Relocating Agency

Olakunle George

Description

2003 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title

Combining a sustained critical engagement of Anglo-American theory with focused close-readings of major African writers, this book performs a long-overdue cross-fertilization of ideas among poststructuralism, postcolonial theory, and African literature. The author examines several influential figures in current theory such as Habermas, Althusser, Laclau and Mouffe, as well as the theorists of postcolonialism, and offers an extended reading of the Nigerian writers D.O. Fagunwa, Wole Soyinka, Amos Tutuola, and Chinua Achebe. He argues that contrary to what the purism and voluntarism common to postcolonial theory might suggest, one lesson of African letters is that significant agency can result from acts that are blind to their determinations. For George, African letters offer an instance of "agency-in-motion," as opposed to agency in theory.
Preface

Acknowledgments

1. Issues and Context: On Knowledge as Limit

2. Contemporary Theory and the Demand for Agency

3. The Logic of Agency in African Literary Criticism

4. D. O. Fagunwa as Compound of Spells

5. Wole Soyinka and the Challenge of Transition

Epilogue

Notes

Works Cited

Index

Sujets

• África
• Africa

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780791487761
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

relocating moder a nity gency and africanletters

Olakunle George

Relocating Agency

SUNY series

EXPLORATIONS in POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES

Emmanuel C. Eze, editor

Patrick Colm Hogan,Colonialism and Cultural Identity: Crises of Tradition in the Angophone Literatures of India, Africa, and the Caribbean

Alfred J. Lopez,Posts and Pasts: A Theory of Postcolonialism

S. Shankar,Textual Traffic: Colonialism, Modernity, and the Economy of the Text

John C. Hawley, editor,Postcolonial, Queer: Theoretical Intersections

R e l o c at i n g

Ag e n c y

Modernity and African Letters

O L A K U N L E G E O R G E

S tat e U n i v e r s i t y o f N e w Yo r k P r e s s

Published by S TAT E U O FN I V E R S I T Y N E W Y O R K P R E S S , A L B A N Y

© 2003 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

Portions of this book appeared earlier in the following journal articles and are used here in revised form: “Cultural Criticism in Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman,”Representations67 (Summer 1999), 67–91, by permission of the University of California Press; “Compound of Spells: The Predicament of D. O. Fagunwa (1903–1963),”Research in African Literatures28.1 (Spring 1997), 78–97, by permission of Indiana University Press.

For information, address State University of New York Press, 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207

Production by Diane Ganeles Marketing by Jennifer Giovani

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

George, Olakunle. Relocating agency : modernity and African letters / Olakunle George. p. cm. — (SUNY series, explorations in postcolonial studies) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7914-5541-6 (acid paper) — ISBN 0-7914-5542-4 (pbk. : acid-free paper) 1. African literature (English)—History and criticism. 2. Literature and society—Africa—History—20th century. 3. Achebe, Chinua—Criticism and interpretation. 4. Fagunwa, D. O.—Criticism and interpretation. 5. Soyinka, Wole—Criticism and interpretation. 6. Tutuola, Amos—Criticism and interpretation. 7. Agent (Philosophy) in literature. 8. Decolonization in literature. 9. Poststructuralism—Africa. 10. Postcolonialism—Africa. 11. Nigeria—In literature. I. Title. II. Series.

PR9340.5 .G46 2002 820.9'896—dc21

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

2002021022

To Evelyn Ugwu and Ayodeji Timilehin

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Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Epilogue

Notes

Works Cited

Index

C o n t e n t s

Issues and Context: On Knowledge as Limit

Contemporary Theory and the Demand for Agency

The Logic of Agency in African Literary Criticism

D. O. Fagunwa as Compound of Spells

Wole Soyinka and the Challenge of Transition

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P r e fac e

One of the most influential developments in contemporary Anglo-Amer- ican literary theory and cultural criticism is the attention now being given to the issue of Europe’s colonial past and its consequent imbrica- tion, materially and epistemologically, with the “third world.” An index to this development is the way in which the idea of modernity now occu- pies center stage in cultural criticism. The focus on modernity has led to fruitful debates that have significant implications for our understanding of cultural processes as well as literary structures. The issues devolve ultimately on the question of the human capacity to know (or trans- form) itself as well as its environment and productive abilities. On the one hand, theories associated with poststructuralism and postmod- ernism argue for an abandonment of the presuppositions taken to be the conceptual backcloth of the West’s imperial past. These presuppositions include the following: the idea that human consciousness can master both its own internal mechanisms and the material, external world (that is, the idea of a centered subject); or, the notion that social history takes the form of a teleological evolution from nature to culture, from bar- barism to civilization. Against these presuppositions, poststructuralist thinkers offer a wide-ranging critique of the notion of a centered subject as well as a teleological understanding of Enlightenment and progress. By contrast, others like Jürgen Habermas and Charles Taylor suggest that the poststructuralist critiques go too far and thereby end up cham- pioning an unacceptable relativism. If there is an underlying concern that links the different theories and theorists, it has to do with the human capacity, or the extent of it, to understand itself and—perhaps based on the rigor and lucidity of that understanding—to change its circumstances for the better. At the heart of the various battles in Anglo-American theory and criticism then, is a concern with the agency of human beings in culture and history. This book concerns itself with this discursive conjuncture by bringing to it the evidence of a related but nominally different discursive formation: that

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