Description
Book SynopsisPAPERBACK FOR SALE IN AFRICA ONLY ALT 36 turns a "queer eye" on Africa, offering provocative (re-)readings of texts to position formerly erased sexualities and contemporary sexual expression among Africans on the continent, and abroad. Debates on the future of the African continent and the role of gender identities in these visions are increasingly present in literary criticism forums as African writers become bolder in exploring the challenges they face and celebrating gender diversity in the writing of short stories, novels, poetry, plays and films. Controversies over the rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Intersex, Queer (LGBTIQ) communities in Africa, as elsewhere, continue inthe context of criminalization and/or intimidation of these groups. Residual colonial moralizing and contemporary western identity norms and politics vie with longstanding polyvalent indigenous sexual expression. In addition to traditional media, the new social media have gained importance, both as sources of information exchange and as sites of virtual construction of gender identities. As with many such contentious issues, the variety of responses to the"state of the question" is strikingly visible across the continent. In this issue of ALT, guest editor John Hawley has sampled the ongoing conversations, in both African writing and in the analysis of contemporary African cinema,to show how queer studies can break with old concepts and theories and point the way to new gender perspectives on literary and cinematic output. This volume also includes a non-themed section of Featured Articles anda Literary Supplement. Guest Editor: John C. Hawley is Professor in the Department of English, Santa Clara University Series Editor: Ernest N. Emenyonu is Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Michigan-Flint, USA. Reviews Editor: Obi Nwakanma
Table of ContentsEditorial Article. Introduction: Desiring Africans - John C. Hawley Visual Activism: A Look at the Documentary Born This Way - Unoma Azuah African Queer, African Digital - Naminata Diabate To Revolutionary-type Love - An Interview with Kawira Mwirichia, Neo Musangi, Mal Muga, Awuor Onyango, Faith Wanjala & Wawira Njeru - Ng'ang'a Wahu-Muchiri Liminal Spaces & Conflicts of Culture in South African Queer Films: Inxeba[The Wound] - Grant Andrews Queer Africa, Capitalism & the Digital Age - Shola Adenekan The City as a Metaphor of Safe Queer Experimentation in Monica Arac de Nyeko's "Jambula Tree"' & Beatrice Lamwaka's "Pillar of Love" - Edgar Fred Nabutanyi Homosexuality & the Postcolonial Idea: Notes from Kabelo Sello Duiker's The Quiet Violence of Dreams - Ives S. Loukson A Warm, Woolly Silence: Rethinking Silence through to Molefe's "Lower Main" & Monica Arac de Nyeko's "Jambula Tree" - Robert LaRue Breaking/Voicing the Silence: Diriye Osman's Fairy Tales for Lost Children - Asuncion Aragon Reading for Ruptures: HIV & AIDS, Sexuality & Silencing in Zoe Wicomb's "Search of Tommie" - Lizzy Attree Queer Temporalities & Epistemologies of Jude Dibia's Walking with Shadows & Chinelo Okparanta's Under the Udala Trees - Kerry Manzo Dilemma of an African Woman Faced with Bisexuality: A Reading of Armand Meula's Coq mâle coq femelle - Stella Onome Omonigho FEATURED ARTICLES African Oral Literature & the Environment - Ndubuisi Osuagwu From the Street to the World of Art: Writing Women's Liberation in Nawal El Saadawi's - Simone James Alexander LITERARY SUPPLEMENT Pregnancy in the Time of Ebola [short story] - M'Bha Kamara Okonkwo's Revenge [short story] - Pede Hollist Guilt [short story] - Chioma Toni-Duruaku Tribute to Ben Obumselu (1930-2017): Pioneering African Literary Critic - Isidore Diala REVIEWS [Edited by Obi Nwakanma]
