The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London is hosting an exquisite exhibition of ‘African Textiles from the Karun Thakar Collection’, arguably one of the world’s largest private collections of African textiles. Featuring high quality material, that highlights the sophistication of historical… Read More ›
Ghana
Event: El Anatsui ‘Material Wonder’ Art Exhibition (28 February-6 April)
El Anatsui’s ‘Material Wonder’ At October Gallery, London Opens on Thursday, 28 February October Gallery, now in its 40th year, presents an exhibition of works celebrating the force and creative vision of El Anatsui, an artist who has had a tremendous impact… Read More ›
Event: African Gaze – film posters from Ghana exhibition (SOAS London: Ends 23 March)
African Gaze: Hollywood; Bollywood and Nollywood film posters from Ghana From the Collection of Karun Thakar & the late Mark Shivas At SOAS, Brunei Gallery, London Showing until 23 March 2019 The late 1980s in Ghana saw the emergence of… Read More ›
Events: SCOLMA & ASAUK (Birmingham: 10th & 11th-13th September)
This week is an exciting week in Birmingham, UK, for those interested in African Studies scholarship! SCOLMA Annual Conference Things come together?: Literary archives from, in and for Africa Monday, 10 September 2018 University of Birmingham The day’s programme and… Read More ›
Call for Applications: Research Fellow, University of Warwick (Deadline: 11th June)
The University of Warwick – English and Comparative Literary Studies – invites applications for a Postdoctoral Researcher to work on a Leverhulme-funded research project: “World Literature and Commodity Frontiers: The Ecology of the ‘long’ 20th Century.” This Postdoctoral Research Fellow position… Read More ›
How to Write (and Draw) History in Africa: A Review of Abina and the Important Men
AiW Guest: Tamara Moellenberg The second edition of Trevor R. Getz’s and Liz Clarke’s Abina and the Important Men (OUP, 2016) creates a scholarly ‘forum’ around Abina, a nineteenth-century Ghanaian woman who sought her freedom from slavery through the British… Read More ›
Innovative exhibition puts African cities on the fashion map
AiW Guest: Harriet Hughes Fashion Cities Africa, the first major UK exhibition dedicated to presenting contemporary African Fashion design, opened at Brighton museum in April 2016. The aim of the exhibition is to present the fashion cultures of four African… Read More ›
Us Versus Them: A Review of Safe House
AiW Guest: Jovia Salifu The essays in this anthology, Safe House: Explorations in Creative Nonfiction (Dundurn 2016), address the very topics that have made Africa the centre of the world’s attention over the years for all the wrong reasons — disease,… Read More ›
A Journey of Self-Discovery and Love: A Review of Frances Mensah Williams’ From Pasta to Pigfoot
AiW Guest: Jovia Salifu In From Pasta to Pigfoot, Frances Mensah Williams tells a beautiful story of cultural education, self-identity, and love. It is a story of a young black woman whose quest for knowledge about her culture and identity… Read More ›
What do children read?: A Review of ALT 33 Children’s Literature and Story-telling
Following AiW’s Q&A with Professor Emenyonu last week, and to kick-off our summer review series on African children’s literature, Tamara Moellenberg reviews ALT 33: Children’s Literature and Story-telling. AiW Guest: Tamara Moellenberg Children’s Literature and Story-telling, the latest issue of African Literature Today, brings much-needed attention to… Read More ›
Telling the African Story: A Review of Janet Kofi-Tsekpo’s Yellow Iris
AiW Guest: Jovia Salifu This month, Jovia Salifu continues our deep dive into Eight New Generation African Poets. As a lover of poetry, it is always a wonderful feeling to come across beautiful poetry. It is even more exciting when… Read More ›
Event: West Africa: Word, Symbol, Song, at the British Library, 16 October 2015-16 February 2016
A major exhibition at the British Library from 16 October 2015 – 16 February 2016 Celebrating the cultural dynamism of West Africa, from early symbolic scripts and illuminated manuscripts, to the writings of Wole Soyinka and the music of Afrobeat… Read More ›
Saraba issue 17: Survival – now out
A quick heads up that the latest issue of Saraba Magazine is now out, and available to download for free here: http://www.sarabamag.com/the-survival-issue This issue is themed around ‘Survival’, and as Saraba puts it: “A word from the 1590s, “survival” implies the… Read More ›
Compelling narratives: stretching ‘memoir’ in ‘African lives’
Geoff Wisner sets himself a sizeable task in ‘African Lives’, to introduce the life-writing of the continent: I don’t envy this anthologist. His introduction makes the case for the long history of autobiographical writing in Africa. Wisner argues it needs to be rescued, to be… Read More ›
‘This is literary achievement; where is yours?’ Radio Ghana’s ‘The Singing Net’ 60 years on
Africa in Words Guest Victoria Smith: On 28th January 1955 the Ghanaian song Yaa Nom Montie played for the first time on radio as the theme music of the country’s first literary programme, Singing Net. The song’s composer, J.H. Kwabena… Read More ›
‘My First Coup’: autobiographies of childhood
My auntie and the headmistress tried as best they could, with smiles and toffee, to shield me from their rising anxiety, but I could feel it bouncing off the quick sideways glances they shot each other and taking flight like… Read More ›
Words on Teaching – “Teaching Africa: visual sources in the classroom – after ‘Teaching Difficult Subjects’ (Birmingham)”
Last month I attended a seminar day at Birmingham, ‘Teaching Difficult Subjects’ (organised by the Higher Education Academy in the UK). Although the full content of the day was fascinating (and wide ranging) encompassing genocide, holocaust and ‘war studies’, I… Read More ›
Event: Sussex Africa Centre. James Esson, ‘Entrepeneurs of the body? Ghanaian youth and football trafficking’
By AiW Guest: Ross Wignall. First, from us at AiW, a quick intro to the Sussex Africa Centre, a new initiative in its founding year, celebrating the University of Sussex’s history of international scholarship and engagement with the African continent…. Read More ›
‘I slowly came to the realisation that the secondary sources on Asante religion and chieftaincy were incomplete’: African Classics
I’m delighted to introduce this post from Africa in Words Guest author, Louise Müller for the ‘African classics’ series. As Nara discussed last week, this series aims to give a fresh or alternative insight, giving our readers a chance to… Read More ›