agenda. The book series is conceptualised and coordinated by the Exxaro Chair in Business and Climate Change, led by Prof. Godwell Nhamo and hosted by the Institute for Corporate Citizenship (ICC) at the University of South Africa (UNISA). The books are published by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) through the Africa Institute of South Africa.
Der vorliegende Sammelband bietet einen Einblick in die Ergebnisse der internationalen Konferenz des Germanistenverbands der Tschechischen Republik, die im Mai 2018 in Pilsen stattgefunden hat und von der Pädagogischen und der Philosophischen Fakultät der Westböhmischen Universität organisiert worden ist. Das Überthema "Experimentierräume" wurde schon vor der Konferenz um zwei zusätzliche Aspekte bereichert: "Herausforderungen und Tendenzen". Das 21. Jahrhundert eröffnet einen neuen Raum (bzw. einen Experimen-tierraum), der stark durch neue Kommunikationsformen und -möglichkeiten geprägt ist. Ob wir im Zusammenhang mit dem heutzutage häufig deklinierten Begriff Industrie 4.0 auch über eine Kommunikation 4.0 sprechen können oder ob (bzw. inwieweit) unsere vertrauten Kommunikationsgewohnheiten im weiteren Sinne des Wortes auch in der heutigen Zeit und in der Zukunft von den modernen Tendenzen unberührt bleiben oder sich verändern, ist eine grundsätzliche Frage, die sich wie ein roter Faden durch das ganze Buch zieht.
Nhakanomics: Harvesting Knowledge and Value for Re-generation Through Social Innovation is a radical departure from the commonly held belief that neo-liberal economics from the US and the West is universal, and is the only solution to underdevelopment and poverty throughout the world. Instead, the book teases out and theorises the intellectually rutted terrain of development studies, and neo-liberal economics from a decolonial Pan-Africanist perspective. Following a path of social innovation, with perspectives drawn from social anthropology, economics, and business and management studies Nhakanomics is a unique socio-economic approach applicable in the Global South and in Southern Africa in particular. The study argues that the process and substance of nhakanomics with its pre-emphasis on the relational South provides a robust and holistic approach to social innovation and social transformation grounded in relational networks and meshworks. The central idea is a call to re-GENE-rate society, through local Grounding and Origination, and tapping into local-global Emergent Foundations via a newly global Emancipatory Navigation, while ultimately culminating in global-local transformative Effects in four recursive cycles of re-GENE-rating C(K)umusha, Culture, Communication, and Capital after re-Constituting Africa-the 5Cs. With a novel and radical approach the book is an interrogation of neo-liberal economics in the Global South. As such, this book is remarkably handy to students and practitioners in the fields of economics, development studies, political science, science and technology studies, business management, sociology, transformation studies, and development related non-Governmental Organisations working with grassroots communities.
South Sudan: Elites, Ethnicity, Endless Wars and the Stunted State is likely to achieve its objective of stimulating debate about the future of South Sudan as a viable polity. The hope is that readers, through the debate generated by this book, will rediscover the commonality that marked the struggle for freedom, justice, and fraternity, and abandon ethnic ideologies as a means of constructing a modern state in South Sudan. South Sudan: Elites, Ethnicity, Endless Wars and the Stunted State is a must-read for South Sudanese intellectuals who want to reshape the socioeconomic and political development trajectory.
To be or not to be is an analysis of linguistic, cultural, political, economic and social factors, which explain the intricate root causes of conflicts which have ravished Sudan. It stands in stark contrast to the dominant simplification and distortions which have come to typify presentations of the region. Central to the book is an unapologetic explanation of Arabization; which often is portrayed as individual choices of religious loyalty, but, in fact, masks an intentional power-system which viciously corrupts Afrikan identities. By highlighting the detrimental complexities of manipulation, geopolitics, identity confusion and cultural imperialism, Hashim has not only written an authoritative book about Sudan, but also presented a comprehensive case study that all of Afrika must learn from. Rarely are we presented with such a vigourous inside-view to an area of Afrika which once was held in the highest civilizational esteem, but has been reduced to an ideological field of Arab-led terror, massacres and disintegration.
Fundamental Theories of Ethnic Conflict : Explaining the Root Causes of Ethnic and Racial Hate
(2019)
This book develops and expands on theories that aim at explaining the root causes of ethnic and racial conflicts. The aim is to shift focus from research, policies and strategies based on tackling the effects of ethnic and racial conflicts, which have so far been ineffective as evidenced by the increase in ethnic conflicts, to more fundamental ideas, models and strategies. Contents extend across many disciplines including evolution, biology, religion, communication, mythology and even introspective perspectives. Drawn from around the world, contributors to the book are respected and experienced award winning authors, scholars and thinkers with deep understanding of their special fields of contribution. The book was inspired by the conditions in Kenya, where ethnic violence flared up with terrifying consequences following a disputed election in 2008. Although the conflict was resolved by the intervention of the international community, Kenyans - like many other Africans - continue to live in fear of ethnic conflicts breaking out with more disastrous consequences. The book will be useful to policy makers, NGOs and others involved in promoting peace. It will also be useful in guiding research and as a text book in universities and colleges.
Botlhodi ? The Abomination is a powerful story about British colonialism and its aftermath in Molepolole, Botswana. It is a compelling juxtaposition between Traditional Setswana ways and Christianity. The protagonist, Modiko, finds himself conflicted when both his strict father, a pastor of Motlhaoetla church, and his grandfather, an unapologetic traditionalist, expect him to choose between Setswana tradition and Christianity. Torn between the two worlds, Modiko at the end makes an informed personal decision. The road is not smooth though, as he experiences persecution, bullying, abuse, witchcraft and nightmares along the way. Other characters in the novel engage in some serious conversations that allude to some important historical developments. In this work, T.J. Pheto presents to his readers a hilarious story pregnant with themes of identity, social change, discrimination, racism, colonialism, love and, ?tradition? versus ?modernity?. This pioneering literary response to British colonialism in Botswana is an outstanding postcolonial fiction of resistance. Pheto?s humor makes the book all the more hard for a reader to put down.
Cameroon is rich in petroleum, minerals, tropical forests, wildlife, water systems, fertile lands, and much more. Paradoxically however, most citizens live in abject poverty and without jobs, potable water, electricity, good healthcare and roads. This book is a thoughtful interrogation of some of the structural factors driving persistent poverty in Cameroon in the midst of natural resource abundance. It engages in a multidimensional critical analysis of the impact of natural resources on basic development indicators and concludes that good resource governance and sound management are the missing link. Natural resources alone will not create socio-economic prosperity void of good management with a clear development vision and strategy in Cameroon. The book assembles a wide diversity of analysis, views, perspectives and recommendations from economists, development experts, social and political scientists, on Cameroon's current development inertia. What emerges in the end is a coherent interdisciplinary analysis of the natural resource-development paradox as it plays out in an African setting. Theories and good practices from Africa and beyond are systematically applied to identify and critique present policy and management approaches while providing alternative options that can unlock Cameroon's natural resource wealth for national prosperity.
Exile and the disruptioon of the exilic period are prominent features in scholarly reconstructions of what influenced the shaping of biblical books and the development of theological thinking. The Babylonian golah community, as an exilic community, is credited by a growing number of scholars with influencing large parts of the Hebrew Bible. This study addresses the question whether the redactions show signs of an exilic mindset (first generation exiles) or are better understood as a reflection of a diaspora mindset (second/third and subsequent generations). This study also reviews all known archaeological diaspora findings from Mesopotamia in the pre-Hellenistic period (aided by insights from Elephantine) in order to build an as comprehensive as possible picture of Jewish diaspora life in Mesopotamia.
Handwell Yotamu Hara (*1942) was an ordinary boy from a village in Mzimba in Malawi. Though his parents were illiterate he was inspired through education and faith to become a primary school teacher and also earned a PhD from Pretoria University and later became a lecturer at Zomba Theological College and ?nally at Mzuzu University. This small autobiography is just one offered as part of the ongoing commitment by Mzuni Press to encourage Malawians to read meaningful books on a range of subjects reflecting their countrys society and culture.
In this remarkable volume covering diverse subjects, in a span of three decades, Kenneth R. Ross articulates his views on the meaning and practice of Christian mission and challenges the binary view of mission that prevailed before the 1950s. He further reflects on Scotland's experiences in the world-wide Christian mission and demonstrates the centrality of Africa in any discourse on Christianity. This volume is invaluable in its argument for a rethinking of Christian mission especially in relation to the West, which is now a new frontier for Christian mission. The book will be immensely beneficial to students of missiology and general readers who are interested in the subject of Christian Mission.
Administrative Law: Cases and Materials is an important and comprehensive contribution to the legal literature on Namibian law. It will contribute to the development of Namibias jurisprudence. Experienced author and judge of the Namibian High Court, Dr Collins Parker discusses key principles of administrative law applicable to Namibia under the common law as developed and broadened by article 18 of the Namibian Constitution. To support propositions of law discussed in the text, he presents carefully selected extracts of judgments delivered in important cases. The book offers a rich source of judicial pronouncements as precedent that are not readily available to many students and teachers of law. The selected cases are from the superior courts in Namibia, South Africa, England, and Canada, all common law countries. There are also footnote references to cases from other common law countries like India, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Practitioners of law at the Bar or on the Bench, law researchers and other professionals in public authorities, including parastatals, private companies and other ord this book useful in the performance of their professional tasks.
Born Nude
(2019)
Born Nude is philosophical poetry that explores myriad themes, from equality to humility and environmental consciousness. It is divided into chapters that pinpoint specific areas of interest. The author delves into human weaknesses and strengths based on nature and nurture. He invites the reader to contemplate the ephemeral nature of all things material, and how to nurture oneself into a higher order and loyalty of being human. The volume's satirical tone is critical of the destructive sterility of zero-sum games of superiority and dominance. It treats as anathema exploitation based on contrived hierarchies of gender, geography, politics and the geopolitik of the modern world.
The ever growing disparity in living standards between the developed and developing polities constitutes a striking feature of life on Planet Earth. This publication is an attempt to highlight some of the factors dividing the worlds apart. A new North-South synergy is needed in creating a balanced world at peace with itself. As long as more than half-the population of the world go to bed hungry there can be no peace. A sting rich world and a sting poor world cannot cohabit peacefully. How to build a more equitable and balanced world is the challenge facing us. We need to embrace and practice our long-aged concepts of 'ubuntu', 'harambee' and 'batho pele' among others in creating, and consolidating the new world order. Africa is underdeveloped. It requires serious structural modification in our current mindset, thinking and actions which calls for total involvement of every citizen. The ideas advanced in this book are strategies and pathways for dealing with the problems of poverty, corruption, the distribution of power, deterrence, good governance, health, human capacity building and the challenge of bringing about a systemic structural-functional governance construct for the African continent.
Wholesome Whole Poetry
(2019)
The subject of real estate is increasingly becoming important, especially in the countries of the developing world. States and governments realise that real estate is a corner stone of socio-economic development. Real estate development contributes immensely to the gross physical capital formation. Its formation, construction and ancillary sectors contribute to the employment, infrastructure development and gross domestic product. The main challenges about real estate is about where to develop it, how to develop it, how to manage and compute valuations about it. Such are the issues discussed in this volume. The book draws on Zimbabwe as a case study, to demonstrate the critical aspects that define theory and real estate practice in various contexts - national, regional and international.
What happens at the nexus of the digital divide and human trafficking? This book examines the impact of the introduction of new digital information and communication technology (ICT) as well as lack of access to digital connectivity on human trafficking. The different studies presented in the chapters show the realities for people moving along the Central Mediterranean route from the Horn of Africa through Libya to Europe. The authors warn against an over-optimistic view of innovation as a solution and highlight the relationship between technology and the crimes committed against vulnerable people in search of protection. In this volume, the third in a four-part series Connected and Mobile: Migration and Human Trafficking in Africa, relevant new theories are proposed as tools to understand the dynamics that appear in mobile Africa. Most importantly, the editors identify critical ethical issues in relation to both technology and human trafficking and the nexus between them, helping explore the dimensions of new responsibilities that need to be defined. The chapters in this book represent a collection of well-documented empirical investigations by a young and diverse group of researchers, addressing critical issues in relation to innovation and the perils of our time.
What happens when digital innovation meets migration? Roaming Africa considers how we understand modern-day mobility in Africa, where age-old routes strengthen the resilience of people roaming the continent for livelihoods and security, assisted by mobile communication. Digital mobility expands connectivity around the world, and also in Africa. In this book, the authors show that mobility, resilience and social protection in the digital age are closely related. Each chapter takes a close look at the migration dynamics in a specific context, using social theory as a lens. This book adopts a critical perspective on approaches in which migration is regarded merely as a hazard. Edited by distinguished scholars from Africa and Europe, this volume, the second in a four-part series Connected and Mobile: Migration and Human Trafficking in Africa, compiles chapters from a diverse group of young and upcoming scholars, making an important contribution to the literature on migration studies, digital science, social protection and governance.
In 2005, a United Nations study reported that half of the world's languages (estimated at 6,000) would disappear by the end of this century. A third of these endangered languages are in Africa where, according to the same study, nearly 250 languages have disappeared in the last century. Language is the heart, identity, storage system for the collective and unique memory and experience of every culture, people, including their natural habitat. Loss of language means loss of the ability to retain and pass on not just a belief system but also invaluable knowledge to future generations. This English-Lekongho/Lekongho-English Dictionary is a modest first attempt to minimize the envisaged sad phenomenon of language loss. Nkongho-Mbo people speak Lekongho, one of the five variants of the Mbo language of the Mbo ethnic group of Cameroon, with their ancestral home in the Kupe Muanenguba Administrative Area of the South-west Region. With this book, the authors' fervent hope is that there will no longer surface any justification to continue to refrain from speaking Lekongho on a daily basis. This effort will help to regionalize, nationalize and internationalize the Lekongho language since Nkongho people are spread all over the country, Africa and the world.
International Law in Namibia
(2019)
This book provides readers with the knowledge necessary to fully understand how international law carved the history and life of Namibia. It observes that Namibia has benefited from and contributed to international law in a way that shaped that countrys political and socio-economic development and to an extent that few other countries experienced. For many a year since Namibia achieved Independence on 21 March 1990 and established the Faculty of Law at the University of Namibia in 1992, students and lecturers have relied on materials from South Africa, despite the fact that Namibian law has since then grown apart from its South African heritage. It is high time for lecturers and students in Namibia to teach and learn with a textbook that analyses international law from the distinct standpoint of Namibia and that views the nations legal interactions with other states through its own prism! And this textbook aims to do just that. Through its 19 chapters, this book informs readers about international law, its sources, international treaties, Namibian statehood, dispute resolution, the use of force, human rights, Namibias economic relations with the outside world (including the Southern African Customs Union), and the law of the sea. Namibian courts have in their own way followed the rules of international law scrupulously, but as this book shows international law nonetheless remains the source of Namibian law that lawyers apply the least. Accordingly, this book underlines the significance, the practical utility, and the relevance of international law in the unique Namibian context.
Humanity has extensively exploited natural and physical resources, since the Industrial Revolution in Europe. A geological era, now called the Anthropocene, has been coined in environmental and developmental circles, to mark the increased domination of humanity on Earth and its resources. Today, the ecological footprint on the fragile planet continues to increase. Mass industrialisation, like what China is doing and pushing for, is one of the drivers for increased urbanisation that results in increased demand for land. It is also the stimulus behind increased deforestation, overfishing, and pollution. As the fragility of the Earth increases, global bodies like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are pushing to reduce the Earths temperature. Human efforts to manage the problem cascade from a global to a regional, to a national, as well as to much localised scales. Missing though are nuanced contributions at national and community levels, which this book is an attempt to bridge. The nagging sense of responsibility is what this book explores under the label of sustainability ethic. As a case study, the book examines the use of sustainability ethic in the management of the physical, infrastructural and natural resources of Zimbabwe. This ethic is built on pillars that include participation of people (households) in their pursuit for sustainable livelihoods, appropriate technology, tools and techniques for environmental protection. It also hinges on stewardship and structures, institutions, policies and processes of governance and sustainability. There are also the aspects of ethics, laws and indigenous technical knowledge for sustainability, capacity building and education plans and programmes for sustainability and population and demographic determinants, processes and outcomes for sustainability. The book is a timely contribution to an urgent global concern and climate change debate.
Dispatches from the Village
(2019)
In this book, Chris Mabeza takes the reader through a breath taking journey of the vicissitudes of village life in Zimbabwe from the colonial days to the present. This, at a time when telling African stories is enjoying a Risorgimento. Thus, in essence Mabeza 'throws his fingers in the wind' and catches the zeitgeist of African storytelling. The stories leave the reader spellbound. Dispatches from the village has its finger on the pulse of the people. This gorgeous collection of short stories is a product of immersive thick descriptions of rural life as it intersects with urban life. The author grapples with the effects of what has generally been observed as the 'brutish and nasty new normal'. The rural landscape has not been spared the vagaries of this new normal. However, when overwhelmed by the tsunami of negative news that permeate our media, pick-up Dispatches from the village to soothe yourself.
Colonial scholars have taken immense pleasure in portraying Africans as possessed by spirits but as lacking possession and ownership of their resources, including land. Erroneously deemed to be thoroughly spiritually possessed but lacking senses of material possession and ownership of resources, Africans have been consistently dispossessed and displaced from the era of enslavement, through colonialism, to the neocolonial era. Delving into the historiography of dispossession and displacement on the continent of Africa, and in particular in Zimbabwe, this book also tackles contemporary forms of dispossession and displacement manifesting in the ongoing transnational corporations land grabs in Africa, wherein African peasants continue to be dispossessed and displaced. Focusing on the topical issues around dispossession and repossession of land, and the attendant displacements in contemporary Zimbabwe, the book theorises displacements from a decolonial Pan-Africanist perspective and it also unpacks various forms of displacements - corporeal, noncorporeal, cognitive, spiritual, genealogical and linguistic displacements, among others. The book is an excellent read for scholars from a variety of disciplines such as Geography, Sociology, Social Anthropology, History, Linguistics, Development Studies, Science and technology Studies, Jurisprudence and Social Theory, Law and Philosophy. The book also offers intellectual grit for policy makers and implementers, civil society organisations including activists as well as thinkers interested in decolonisation and transformation.
Corrupt business and management practices exist at all levels within the public hospital system (PHS) in Cameroon and are of increasing concern among the polity as the perceptions of key stakeholders who work within the system has not been examined for helping to diminish it. In particular, these practices are affecting the well-being and socioeconomic development of its denizens. The purpose of this research was to provide further understanding of how to diminish corrupt business and management practices that continue to lead to increased monetary cost to individuals and delays in seeking preventative care within the PHS. Stakeholder theory provided a starting point for understanding and explaining the perceptions of stakeholders about corruption within the context of agency governance. The results indicated that staff/client influence rather than only lack of motivation was a rationale for accepting bribes. It also revealed diversion, where physicians keep drugs and sell to patients.
Tracing recent bouts of globalised Mugabephobia to Robert Mugabes refusal to be neoimperially penetrated, this book juxtaposes economic liberalisation with the mounting liberalisation of African orifices. Reading land repossession and economic structural adjustment programmes together with what they call neoimperial structural adjustment of African orifices, the authors argue that there has been liberalisation of African orifices in a context where Africans are ironically prevented from repossessing their material resources. Juxtaposing recent bouts of Mugabephobia with discourses on homophobia, the book asks why empire prefers liberalising African orifices rather than attending to African demands for restitution, restoration and reparations. Noting that empire opposes African sovereignty, autonomy, and centralisation of power while paradoxically promoting transnational corporations centralisation of power over African economies, the book challenges contemporary discourses about shared sovereignty, distributed governance, heterarchy, heteronomy and onticology. Arguing that colonialists similarly denied Africans of their human essence, the tome problematises queer sexualities, homosexuality, ecosexuality, cybersexuality and humanoid robotic sexuality all of which complicate supposedly fundamental distinctions between human beings and animals and machines. Provocatively questioning queer sexuality and liberalised orifices that serve to divert African attention from the more serious unfinished business of repossessing material resources, the book insightfully compares Robert Gabriel Mugabe, Thomas Sankara and Julius Kambarage Nyerere who emphasised the imperatives of African autonomy, ownership, control and sovereignty over natural resources. Observing Africans interest in repossessing ownership and control over their resources, the book wonders why so much, queer, international attention is focused on foisting queer sexuality while downplaying more burning issues of resource repossession, human dignity, equality and equity craved by Africans for whom life is not confined to sexuality. With insights for scholars in sociology, development studies, law, politics, African studies, anthropology, transformation, decolonisation and decoloniality, the book argues that liberal democracy is a façade in a world that is actually ruled through criminocracy.
Anthropological reflections on citizenship focus on themes such as politics, ethnicity and state management. Present day scholarship on citizenship tends to problematise, unsettle and contest often taken-for- granted conventional connotations and associations of citizenship with imagined culturally bounded political communities of rigidly controlled borders. This book, the result of two years of research conducted by South African and Japanese scholars within the framework of a bilateral project on citizenship in the 21st century, contributes to such ongoing efforts at rethinking citizenship globally, and as informed by experiences in Africa and Japan in particular. Central to the essays in this book is the concept of flexible citizenship, predicated on a recognition of the histories of mobility of people and cultures, and of the shaping and reshaping of places and spaces, and ideas of being and belonging in the process. The book elucidates the contingency of political membership, relationship between everyday practices and political membership, and how citizenship is the mechanism for claiming and denying rights to various political communities. Self requires others to construct itself, a reality that is subject to renegotiation as one continues to encounter others in a world characterised by myriad forms of interconnecting mobilities, both global and local. Citizenship is thus to be understood within a complex of power relationships that include ones formed by laws and economic regimes on a local scale and beyond. Citizenship in Africa, Japan and, indeed, everywhere is best explored productively as lying between the open-ended possibilities and tensions interconnecting the global and local.
This book explores a collective understanding of the perception and treatment of borders in Africa. The notion of boundary is universal as boundaries are also an important part of human social organization. Through the ages, boundaries have remained the container by which national space is delineated and contained. For as long as there has been human society based on territoriality and space, there have been boundaries. With their dual character of exclusivism and inclusivism, states have proven to adopt a more structural approach to the respect of the former in consciousness of the esteem of international law governing sovereignty and territorial integrity. However, frontier peoples and their realities have often opted for the latter situation, imposing a more functionalist perception of these imaginary lines and prompting a border opinion shift to a more blurring form of representation and meaning in most African communities. This collective multidisciplinary effort of understanding how tangible and intangible borders have influenced Africas attitude and existence for ages is worthy in its own rights. The difference between what borders are and what they are not to a people is the mere product of their own estimations and practices, a disposition that leads the contributors to this book to study borders beyond states or nations and how borders are crossed or transferred from one point to the other for the convenience of their histories and being.
This book focuses on the work of one of the leading African scholars on the land question and agrarian transformation in AfricaSam Moyo. It offers a critical discussion, in conversation with Sam Moyo, of the land question and the response of African states. Since independence, African states have been trying to address the colonial legacy on land policy and governance. After six decades of formulating and implementing land reforms, most countries have not succeeded in decolonising approaches to land policy and the administrative framework. The book brings together the broader debates on the implications of decolonisation of Africas land policy. Through case studies from several African countries, the book offers an empirical analysis on land reforms and the emerging land relations, and how these affect land allocation and use, including agricultural production. Most of the chapters discuss how the unresolved land question in post-colonial Africa impacts on agricultural production and rural development broadly. The failure to decolonise colonial land policy and the imported tenure systems has left post-colonial African states dancing to two tunes, resulting in schizophrenic land and agrarian policies. The book demonstrates that the failure by African states to reconcile imported and indigenous land tenure systems and practices is evident in the deliberate denigration of customary tenure. It is also evident in the rising land inequality and the neglect of the agricultural sector, the small-scale and subsistence sub-sectors in particular.
Sierra Leone experienced 11 years civil war after the incursion of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) from adjacent Liberia. The war of Sierra Leone is one of the most researched in Africa. However, the foci of studies are mostly on the RUF. Other armed groups are not sufficiently studied. This book focuses on the governmental side of the Kamajor and the Civil Defence Force (CDF). Kamajors were community-based vigilantes mobilised by paramount chiefs in various Mende communities. During the course of the war, the government organised Kamajors into a pro-governmental militia, the CDF. This book examines how human networks worked in the course of the formation of Kamajor and of the CDF. Even though the roles of human networks have been discussed in the realm of African politics, they have been left hypothetical. Few studies demonstrate the whole picture on how neopatrimonialism, patron client relations or informal networks function within an organisation. This book describes the course of Kamajor/CDF along with functions of the human networks. In the networks, the threads of human relations are interwoven by subsuming the local, the international and the global dimensions of the armed conflict. Some connect to governmental figures. Others have transnational networks in adjacent Liberia. In the changing situations of the war, some of the relations are maintained, while some relations are disintegrated. Those who emerge as prominent figures in the Kamajor/CDF use their own human networks to obtain resources for the Kamajor/CDF, which in turn, afford themselves higher positions in the force.
Genocide has been called the crime of crimes and an odious scourge. With millions of victims in the last century alone, it is one of the great moral and political challenges of our age. Despite the challenges, such human cruelty has not stopped. The 21st century is recording its first genocide in Cameroon with only a scanty few raising a finger. The significance of the odious scourge has compelled Tatah Mentan to research on the trajectory of the scourge in Africa over the past centuries. The targeted ongoing mass killings in Cameroon, like those of Rwanda before, have driven the scholar to expand his focus beyond the Holocaust, which had long been the primary case study. In this book, Tatah Mentan explains that these cases were not merely a human catastrophe, nor an atavistic reversion to the barbarism of a past epoch, but rather an event produced by the unfolding of the logic of capitalism itself. This book therefore critically explores the essence of capitalism as genocide in Africa and its consequences on Africans during their colonisation and incorporation into the European-dominated racialised capitalist world system in the late 18th century. It uses multidimensional, comparative methods, and critical approaches to explain the dynamic interplay among social structures, human agency, and terror to explain the connection between structural capitalist terrorism and the emergence of the capitalist world system. Tatah Mentan proposes a genuine participatory democratic alternative to the unending genocide nightmares. Nurturing participatory attitudes, would facilitate and reinforce self-management, and educate and empower individuals and dispossessed and under-represented communities to seek self-determination and democratic participation in the political arena. Tatah Mentan concludes that the same fundamental commitments that urge humanity to promote participatory political democracy should compel them to promote truly inclusive economic democracy as well. Political economists, historians, students, corporate managers and policy makers at national and international levels are invited to share the insights of this book.
Zero Point Soldier
(2019)
It took two years for this collection of poems to see the light of day. Two years. Two whole years. But two whole years of thinking, feeling and working through and from one of the strangest and certainly most torturous facts of life on Earth, and one of the least explored themes in the world of the modern woman of Africa, or my world, at least. This is the fact of Death. But not the fact of the death of all. Not the fact of the death of any. It is that of the modern man, the man, of Africa.
Kenyas nationalism during the colonial period was marked by two main characteristics that feature in this book. First, the struggle for independence that was mainly characterized by the claim for land that had been taken away by the colonizers. Second was the struggle for autonomy and self-determination, mainly through political resistance. The authors in this book analyse historical trajectories of Kenya's nationalism trends while highlighting the role of political leaders, large as well as small ethnic groups, perennial conflicts, community as well as religious leaders, among others. The discussions demonstrate that quest for a national identity that is inclusive at all levels whether politically, economically, religiously and ethnically has marked Kenya's struggle for nationalism, sometimes leading to violence, especially during election periods, national unity through political coalitions and reconciliation, as well as institutional reforms. In conclusion, the authors demonstrate that while Kenya is gradually advancing towards national cohesion, there are still many challenges yet to be surmounted.
Zimbabwe Will Never be a Colony Again! : Sanctions and Anti-Imperialist Struggles in Zimbabwe
(2019)
This is a thought-provoking original book, based on a wealth of empirical case studies of how Zimbabwe experienced illegal economic sanctions. It is a study of how the humanly constructed obstructions - from external remittances/finance flows into the country to finance embargos or total financial blockages - are deliberately created by so-called 'powerful' governments to deal with an 'errand' country. The infamous Zimbabwe Democracy Economic Recovery Act of 2001 (ZDERA) is part of a raft of punitive measures and discourses that the USA, UK and Europe used to make the economy, in the words of US's Chester Crooker 'scream'. It is the same 'powerful' countries who allow their Multinational Corporations to loot while they impose sanctions against African governments and their peoples to make them scream. The book is an insightful contribution on Africa's contemporary post-colonial liberation politics of development economics. It focuses on Zimbabwe as a synthesis of microcosmic study that provides accessible in-depth analysis of key aspects of sanctions as a weapon of control wielded by the so-called 'powerful' governments of the Global North. Zimbabwe was clobbered with post-independence economic sanctions after its land reform programme, which benefitted its mostly colonially dispossessed African citizens. The land reform was intended as a reversal of colonial injustice and a counter restitutive measure against imperialism. The book invites the reader to see power differently: as compassion and the capacity to right past wrongs by protecting all and sundry from inequality and poverty. Sanctions, even when called targeted, are non-discriminatory as they affect ordinary citizens with the same ferocity and savagery as against intended target, albeit often missing the target. Sanctions are lethal. Sanctions are a graveyard for the poor, weak and vulnerable. This is an idea of power that the Global North failed to grasp when they decided to punish the Mugabe government for daring to contemplate justice and restitution.
Violence in its various proportions, genres and manifestations has had an enduring historical legacy the world over. However, works speaking to approaches aimed at mitigating violence characteristic of Africa are very limited. As some scholars have noted, Africans have experienced cycles of violence since the pre-colonial epoch, such that overt violence has become banalised on the African continent. This has had the effect of generating complex results, legacies and perennial emotional wounds that call for healing, reconciliation, justice and positive peace. Yet, in the absence of systematic and critical approaches to the study of violence on the continent, discourses on violence would hardly challenge the global matrices of violence that threaten peace and development in Africa. This volume is a contribution in the direction of such urgently needed systematic and critical approaches. It interrogates, from different angles and with inspiration from a multidisciplinary perspective, the contentious production and resilience of violence in Africa. It calls for a paradigm shift an alternative approach that forges and merges African customary dispute resolution and Western systems of dispute resolution towards a framework of positive peace, holistic restoration, sustainable development and equity. The book is a welcome contribution to students and practitioners in security studies, African studies, development studies, global studies, policy studies, and political science.
Dont sit on your stool, watching life go by, insists Soutcho Lydie Touré. In this collection of reflections written over a decade, she explores insecurities and vulnerabilities, with which many a reader will relate. She shares about loneliness and feeling different and goes on to ponder everyday life in Politicking and VDN a memorable highway in Dakar which pedestrians must cross under the mocking smile of the sun. Touré draws on experiences and insights from her life betwixt and between West Africa and North America. In her verses, spiced with nature, color, joy, humor and fantasy, questions and answers compete equally for the readers attention. A veritable source of confidence in the force of life and love. Confidence that makes one grow wings.
Highlighting the problematiques of working with a narrow version of greenhouse effects or global warming, this book posits the theory of necroclimatism that encompasses broader versions of greenhouse effects and global warming. Conceiving cultures, societies, moral sensibilities, epistemologies, polities, economies, legal systems and religions of the formerly colonised peoples as greenhoused and entrapped in the heat of global apartheid and neo-colonialism, the book refuses to be confined to the pufferies of physical conceptualisations of greenhousing and global warming. Underlining the supposed disposability and dispensability of colonised peoples, the notion of necroclimatism explicates ways in which some people suffer various forms of death, which have increasingly become a feature of global apartheid and neo-colonialism that are cast in spectral sacrificial logics. Deemed to constitute disposable bodies, disposable cultures, disposable polities, disposable societies, disposable epistemologies, disposable religions, disposable laws and disposable economies, the sacrificed are, in the age of climate catastrophism, once again reminded that they have duties to die, to become extinct in order to save the global spaceship that is sinking due to climate change and global warming. This book therefore argues that in a sacrificial world (dis)order, binaries between humans and animals, good and evil, moral and immoral, the dead and the living necessarily vanish in the nefarious logic of what marks the era of climate catastrophism and the attendant necroclimatism. The book further argues that a sacrificial world (dis)order is necessarily a posthumanist and postanthropocentric world (dis)order, which should be never granted space in African worlds and even beyond. The book thus, raises fundamental questions for African anticipatory regimes, and for this reason it is handy for scholars in political science, sociology, social anthropology, development studies, environmental studies, agricultural studies, legal studies, food science, geography, religious studies and decolonial fields of studies.
At the heart of 21st century discourses are questions of whose lives may matter more than others. While the debates themselves are not new, the #hashtags they are linked to and the media through which concerns around moralities of living together are expressed allow for debates to reach large numbers of people in accelerated, individualised and accessible ways. The new media have been powerful in (re)igniting debates and (re)activating demands for social change. Yet, the focus of ubiquitous #hashtags on binary positions may render it easy to neglect their nuances and facets. In recognition of grey-zones, contradictions and ambiguities, this ethnography focuses on a suburb of Cape Town, Observatory, and its recently revived Neighbourhood Watch as an urban renewal project and attempt to decrease notions of vulnerability to crime and violence. In Observatory considered to be liberal and bohemian by its inhabitants the framing of topics within the Neighbourhood Watch group often take on an abstract, intellectualised form. Nevertheless, the group with its rather clashing ideals is grounded in and fuelled by recycled crime stories as well as snapshots of suspected criminals that continue to reappear via various social media channels. Individual experiences, stories and inner conflicts of local Neighbourhood Watch members are at the centre of this exploratory engagement with how fear becomes embodied, everyday practice and the ways in which desires for relationality and spatial exclusivity become entangled in a place where every life matters only in principle.
As the world today faces messy problems, what in some circles has been called global weirding, the term resilience has taken centre stage. This is crunch time - as we grapple with the negative effects of both climate change and urbanisation. Some commentators have compared the huge problems we face today to Oom Schalk's proverbial leopard waiting for us in the withaak's shade. Do we endlessly count Oom Schalk's proverbial leopard's spots? This is the question posed by a stellar cast of academics, researchers, and experts whose contributions in this text is a rallying cry for action to build resilience to the challenging impact of urbanisation and climate change. To that end, this volume gives hope about the potential for human agency. Our challenge however, is to re-examine our values, to change our conservation conversation and return to a more wise and holistic understanding of ourselves and our place in the Universe. Perhaps, then only can the obituaries on our demise stay locked in the drawer.
Telecommunications Law and Practice in Nigeria -Perspectives on Consumer Protection is intended primarily to provide an indigenous source of information on the theoretical and legal framework of the regulation of telecommunications in Nigeria with respect to how such legal framework assists in addressing the consumers problems in the field of telecommunications. The book covers the evolution of telecommunications the world over and its variant in Nigeria, a variety of issues including the early controlling organs, regulatory regimes, the deregulation era, interconnectivity and privacy law, telecommunications and intellectual property, international trade and drafting of international trade contracts, encryption technology and privacy in telecommunications. The book should be an invaluable companion on the Nigerian telecommunications law and practice with perspectives on consumer protection.
The Law of Banking in Nigeria - Principles, Statutes and Guidelines captures the general principles of banking law, statutes and guidelines relating to banking transactions. The book is presented in a very simple, precise, and clear language and contains three parts of thirty-one chapters in all covering the general principles of banking. It should create considerable awareness among the general public, law students, law teachers, bank customers as well as banks and bankers. Most certainly, it is a book that will assist the students and researchers in this area of law in wading through the general principles of banking law as well as the numerous Legislation and Guidelines on banking business.
Two Mothers and Son explores the seeming needless, perpetual conflict between wife and mother-in-law in a typical African marriage; it is set in twenty-first century Nigeria which itself is a victim of conflicting and confusing interruptions of life. The son who is at the centre of it all, is caught between two loves, both possessive and obsessive, equally important but suffocating in a most debilitating manner. Added to this is the issue of religion which attempts to resolve the crisis but inadvertently contributes to the sad resolution of the conflict.
White Masks
(2019)
This collection of poetry both reflects and creates attitudes that we now regard as characteristic of our age - the crisis of nationhood and the burden of citizenship. Abi Yeibo's White Masks unambiguously exposes the dystopian nightmares of a nation and a people's willing detachment from humanity. While some poets of his generation are content with dreaming of an ideal world, in White Masks, Yeibo, through the resources of memory, experiments with the idea of a better world - Professor Ogaga Okuyade, Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island, Bayelsa State, Nigeria.
State and Society in Nigeria
(2019)
The first edition of State and Society in Nigeria, published in 1980, was and remains a dominant influence in teaching, research, policy and practice of state-society relations in Nigeria for more than a generation. The volume of essays has remained one of the most cited in the field ? testimony to its enduring content and perspective as well as the beauty, accessibility and clarity of its language. This new edition revisits, extends and reconsiders aspects of the first edition in light of developments in the literature since 1980 and offers new insights and interpretations on issues of political economy, politics, and sociology such as the country?s Civil War (1967-1970) the political economy of oil, debt, and democratization and the complexities and ethnic identities and rivalries and religious accommodation and conflict, and of the multiple ways in which they intersect with one another.
This anthology is an outcome of literary writers reaction to the Boko Haram insurgency in the north-eastern part of Nigeria. Lives therein have not only been extensively disrupted by the groups violent tactics and the mind-numbing levels of physical destruction and thousands of deaths, but also in the dislocation of millions of people, with most of them seeking refuge in urban centres, especially Maiduguri, for safety. These refugees, classified as Internally Displaced Persons and in camps guarded by Nigerian soldiers, have received worldwide attention. Writers in the affected areas and elsewhere in Nigeria have responded in their poetry, short stories, and non-fiction some of which are collected here.
Herding South
(2019)
In Herding South, Peter Omoko spotlights the dispossessed and dystopian fate of minority groups in Nigeria, and the fractured social equilibrium that pervades the land, with its polarising and destructive effect on the peoples psyche. Writing essentially as a troubled witness, the poet navigates through the horrifying pains and trauma of a people, instigated by the ineptitude and narrow-mindedness of their leadership. Omokos intention in this collection to speak home-truth to power in order to reclaim the peoples humanity is well delineated in the sardonic and emotive metaphors used in the poetry and the rhetorical force of its lines.
This book is a compendium of the law relating to contractual obligations and covers specific areas of law of contract, sale of goods contract, hire purchase contract, agency contract, labour contract, banking contract, insurance contract in Nigeria. Essentially, it summarises the basic principles of contractual obligations that are prevalent in day-to-day engagements.
In the Linguistic Paradise is the second volume in the Nigerian Linguists Festschrift Series. The motivating force behind the establishment of the Festschrift Series is to honour outstanding scholars who have excelled in the study of languages and linguistics in Nigeria. This volume is dedicated to Professor E. Nolue Emenanjo, a celebrated linguist and a pioneer professor of Igbo Linguistics. The book is organised in five sections, as follows: Language, History and Society; Literature, Stylistics and Pragmatics; Applied Linguistics; Formal Linguistics; and Tributes. There are 15 papers in the first section the majority address the perennial problem of language choice in Nigeria. Section two contains 10 papers focusing on literature, stylistics and pragmatics. Section three contains 17 papers a sizeable number of which focus on language teaching and learning, two are on lexicography, while others are on language engineering. Section three contains 16 papers focusing on the core areas of linguistics. In section four a biographical profile of Professor E. Nolue Emenanjo and list of publications is presented, while Nwadike examines the contributions of Emenanjo in Igbo Studies.
Namibias main liberation movement, the South West Africa Peoples Organisation (SWAPO), relied heavily on outside support for its armed struggle against South Africas occupation of what it called South West Africa. While East Germanys solidarity with Namibias struggle for national self-determination has received attention, little research has been done on West Germanys policy towards Namibia, which must be seen against the backdrop of inter-German rivalry. The impact of the wider realities of the Cold War on Namibias rocky path to independence leaves ample room for research and new interpretations. In West Germany and Namibias Path to Independence, 1969-1990: Foreign Policy and Rivalry with East Germany, Thorsten Kern shows that German division played a vital role in West Germanys position towards Namibia during the Cold War. West German foreign policy towards Namibia, at the height of the Namibian liberation struggle, is investigated and discussed against the backdrop of rivalry with East Germany. The two states deeply diverging policies, characterised in this context by competition for infuence over SWAPO, were strongly affected by the Cold War rivalry between the capitalist West and the communist East. Yet ultimately the dynamics of rapprochement helped to bring about Namibias independence. This book is based upon a doctoral dissertation presented to the University of Cape Town in 2016. Kern conducted research in the National Archives of Namibia and in German archives and his work draws on interviews with contemporary witnesses.
Modern-day Namibian history has largely been shaped by three major eras: German colonial rule, South African apartheid occupation, and the Liberation Struggle. It was, however, not only military conquest that laid the cornerstone for the colony, but also how the colony was imagined, the dream of this colony. As a tool of discursive worldmaking, literature has played a major role in providing a framework in which to dream Namibia, first from outside its borders, and then from within. In Fictioning Namibia as a Space of Desire, Renzo Baas employs Henri Lefebvres city-countryside dialectic and reworks it in order to uncover how fictional texts played an integral part in the violent acquisition of a foreign territory. Through the production of myths around whiteness, German and South African authors designed a literary space in which control, destruction, and the dehumanisation of African peoples are understood as a natural order, one that is dictated by history and its linear continuation. These European texts are offset by Namibias first novel by an African, offering a counter-narrative to the colonial invention that was (German) South West Africa.
Namibian beer is celebrated as an inextricable part of Namibian nationalism, both within domestic borders and across global markets. But for decades on end, the same brew was not available to the black population as a consequence of colonial politics. This book aims to explain how a European style beer has been transformed from an icon of white settlers into a symbol of the independent Namibian nation. The unusual focus on beer offers valuable insight into the role of companies in identity formation and thus highlights an understudied aspect of Namibian history, namely business-state relations.
In June 2016, the Norwegian Programme for Capacity Development in Higher Education and Research for Development (Norhed) hosted a conference on the theme of 'knowledge for development' in an attempt to shift the focus of the programme towards its academic content. This book follows up on that event. The conference highlighted the usefulness of presenting the value of Norhed's different projects to the world, showing how they improve knowledge and expand access to it through co-operation. A wish for more meta-knowledge was also expressed and this gives rise to the following questions: Is this way of co-operating contributing to the growth of independent post-colonial knowledge production in the South, based on analyses of local data and experiences in ways that are relevant to our shared future? Does the growth of academic independence, as well as greater equality, and the ability to develop theories different to those imposed by the better-off parts of the world, give rise to deeper understandings and better explanations? Does it, at least, spread the ability to translate existing methodologies in ways that add meaning to observations of local context and data, and thus enhance the relevance and influence of the academic profession locally and internationally? This book, in its varied contributions, does not provide definite answers to these questions but it does show that Norhed is a step in the right direction. Norhed is an attempt to fund collaboration within and between higher education institutions. We know that both the uniqueness of this programme, and ideas of how to better utilise the learning and experience emerging from it, call for more elaboration and broader dissemination before we can offer further guidance on how to do things better. This book is a first attempt.
African markets and the utu-ubuntu business model : a perspective on economic informality in Nairobi
(2019)
The persistence of indigenous African markets in the context of a hostile or neglectful business and policy environment makes them worthy of analysis. An investigation of Afrocentric business ethics is long overdue. Attempting to understand the actions and efforts of informal traders and artisans from their own points of view, and analysing how they organise and get by, allows for viable approaches to be identified to integrate them into global urban models and cultures. Using the utu-ubuntu model to understand the activities of traders and artisans in Nairobi's markets, this book explores how, despite being consistently excluded and disadvantaged, they shape urban spaces in and around the city, and contribute to its development as a whole. With immense resilience, and without discarding their own socio-cultural or economic values, informal traders and artisans have created a territorial complex that can be described as the African metropolis. African Markets and the Utu-buntu Business Model sheds light on the ethics and values that underpin the work of traders and artisans in Nairobi, as well as their resilience and positive impact on urbanisation. This book makes an important contribution to the discourse on urban economics and planning in African cities.
A Name That Is Mine
(2019)
In this poetry collection, Mbuh Mbuh Tennu offers a virulent indictment of the multifarious faces of pain which have lent a dystopian colouring to our world. These poems are all at once, songs of lament, regret, defiance and protest. The idea of naming which is a central motif underscores the dangers of being foreign named; which implies being claimed and owned and more importantly the imperative of self-naming to claim a name and to own that name; to self-define and to defy attempts to contravene this. This is a collection for our time; our timelessness. It is an urgent, reflective and incisive call to stay awake and be actors of our history.
Two women, one from the Netherlands and the other one from the Free State Goldfields, meet in a hospital hall in Bloemfontein. Fifty years later Hester tells the story of how life formed them as nurses, community workers, bakers, artists and life partners. In this memoir, she tells of the key moments in her life that led her to leave the strictures of her upbringing in order to find out who she was. Her decisions take her from the Free State to District Six and Venda, to the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, to Heideveld and Hanover Park and, eventually, to McGregor. Her humble story tells of the spiritual isolation of all 'refugees' who leave the irreversible values of their 'home' (whether physical or ideological) and find new ways to create a life. It also describes the wonder of finding love and a partner along the way.
An honest exploration of dislocation and (un)belonging in its forms: exile from language, exile from country, and exile from sanity. In her debut collection of poetry, Ndoro divides and intermingles national and personal history in an attempt to reach herself. Within its fragmented prose and lyrical poems, Agringanda is not only a celebrated capture of language but also of its intriguing subversion as it navigates meetings of class, gender, nationality and race.
The thirty-nine stories in Asleep Awake Asleep can be read as a hand-drawn narrative map, charting the course of a country's turbulent history. Together they tell a coming of age and a coming to consciousness story, as Rip - child, adult, journalist, partner, mother - revisits milestones marked and signposts ignored or unseen. Set in the suburbs and newsrooms of South African towns and cities and their wilder surrounds, there are vignettes of relationships; tales of political assassinations, murder and betrayal, and questions asked about complicity and reparation.
The Unfamous Five
(2019)
Seeking adventure during the school holidays, five teenagers from the Indian suburb of Lenasia accidentally witness a violent crime that has a lasting impact on their lives. Starting in June of 1993, the novel follows the Five through the next decade as they confront, both as individuals and as a group, questions of who they are, who they are allowed to be, and who they are expected to be in the New South Africa. They must query what role they will allow tradition, ancestry, sexuality, skin colour, love, money and culture to play in their lives as they attempt to forge new paths, sometimes stumbling along the way, but always willing to give one another a helping hand.
Food Security in Africa's Secondary Cities: No : The Oshakati-Ongwediva-Ondangwa Corridor, Namibia
(2019)
This is the first research report to examine the nature and drivers of food insecurity in the northern Namibian towns of Oshakati, Ongwediva, and Ondangwa. As well as forming part of a new body of research on secondary urbanization and food security in Africa, the report makes systematic comparisons between the food security situation in this urban corridor and the much larger capital city of Windhoek. A major characteristic of urbanization in Namibia is the perpetuation of rural-urban linkages through informal rural-to-urban food remittances. This survey found that 55% of households in the three towns receive food from relatives in rural areas. Urban households also farm in nearby rural areas and incorporate that agricultural produce into their diets. The survey showed that over 90% of households in the three towns patronize supermarkets, which is a figure far higher than for any other food source. Overall, food security is better in Namibia's northern towns than in Windhoek, where levels of food insecurity are particularly high. However, just because the food insecurity situation is less critical in the north, the majority of households in the urban corridor are not food secure. Like Windhoek, these towns also have considerable income and food security inequality, with households in the informal settlements at greatest risk of chronic food insecurity.
Très peu de personnes auront eu à traverser des temps aussi troublés que ceux que vécut Agathe Uwilingiyimana comme Premier ministre du Rwanda avant le génocide. Au sujet de cette femme de tête, ses idées et son action, bien des questions demeurent sans réponse. Qui la assassinée et pourquoi ? Aurait-elle tenté un putsch contre le Président Habyarimana ? Aurait-elle trempé dans le complot visant à assassiner ce dernier ? Comment entendait-elle sauver le pays du chaos et de la descente aux enfers après la disparition inopinée du Président de la République quelle avait si âprement combattu ? Était-elle maîtresse de ses décisions ou était-elle désinformée ou manipulée ? Pourquoi et comment cette enseignante récemment embarquée en politique a-t-elle été la cible privilégiée de la presse de caniveau, entre 1992 et 1994 ? Quel comportement exceptionnel a-t-elle eu pour que la patrie reconnaissante lélève au rang des héros dans lordre dImena ? Son royaume denfance, son adolescence et sa jeunesse préfiguraient-ils un destin si singulier ? À travers lectures, souvenirs, témoignages et anecdotes, son ami denfance nous offre un récit édifiant, court mais dense, qui nous fait découvrir la vie et la personnalité complexe et polymorphe de cette flamme éphémère dans la nuit rwandaise.
Issues of gender, marriage and family are at the heart of the main cultural wars of our time and have led to a number of legal and societal reforms in many African countries. These reforms, generally initiated by the state and dictated by the neoliberal model of human rights, often have to come to terms with local resistance, mainly from religious circles. What is the modus operandi of these reforms? What are the power relationships that structure them? How are they perceived and received by African societies? What are the terms of religious resistance? These questions are at the heart of this volume which examines the margins of docility and indocility of African societies to legal reforms aimed at promoting the neoliberal model of sexuality, marriage and the family. Emphasis is placed on the centrality of the state and the power struggle with other stakeholders in the deconstruction and reconstruction of gender relations. Few empirical studies have illustrated the issue of power struggles surrounding the social production of gender norms. This book is the outcome of an international conference organized at the Institute of Dignity and Human Rights of the Center for Research and Action for Peace (CERAP) in Abidjan, in June 2017, on the following theme: 'State, Religions and Gender in West and Central Africa'. The main objective of the conference was not only to highlight the results of a research project on the reception of the recent modification of the family code in Côte dIvoire but also to broaden the discussion to similar case studies in other countries of West and Central Africa such as Senegal, Niger, Benin, Cameroon and Mali.
Boxing is no Cakewalk! : Azumah 'Ring Professor' Nelson in the Social History of Ghanaian Boxing
(2019)
Boxing is no cakewalk! Azumah Ring Professor Nelson in the Social History of Ghanaian Boxing explores the social history of boxing in Ghana and its interesting nexus with the biography of Azumah Nelson, unquestionably Ghanas most celebrated boxer. The book posits that sports constitute more than mere games that people play. They are endowed with enormous political, cultural, economic and social power that can influence peoples lives in various ways. Boxing is no cakewalk! interrogates the social meaning and impact of boxing within the colonial and postcolonial milieux of popular culture in Ghana. Consequently, it reconsiders the prevailing conception of boxing as adversative to enlightened human culture by arguing that it is a positive formulator of individual and national identities. The historicising of sports and the lives of sportspersons in Ghana provides an eloquent backdrop for an understanding of the past social dynamics and their effect in the present. The books analytical narrative offers an intellectual contribution to the promising areas of social and cultural history in Ghanas historiography and the scholarly discourse on identity formation and social empowerment through the popular culture of sports.
Studies of Yoruba culture and performance tend to focus mainly on standardised forms of performance, and ignore the more prevalent performance culture which is central to everyday life. What the Forest Told Me conveys the elastic nature of African cultural expression through narratives of the Yoruba hunters' exploits. Hunters' narratives provide a window on the Yoruba understanding and explanation of their world; a cosmology that negates the anthropocentric view of creation. In a very literal sense, man, in this peculiar world, is an equal actor with animal and nature spirits with whom he constantly contests and negotiates space.
Gender Terrains in African Cinema reflects on a body of canonical African filmmakers who address a trajectory of pertinent social issues. Dipio analyses gender relations around three categories of female characters the girl child, the young woman and the elderly woman and their male counterparts. Although gender remains the focal point in this lucid and fascinating text, Dipio engages attention in her discussion of African feminism in relation to Western feminism. With its broad appeal to African humanities, Gender Terrains in African Cinema stands as a unique and radical contribution to the field of (African) film studies, which until now, has suffered from a paucity of scholarship.
There are little strokes that fell great oaks and often unattended cracks in a diversity of our socio-economic and political institutions can ultimately lead to a total collapse of systems. Cracks and Other Short Stories is an anthology that offers readers an insight into some of the major cracks in our personalities and institutions as a subtle means of encouraging everyone to investigate them further and seek lasting solutions for the good of humanity. Cracks signal that things are out of sorts and need timeous repair, healing and mending before systems become dysfunctional and torturous to humanity. Thus, each story in this impeccable collection deals with specific metaphorical cracks which require problem solving for the betterment of society.
Uwiruwiru hwazuro nhasi namangwana muunganidzwa wemanyukopfungwa atinopakurirwa nananyanduri vane unyanzvi hwekudzamisa ndangariro nekuumba zviumbwapfungwa zvinotekenyedza. Mashoko ari munhetembo idzi anoputika senhondo dzemusasa achitanda sedandemutande pakubata mazera ose uye zviitiko zvakasiyana-siyana zvinosanganikwa nazvo mukurarama kwevanhu. Vananyanduri vari mubhuku rino vakashandisa misambo nezvidavado zvinomwisa mvura kuumba nhapitapi dzenhetembo dzinoti kutekenyedza pfungwa, kuvaraidza nekudzidzisa hupenyu hune mutsa. Kuvaverengi vanhasi namangwana, heino mbuva yehupenyu, ibatisisei In this collection, in Shona, are essays by Zimbabwean poets; words in these poems explode like camp battles serving as a web for dealing with all ages and the various events involved in people's lives.
Getting Africa Out of the Dungeon : Human Rights, Federalism, and Judicial Politics in Cameroon
(2019)
Using one of the continents supposed pathfinders, Cameroon as case-study, this book interrogates judiciary in Africa in three domains. First, as the third branch of government, second, as the acknowledged umpire of federalism, and, finally, as a means of reversing the institutionalization of in-human rights and injustice administration in Africa. While examining the roots and causes of the persisting human rights and justice administration problems in Cameroon particularly, and Africa in general, the book through the tumbu-tumbu Long-Distance Government Theory (LDGT), argues for a rethinking and freeing of strategies currently used from close to a century of colonial and neo-colonial bondage, under the confusing covers of independence and of advanced democracy. The book challenges Africa to consider a mentality change, for a real judiciary transformative change. The book will interest legal practitioners, social anthropologists, development studies and political science practitioners, among other such practitioners in the social sciences and humanities.
Arguably, one of the long waited political handover of power, globally, happened in November 2017 in Zimbabwe when the former and now late 37- year long serving and divisive President, Robert Gabriel Mugabe was forced out of power by a combination of forces that were spearheaded by the militarys Operation Restore Legacy. Mugabes departure ushered in President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwas reign. This transition has variously been characterised as marking the inauguration of the Second Republic or New Dispensation or as heralding a new Zimbabwe that is Open for Business. From the moment of the investiture of President Mnangagwas government, anticipations of seismic changes to the order of doing business by both the incoming government and the larger Zimbabwean society in general, were extremely high. There was an expectation that international cooperation with global partners, especially in the West, would be restored alongside the reinvigoration of a near comatose domestic economy. But, did this ever happen? This volume interrogates the impact of the introduction of the Mnangagwa administration from November 2017. The book seeks to broadly dissect and troubleshoot issues of continuity and change from Mugabes reign into Mnangagwas Second Republic. In doing so the book attempts to respond to the grand question: To what extent has Mugabeism that was the hallmark of Mugabes reign, continued or discontinued into the Second Republic? The volume, which comes as a sequel to The end of an era? Robert Mugabe and a conflicting legacy, is sure to generate interest and responses from students and academics in the fields of History, International Studies, Political Science, Sociology and Social anthropology, as well as from practitioners in the human rights, transitional jusrtice, conflict resolution, security studies and diplomatic fields.
It is 1979. The first Commonwealth Heads of Government Summit on African soil is due to take place in Zambia, graced by Queen Elizabeth herself. Barely a week before this much anticipated event, a white British couple, Henry and Laura Hinckley, are brutally killed on their farm on the outskirts of the capital city, Lusaka. The unknown perpetrators are at large, their motive unclear. Fearing a media backlash, the British government applies pressure on the Zambian authorities to bring the culprits to book, threatening to cancel the Queen's trip altogether - a move that would result in huge embarrassment for the Zambian government. Detective Maxwell Chanda, head of the Special Crimes Investigative Unit, is the man tasked with leading the investigation. He is a wise, steady hand, but will he be able to piece together the seemingly disparate evidence in just five days? Will he be able to hold firm under the intense political pressure which insists on putting expediency above accuracy? Five Nights Before the Summit offers a rich tapestry of context and character in a story that engages the reader in the pursuit of justice.
Words That Matter
(2019)
Words That Matter attempts to spark conversation around social issues that are often neglected either for their lack of beauty or sheer rigidity. These issues are mainly cultural and political. It further seeks to community hope in its purest form, unfailing and evermore willingly to rewrite situations brightly however dark initially. Find thusly sarcasm and humour, folly and wisdom, discord and harmony, and death and life, all interwoven in revealing just how sound existence can be (or should be henceforth). Above all, get lost and find new paths in these verses!
It's been ten years since open data first broke onto the global stage. Over the past decade, thousands of programmes and projects around the world have worked to open data and use it to address a myriad of social and economic challenges. Meanwhile, issues related to data rights and privacy have moved to the centre of public and political discourse. As the open data movement enters a new phase in its evolution, shifting to target real-world problems and embed open data thinking into other existing or emerging communities of practice, big questions still remain. How will open data initiatives respond to new concerns about privacy, inclusion, and artificial intelligence? And what can we learn from the last decade in order to deliver impact where it is most needed? The State of Open Data brings together over 60 authors from around the world to address these questions and to take stock of the real progress made to date across sectors and around the world, uncovering the issues that will shape the future of open data in the years to come.
Blooming Cactus
(2019)
'From invisibility to invincibility, Mikateko takes us through verses of despair, assault, discrimination, fear and hopelessness that girls and women encountered in a system that does not serve their interests to the life of purpose, power and freedom that girls and women continue to wedge in the face of all odds. This is one anthology that has the power to break and mend you. Mikateko has freed us all!' - Dr. Toyin Ajao (PhD), Researcher, Teacher and Storyteller
Writing Grandmothers, Africa Vs Latin America Vol 2 is a continuation of the cross-continental anthologies series, particularly focussing on African and Latin American writers. It continues on from where Experimental Writing, Africa Vs Latin America, Vol 1. The anthology has 6 nonfiction pieces, 10 fiction pieces, and 67 poems and translations of poems in the two dominant languages of the two continents, English and Spanish. There is work from poets and writers from Honduras, Mexico, USA, UK, Cuba, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Chile Puerto Rico, Spain, Nigeria, South Africa, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Equatorial Guinea, and Ghana all collaborating on the theme of using the folktale or oral African story telling traditions and finding solutions to problems bedeviling the two continents, which were felt as a result of colonialism and or post colonialism.
Ouafa and Thawra is a nomadic collection: well-travelled and restless, but with roots firmly in revolutionary Tunisia, a tumultuous country - where people are sweet/ where even the hypocrisy is sweet. Arturo Desimone travels fearlessly between genres, too, with sketches deepening the reading experience and a postscript essay on Tunisia before and after the 'Arab Spring' adding context to the poems (and offering the controversial but sound claim that the Arab Spring was catalysed by the events of 2003 in Iraq). Desimone is wholly original: his poems simultaneously draw on a breathtaking, freewheeling sense of linguistic innovation, and on a timeless well of imagery and mythology.' - Jacob Silkstone, managing editor of Asymptote journal, co-founder of The Missing Slate
This book outlines the contribution of the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Conception (MIC Sisters) towards girl child education in Malawi with particular focus on the establishment, growth and development of Marymount Girls' Secondary School in Mzuzu., from 1963 to 2010. The appraisal by former students of Marymount, reveals the courage of the pioneering Sisters towards the empowerment of fellow women in places where they were sent to evangelize in spite of numerous challenges that they encountered in the process. The history of Marymount shows that education of the girl child provides a viable means to development and improvement of life at family, nation and world level.
The emergent so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution is regarded by some as a panacea for bringing about development to Africans. This book dismisses this flawed reasoning. Surfacing how investors are actually looting and plundering Africa; how the industrial internet of things, the gig economies, digital economies and cryptocurrencies breach African political and economic sovereignty, the book pioneers what can be called anticipatory economics which anticipate the future of economies. It is argued that the future of Africans does not necessarily require degrowth, postgrowth, postdevelopment, postcapitalism or sharing/solidarity economies: it requires attention to age-old questions about African ownership and control of their resources. Investors have to invest in ensuring that Africans own and control their resources. Further, it is pointed out that the historical imperial structural creation of forced labour is increasingly morphing into what we call the structural creation of forced leisure which is no less lethal for Africans. Because both the structural creation of forced labour and the structural creation of forced leisure are undergirded by transnational neo-imperial plunder, theft, robbery, looting and dispossession of Africans, this book goes beyond the simplistic arguments that Euro-America developed due to the industrial revolutions.
Urbanization in Africa also means rapid technological change. At the turn of the 21st century, mobile telephony appeared in urban Africa. Ten years later, it covered large parts of rural Africa and thanks to the smartphone became the main access to the internet. This development is part of technological transformations in digitalization that are supposed to bridge the urban and the rural and will make their borders blurred. They do so through the creation of economic opportunities, the flow of information and by influencing peoples definition of self, belonging and citizenship. These changes are met with huge optimism and the message of Information and Communications Technologies for Development (ICT4D) for Africa has been one of glory and revolution. Practice, however, reveals other sides. Increasingly, academic publications show that we are facing a new form of digital divide in which Africa is (again) at the margins. These technological transformations influence the relation between urban and rural Africa, and between Africa and the World, and hence the field of African Studies both in its objects as well as in its forms of knowledge production and in the formulation of the problems we should study. In this lecture, Mirjam de Bruijn reflects on two decades of research experience in West and Central Africa and discusses how, for her, the field has changed. The author was forced to decolonize her thinking even further, and to enter into co-creation in knowledge production. How can these lessons be translated into a form of critical knowledge production and how does the study of technological change inform the redefinition of African Studies for the 21st century?
Reading the animal text in the landscape of the damned looks at the diverse texts of our everyday world relating to nonhuman animals and examines the meanings we imbibe from them. It describes ways in which we can explore such artefacts, especially from the perspective of groups and individuals with little or no power. This work understands the oppression of nonhuman animals as being part of a spectrum incorporating sexism, racism, xenophobia, economic exploitation and other forms of oppression. The enquiry includes, physical landscapes, the law, women's rights, history, slavery, language use, economic coercion, farming, animal experimentation and much more. Reading the animal text in the landscape of the damned is an academic work but is accessible, theoretically based but robustly practical and it encourages the reader to take this enquiry further for both themselves and for others.
Nation, Power and Dissidence in Third Generation Nigerian Poetry in English is a theoretical and analytical survey of the poetry that emerged in Nigeria in the 1980s. Hurt into poetry, the poets collectively raise aesthetics of resistance that dramatises the nationalist imagination bridging the gap between poetry and politics in Nigeria. The emerging generation of poetic voices raises an outcry against the repressive military regimes of the 1980s and 1990s. Ingrained in the tradition of protest literature in Africa, the third-generation poetry is presented here as part of the cultural struggles that unseat military despotism and envisage a democratic society.
Education in Tanzania in the Era of Globalisation Challenges and Opportunities is a product of papers presented at a National Education Conference held in Dodoma, Tanzania in November 2016 and organised by the Aga Khan University-Institute for Educational Development, East Africa (AKU-IED-EA). At present, Tanzania's development direction is guided by Vision 2025, which aims to achieve a high quality livelihood for its people be attainment of Vision 2025 will depend largely on rapid socio-economic development based on several social and economic pillars including, most importantly, education. Clearly, for Tanzania, the scope and quality of education remains the single most important prerequisite to the attainment of Vision 2025 and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The individual chapters in this publication, and their collective thrust, discuss the challenges in the education system in good faith and in the spirit of cooperation and collaboration guided by the belief that it is not the responsibility of the Government alone to see how these can be addressed. AKU IED EA has identd this as the responsibility of all well-meaning corporate bodies and citizens, and initiated thst conference of its type as its contribution to thore conference, as well as the publication, has to be seen as a model of good practice for universities in terms of sharing knowledge, experience, and practice with other stakeholders who are not in the academy, and more so, with politicians as well as government policy planners. The various authors of Education in Tanzania in the Era of Globalisation Challenges and Opportunities discuss issues within the context of the Tanzanian political economy against thects of globalization and seek to initiate a new kind of debate that is long overdue; a debate aimed at charting out appropriate strategies whose objective is to improve the quality of education in Tanzania so that it becomes a useful vehicle in enhancing processes of social change, transformation and development.
Post-1994, South Africa's traditional leaders have fought for recognition, and positioned themselves as major players in the South African political landscape. Yet their role in a democracy is contested, with leaders often accused of abusing power, disregarding human rights, expropriating resources and promoting tribalism. Some argue that democracy and traditional leadership are irredeemably opposed and cannot co-exist. Meanwhile, shifts in the political economy of the former bantustans - the introduction of platinum mining in particular - have attracted new interests and conflicts to these areas, with chiefs often designated as custodians of community interests. This edited volume explores how chieftancy is practised, experienced and contested in contemporary South Africa. It includes case studies of how those living under the authority of chiefs, in a modern democracy, negotiate or resist this authority in their respective areas. Chapters in this book are organised around three major sites of contest: leadership, land and law.
News footage of disease in Africa is a familiar sight. Yet these outbreaks are often presented out of context, with no reference to the conditions that have triggered them. MISTRAs new book, Epidemics and the Health of African Nations, aims to redress that. Researchers and practitioners from within the continent explore why Africa is so vulnerable to disease, and show how this vulnerability is closely linked to political and economic factors. They demonstrate how these same factors determine the way epidemics are treated. Authors extract lessons from case studies in different parts of Africa; challenge conventional frameworks about disease to argue for a syndemics approach that takes into account the interrelationship between disease and political and socio-economic contexts; explore challenges of Africas future. They argue that a well-functioning health system is at the core of a countrys capacity to counter an epidemic. This volume brings African experts together to probe possible solutions to the continents heavy burden of disease. The insights offered will be helpful in devising policy for the control of disease and the combatting of epidemics in Africa.
Die Rezeption der experimentellen Literatur aus Österreich, die bis in die 1980er Jahre hinein nicht zum Literaturkanon gehört hatte, wurde maßgeblich durch den Wiener Germanistikprofessor und Leiter des Österreichischen Literaturarchivs Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler (1942-2008) geprägt. In seiner Funktion als Mitbegründer und wissenschaftlicher Betreuer des Franz-Werfel-Stipendienprogramms, in dessen Rahmen NachwuchswissenschaftlerInnen nicht nur aus Osteuropa bei ihren Dissertationen zur österreichischen Literatur gefördert beziehungsweise betreut werden, baute er ein internationales Netz von jungen AkademikerInnen auf, unter denen viele seine Vorliebe für das literarische Experiment teilen. Ende Mai 2018 trafen sich im Rahmen der internationalen Konferenz des Tschechischen Germanistenverbandes, die unter dem Titel 'Experimentierräume: Herausforderungen und Tendenzen' an der Westböhmischen Universität in Pilsen stattfand, viele ehemalige SchülerInnen von Prof. Schmidt-Dengler, darunter auch einige ehemalige Franz-Werfel-StipendiatInnen, in einer Sektion, um gemeinsam die experimentelle Literatur aus Österreich zu analysieren. Ihre Beiträge bilden den Kern des vorliegenden Konferenzbandes.
Um 1800 verstärkt sich das Problembewusstsein für eine der wissenschaftlichen Reflexion adäquate Darstellung, da sich die Überzeugung durchsetzt, die Sprache sei nicht nur ein Werkzeug, sondern vielmehr ein "bildendes Organ des Gedankens" (Wilhelm v. Humboldt). Das enge Verhältnis von Aussage und Ausdruck rückt die Wissenschaft in der deutschen Tradition geradezu zwangsläufig in die Nähe zur Literatur. Dabei zeigt sich das wissenschaftliche Selbstverständnis dieser Jahre in der Frage v.a. seiner Adressierung von einer interessanten Paradoxie geprägt. So soll der jeweilige Sprachgebrauch überhaupt erst den szientistischen Anspruch wissenschaftlicher Projekte beglaubigen und diese gleichsam als Spezialdiskurse legitimieren, zugleich muss der ideale Adressat der Wissenschaft solche Spezialdiskurse aber immer auch überschreiten. J. G. Fichte etwa weist den Vorwurf der "Unverständlichkeit" seiner "Wissenschaftslehre" als implizites Verlangen nach "Seichtigkeit" seitens der Leser zurück, zugleich aber erlegt er dem Wissenschaftler die Aufgabe auf, einen Beitrag zum "Fortgang des Menschengeschlechts" zu leisten. Derartigen Spannungen spürt der Band im Kontext vornehmlich des Niedergangs (wie Fortlebens) der Rhetorik und der Neubegründung der Universität nach.
Mit der Idee, neue Ansätze und Querverbindungen zwischen verschiedenen Disziplinen und Traditionen zu fördern, rückte die Konferenz des Tschechischen Germanistenverbands an der Westböhmischen Universität Pilsen im Mai 2018 sprachliche, literarische und didaktische Experimente in den Mittelpunkt der Betrachtung. Aus Sicht der Veranstalter sollten dabei die positiven Potenziale betont werden. Das Experimentieren wurde als Lust, Spiel und Herausforderung verstanden. Diese Perspektive haben die Teilnehmer auch mit großem Interesse aufgenommen. Zu den Experimentierräumen in der Literatur haben sich zwei getrennte Sektionen zur deutschen und zur österreichischen Literatur gebildet, die unterschiedliche Dynamiken in Bezug auf die Thematik entwickelt haben. In der Sektion zur deutschen Literatur, die die Grundlage des vorliegenden Bandes bildet, gingen die Ansichten zum literarischen Experiment sehr auseinander. Die meisten Positionen, die in der Zusammensicht eine kleine Auswahl von Wegen quer durch das 20. bis ins 21. Jahrhundert aufzeichnen, unterscheiden sich deutlich von der Affirmation des Experimentierens mit Sprache, wie sie noch vor 100 Jahren nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg die Avantgarden propagiert haben. Dies hängt nicht nur mit dem zeitlichen Abstand und der Wahrnehmung unterschiedlicher kultureller Perspektiven zusammen.