Being and Becoming African as a Permanent Work in Progress Inspiration from Chinua Achebe's Proverbs

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Nyamnjoh, Francis B., 1961- editor.

Nwosu, Patrick U., editor.

Yosimbom, Hassan M., editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Proverbs, African.

Quotations.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (1 online resource)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

[S.l.] : LANGAA RPCIG, 2021.

Summary:

This book is a timely addition to debates and explorations on the epistemological relevance of African proverbs, especially with growing calls for the decolonisation of African curricula. The editors and contributors have chosen to reflect on the diverse ways of being and becoming African as a permanent work in progress by drawing inspiration from Chinua Achebe's harnessing of the effectualness of oratory, especially his use of proverbs in his works. The book recognises and celebrates the fact that Achebe's proverbial Igbo imaginations of being and becoming African are compelling because they are instructive about the lives, stories, struggles and aspirations of the rainbow of people that make up Africa as a veritable global arena of productive circulations, entanglements and compositeness of being. The contributions foray into how claims to and practices of being and becoming African are steeped in histories of mobilities and a myriad of encounters shaped by and inspiring of the competing and complementary logics of personhood and power that Africans have sought and seek to capture in their repertoires of proverbs. The task of documenting African proverbs and rendering them accessible in the form of a common hard currency with fascinating epistemological possibilities remains a challenge yearning for financial, scholarly, social and political attention. The book is an important contribution to John Mbiti's clarion call for an active and sustained interest in African proverbs.

Contents:

Cover

Title page

Copyright page

About the Authors

Contents

Foreword

Chapter 1 - Introduction. Being and Becoming African: Insights from Chinua Achebe's and Related Usage of Proverbs

The Many Faces and Guises of Being and Becoming African

Chinua Achebe's Contribution in the Storytelling of Being and Becoming African

Chinua Achebe's Artistic Iconoclasm

Synopsis of Chapters

Endnotes

References

Part I. Proverbial Cultures: Being, Becoming and Belonging in African Proverbs

Chapter 2 - Being and Becoming African as a Permanent Work in Progress: Inspiration from Chinua Achebe's Proverbs

Introduction

Proverbs in Motion and their Mobilisation by Chinua Achebe

Proverbs as Palm-Oil

Proverbing Humility and Modesty in Leadership

Gluing Change and Continuity with Proverbs

Telling the Untold Stories of the Hunt: A Proverbial Achebe Legacy

Achebe the Dancing Mask Humbles Death

Chapter 3 - The Community, Belonging and Agency in Akan Proverbs

The Sociality of the Person in Akan Proverbs

Belonging as Membership of a Kin Group

The Personhood as Belonging to a Community

Individual Agency and the Community

Conclusion

Chapter 4 - The Place of Proverbs amongst the Otukpo of North Central Nigeria

Who are the Otukpo People?

Other Versions of Proverbs in Otukpo: Meanings and Applications

Chapter 5 - An Encounter with a Proverb-Hunter and the Beingness of Igbo Proverbs

The Forest of Proverbs

Proverbs and the Art of Conversation

The Art of Proverbialising and the Family

The Dawn of Ilulu Igbo n'ime Igbo: Textbook of Igbo Proverbs

Igbo Proverbs: New Channels, Different Contexts

Appendix

Works Cited.

Part II. The Materiality of Proverbs: Performing Morality, Spirituality, Politics and Wisdom in and through African Proverbs

Chapter 6 - Wax and Gold: Wisdom, Spirituality and Moral Discourse in Ethiopian Proverbs

Part I: Highlights on Orality and Proverbs in Ethiopia

Part II: How Proverbs and Qene Converge

Part III: Themes in Amharic Proverbs and Qene

Acknowledgement

Chapter 7 - Proverbs and the Celebration of the Igbo Tradition of Politics in Chinua Achebe's Novels

Ancestral Spirit and Good Governance

Elders' Wisdom and the State

Negotiated Power Ratio

The Political Hero

Lessons for Contemporary Time

Chapter 8 - Poetry as a Vehicle for Communication and Orientation in Contemporary Igbo Politics

Political Poetry - Abu Ntubiriko

Political Situations of Political Songs in Igboland

The Second Stanza is a Reverse of the First

Bibliography

Chapter 9 - African Wisdom in Proverbs: The Yorùbá Example

Theoretical Framework

The Nature and Function of Proverbs in Yorùbá Society

Defining Wisdom

Wisdom in Proverbs vis-à-vis Yorùbá Society

Analysis and Discussion of the Data

Part III. Celebrating the Proverbial Genre: The Interconnections and Interdependencies between African Proverbs and Creativity

Chapter 10 - Paremiological Poetics: The Poetic Dimensions of Igbo Proverbs

The Proverb

Works Cited

Chapter 11 - The Pleasure(s) of Proverb Discourse in Contemporary Popular Ghanaian Music: The Case of Obrafour's Hiplife Songs

"Pleasure" from an Akan Perspective

Obrafour's Thematic Proverbial Dexterity: ɛb ɛ De ɛ Ennyina Faako, ɛtu (Proverb [use] is not stationary, it flies).

Conclusion: On the Pleasure(s) of the "Executioner's" Proverbs

Chapter 12 - Malinkelisation of French in Ahmadou Kourouma's Les soleils des indépendances

The "Malinkelisation" of French in Kouroumian Fiction

Proverbs and Related Idiomatic Expressions in Les soleils des Indépendances

Translation of Orality into the Written Word through Proverbs

Toward the Decolonisation of Les Soleils des Indépendances

Chapter 13 - Drinking from the Bottomless "Eagle on Iroko" Proverbial Gourd: Africanising and Globalising Chinua Achebe's Igbo (Narrative) Proverbs

Coupling the Shards of the Chinua Achebe-Francis Nyamnjoh Creative Parallelisms

The Interlinkages between Nyamnjoh Hypertexts and Achebe's Hypotexts

Francis B. Nyamnjoh's Souls Forgotten : Proverbalising Marginalisation and Dismemberment in Mimboland

Conclusion: "Carving" Dancing Masks that Would Dance with and Not against the Times

Part IV. African Epistemologies: Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Conceptualisations and Pedagogical Values of Proverbs

Chapter 14 - "Drinking from the Cosmic Gourd" and the Fallacy of Completeness by Way of African Proverbs

Gatekeeping and the Case of the Old Man Stuck at Home

Conviviality and Incompleteness: Tools for Dismantling Ready-made Epistemologies in Africa

Chapter 15 - Intellectual Virtues of Indigenous African Wisdom: The Perspectives of Akan Proverbs

Differentiating Moral and Intellectual Virtues

Akan Proverbs

Illuminating the Intellectual Virtues in Akan Proverbs

Implications for Practice in Education and Politics in Africa

References.

Chapter 16 - Epistemological and Moral Aspects of Selected Shona Proverbial Lore: Implications for Health and Safety in the Face of Covid-19 and Other Such Pandemics

Debunking the Myths: Justifying Philosophy, Rationality and Proverbial Lore in Africa

The Efficacy of Proverbs

Shona Proverbs with Critical Epistemological and Moral Implications to Covid-19 and Other Pandemics

Chapter 17 - Epistemology and Politics in Proverbial Names in the Pre-Colonial Great Lakes Region

The Politics of Child Naming among the Bakiga-Banyankore

Names that Were Used to Express General Suffering in Society

Names Illuminating Hope in the Society

Names Expressing the Ravenous Nature of Death

Proverbial Names About Desolation and Humility

them.Proverbial Names Based on Gender Preferences

Names on Behavioural Attributes such as Bravery and Peacefulness

Names Denoting and Admonishing Bodily Beauty and Aesthetics

Proverbial Names against Complex Social Conditions

Names on Social Deviance such as Indiscipline, Indolence, Ungenerousness and Cruelty

Names on Waywardness

Names Conveying Internal Satisfaction

Chapter 18 - If You Want to Understand Africa's Politico-Epistemological World, Look at the Chameleon

The Nawuri and Proverbs

Political Epistemology and Traditional Knowledge in Ghana

The Nawuri Story of the Chameleon and the Chief

The Chameleon, the Chief, and Issues of Truth, Trust and Authority

Acknowledgment

Chapter 19 - The Kola Nuts of Ideas: African Proverbs and Epistemic Emancipation

False Translations and Misapplications in the Use of African Concepts

Proverbs and Meaning in Everyday Life Struggles.

Proverbs as the Kola Nuts of Epistemic Emancipation

Afterword. African Proverbs, Personhood and the Knowledge Commons

Index

Back cover.

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9956-551-95-3

OCLC:

1257667139