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Globalization, mondialisation and the immonde in Contemporary Francophone African Literature

Globalization, mondialisation and the immonde in Contemporary Francophone African Literature <jats:p> Taking as its theoretical frame of reference Jean-Luc Nancy's distinction between globalization and mondialisation, this article explores the relationship between contemporary Africa, the ‘world’ and the ‘literary’. The discussion centres on a number of present-day African novelists, and looks in particular at a controversial recent text by the Cameroonian writer and critic, Patrice Nganang, who is inspired by the work of the well-known theorist of postcolonial Africa, Achille Mbembe. For both writers ‘Africa’, as a generic point of reference, is seen in terms of a certain genealogy of Africanist thinking, from colonial times through to the contemporary postcolonial era, and the article reflects on what a radical challenge to this genealogy might entail. Using a more phenomenologically oriented reading of monde (world) and immonde (abject, literally un-world), this rupture could be conceived in terms of the kind of ‘epistemological break’ that thinkers like Althusser and Foucault introduced into common usage and theoretical currency in contemporary French thought back in the 1960s. </jats:p> http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Paragraph Edinburgh University Press

Globalization, mondialisation and the immonde in Contemporary Francophone African Literature

Syrotinski, Michael
Paragraph , Volume 37 (2): 254 – Jul 1, 2014
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References (2)

Publisher
Edinburgh University Press
Copyright
© Edinburgh University Press 2014
Subject
Literary Studies
ISSN
0264-8334
eISSN
1750-0176
DOI
10.3366/para.2014.0125
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

<jats:p> Taking as its theoretical frame of reference Jean-Luc Nancy's distinction between globalization and mondialisation, this article explores the relationship between contemporary Africa, the ‘world’ and the ‘literary’. The discussion centres on a number of present-day African novelists, and looks in particular at a controversial recent text by the Cameroonian writer and critic, Patrice Nganang, who is inspired by the work of the well-known theorist of postcolonial Africa, Achille Mbembe. For both writers ‘Africa’, as a generic point of reference, is seen in terms of a certain genealogy of Africanist thinking, from colonial times through to the contemporary postcolonial era, and the article reflects on what a radical challenge to this genealogy might entail. Using a more phenomenologically oriented reading of monde (world) and immonde (abject, literally un-world), this rupture could be conceived in terms of the kind of ‘epistemological break’ that thinkers like Althusser and Foucault introduced into common usage and theoretical currency in contemporary French thought back in the 1960s. </jats:p>

Journal

Paragraph – Edinburgh University Press

Published: Jul 1, 2014

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