Decolonization, Appropriation and the Materials of Literature in Africa and its Diaspora

LITAID addresses fundamental questions about the materials of literature - the stuff from which poems, plays, novels and stories are made - and about how these are appropriated from one literary culture for another. It does this by focusing on literary decolonization in Africa and its diaspora, because here the meanings of appropriation are particularly vexed. LITAID looks especially at the literary field in Ghana, the first sub-Saharan African nation to achieve independence from Britain and an early focus of decolonial activism and art. It considers this field's transnational dimensions from the perspective of (a) local artists and institutions; and (b) literary travellers who came seeking decolonial resources for their own communities. The research question driving LITAID is: what modes of appropriation arise within and respond to the demands of literary decolonization? The project produces an original typology of appropriative strategies; describes distinctive forms of South-South transnationalism; outlines a new methodology for world literary criticism oriented to Africa and its diaspora; gives an account of the role of the arts in decolonization and the means of decolonizing the arts; and examines the nature and portability of literary materials. To these ends, LITAID adopts an innovative approach combining methodologies of world literature, literary sociology, book history, poetics and narratology, the history of education, and digital humanities. It gives ground-breaking accounts of (1) Ghanaian print culture; (2) arts education policy and the role of schools and universities in literary decolonization; (3) the transnational dimensions of Ghanaian literary culture; (4) relations between Ghanaian, South African, Caribbean and African American literary cultures; and (5) the careers of several major authors including Efua Sutherland, J. H. Nketia, Richard Wright, Kamau Brathwaite and Guy Butler. Its outputs will include 9 journal articles and 4 monographs.