Making Black History: Diasporic Fiction in the Moment of Afropolitanism

Dominique Haensell

Open Access Published by De Gruyter 2021

Making Black History

Diasporic Fiction in the Moment of Afropolitanism

Dominique Haensell

Volume 73 in the series Buchreihe der Anglia / Anglia Book Series

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110722093

Overview
Contents

About this book

Open Access

This study proposes that – rather than trying to discern the normative value of Afropolitanism as an identificatory concept, politics, ethics or aesthetics – Afropolitanism may be best approached as a distinct historical and cultural moment, that is, a certain historical constellation that allows us to glimpse the shifting and multiple silhouettes which Africa, as signifier, as real and imagined locus, embodies in the globalized, yet predominantly Western, cultural landscape of the 21st century. As such, Making Black History looks at contemporary fictions of the African or Black Diaspora that have been written and received in the moment of Afropolitanism.

Discursively, this moment is very much part of a diasporic conversation that takes place in the US and is thus informed by various negotiations of blackness, race, class, and cultural identity. Yet rather than interpreting Afropolitan literatures (merely) as a rejection of racial solidarity, as some commentators have, they should be read as ambivalent responses to post-racial discourses dominating the first decade of the 21st century, particularly in the US, which oscillate between moments of intense hope and acute disappointment.

Please read our interview with Dominique Haensell here:
https://blog.degruyter.com/de-gruyters-10th-open-access-book-anniversary-dominique-haensell-and-her-winning-title-making-black-history/

Author / Editor information

Dominique Haensell, Berlin, Germany.

Topics

Frontmatter Open Access Download PDF	I
Contents Open Access Download PDF	V
Acknowledgments Open Access Download PDF	VII
Chapter I Introduction – Writing Race in the Moment of Afropolitanism Open Access Download PDF	1
Chapter II Going Through The Motions – Movement, Metahistory, and the Spectacle of Suffering in Teju Cole’s Open City Open Access Download PDF	57
Chapter III (Post‐)Independent Women – Romance, Return, and Pan-African Feminism in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah Open Access Download PDF	100
Chapter IV A Painful Notion of Time – Conveying Black Temporality in Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing Open Access Download PDF	150
Chapter V Conclusion – The Past Is Always Tense, the Future Perfect Open Access Download PDF	204
Bibliography Open Access Download PDF	217
Index Open Access Download PDF	238

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter
Audience: Researchers of English and American Literature and Literary Studies; Libraries.
Pages
- Front matter: 7
- Main content: 245
Keywords: Afropolitanism; Black Diaspora; African Atlantic; metahistory

eBook

Published: October 4, 2021
ISBN: 9783110722093

Hardcover

Published: October 4, 2021
ISBN: 9783110721942

Paperback

Published: May 8, 2023
ISBN: 9783111266657