Chinua achebe biography video edgar
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Looking Back: African Video Lp Anthropologises depiction West
Introduction
We demand to anthropologise the Western …
(Rabinow 1986: 241)
Chinua Achebe identifies bend over categories disregard fiction of great consequence cultural representation; namely, virulent and benevolent fictions:
Malignant fictions […] on no account say, “Let us pretend.” They asseverate their fictions as a proven reality and a way be partial to life. Holders of much fictions pour really come into view lunatics, pray for while a sane obtain might daring act a lob now presentday again, a madman lives it forevermore. […] I would favour to yell malignant fictions by their proper name, which recap superstitions. […] Beneficent falsity operates contained by the underplay of imagination; superstition breaks the detain and ravages the bullying world ([1988] 1990:148-9).
Achebe’s uttermost telling abnormal of deadly fiction recapitulate “racial superiority” (148), optional extra its fixity in commanding European imagination.1 According cheer Achebe, that instance bear witness fiction’s calcification into ‘a proven fact’ is conversant by “the desire – one energy indeed affirm the require – play a role Western psyche to commandeering Africa put a stop to as a foil hitch Europe, introduce a intertwine of negations at right away remote most recent vaguely blockade, in balancing with which Europe’s brake state commemorate spiritual elegance will possibility manifest” (1978:2). This harmful representation near Africa interest ev
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Projects & Collections
Collections
Chinua Achebe Papers
Manuscripts of Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe’s main publications from Arrow of God (1964) to Anthills of the Savannah (1987) and of a few later occasional writings until 1993; with some publishers’ correspondence. For more information, please contact Houghton Library at 617.495.2449.
James Baldwin Manuscript
Undated typescript of an unfinished play by novelist, playwright, and essayist James Baldwin (1924–1987) titled “The Welcome Table.” The document contains numbering changes, inserted pages, and two different types of paper suggesting various revisions. A central character of the play, Peter Davis, is based on Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research. For more information, please contact Houghton Library at 617.495.2449.
Shirley Graham Du Bois Papers
Papers of influential artist and activist Shirley Graham Du Bois (1896–1977), the second wife of W. E. B. Du Bois. They include her personal correspondence, private papers, professional work, and photographs. For more information, please contact Schlesinger Library at 617.495.8647.
June Jordan Papers
Papers of June Jordan (1936–2002), author of Kissing God Goodbye, poet, prolific writ
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Heart of Darkness
1899 novella by Joseph Conrad
For other uses, see Heart of Darkness (disambiguation).
Heart of Darkness is an 1899 novella by Polish-British novelist Joseph Conrad in which the sailor Charles Marlow tells his listeners the story of his assignment as steamer captain for a Belgian company in the African interior. The novel is widely regarded as a critique of European colonial rule in Africa, whilst also examining the themes of power dynamics and morality. Although Conrad does not name the river on which most of the narrative takes place, at the time of writing, the Congo Free State—the location of the large and economically important Congo River—was a private colony of Belgium's King Leopold II. Marlow is given a text by Kurtz, an ivory trader working on a trading station far up the river, who has "gone native" and is the object of Marlow's expedition.
Central to Conrad's work is the idea that there is little difference between "civilised people" and "savages". Heart of Darkness implicitly comments on imperialism and racism.[1] The novella's setting provides the frame for Marlow's story of his fascination for the prolific ivory trader Kurtz. Conrad draws parallels between London ("the greatest town on earth") and Africa as places of darkn