Imaginary Spaces of Power in Sub-Saharan Literatures and Films

Alix Mazuet

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This collection of essays is unlike others in the field of African studies, for it is based on three very precisely delineated foc...

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This collection of essays is unlike others in the field of African studies, for it is based on three very precisely delineated focal points: a particular geographical region, the sub-Sahara, specific modes of cultural production, literature and cinema, a concentration on works of French expression. This three-fold approach to exploring the relationships between power and culture in a non-Western environment greatly contributes to making this book unique from a variety of perspectives: African, Francophone and postcolonial studies, just as much as cross-disciplinary, cultural, transnational and diasporic studies. Moreover, the book offers deft and innovative analyses that move beyond the rhetoric of crises on the African continent we so very much and so very often hear of, so as to present a critical reflection on the subject at hand that is specific to the sub-Sahara and at the same time intimately linked to global culture, economy and politics.Our three-fold approach also presupposes that disciplinary compartmentalization increases power conflicts in academia. If only in part, compartmentalization is the result of antagonistic and competitive relations between specialization and multidisciplinary education. To this day, scholars worldwide have not been able to overcome these conflicts. This book is thus a modest attempt at presenting an alternative to excessively fixed and homogeneous academic frontiers while considering that disciplinary expertise remains a must. Keeping in mind that an increasing number of scholars in Anglophone Postcolonial studies and Francophone African studies have been attempting for quite some time now to open interstices and build crossroads that can better connect them to each others, keeping in mind that these scholars work at revealing mechanisms by which any antagonistic discourses can mix, influence, act upon or react to one another, this book seeks to take a constructive step in establishing enduring grounds for multidisciplinary, cross-disciplinary and transnational academic research and collaboration.Finally, if we consider that African studies' disciplinary boundaries are far from immutable and firmly drawn, this book addresses a glaring lack in popular and scholarly research and analyses of Africa. Indeed, Imaginary Spaces of Power in Sub-Saharan Literatures and Films has the great advantage of addressing in a single publication matters that are geographically and linguistically specific yet matters that have become sources of great concern for a large number of people throughout the world. In this sense, the book will appeal just as much to literary and film critics, anthropologists and ethnographers, political sciences and cultural studies specialists, postcolonial, neocolonial and transnational theorists, as it will to anyone who wants to stay informed about current debates on relationships between power and culture.