A broad range of cultural works produced in traditional and modern African communities shows a fundamental preoccupation with the concepts of communal solidarity and hospitality in societies driven by humanistic ideals. African Cultural Production and the Rhetoric of Humanism is an inaugural attempt to focus exclusively and extensively on the question of humanism in African art and culture. This collection brings together contributors from different fields who critically examine the deployment of various forms of artistic production such as oral and written literatures, paintings, and cartoons to articulate an Afrocentric humanist discourse. The contributors argue that the artists, in their representation of civil wars, massive corruption, poverty, abuse of human rights, and other dehumanizing features of post-independence Africa, call for a return to the traditional African vision of humanism.
Introduction: The Crisis of Humanism in Contemporary Africa Lifongo Vetinde and Jean-Blaise Samou
Part I: Foundational Visions
Chapter One: Humanist Thought in African Oral Literature Adrien Mbar Pouille
Chapter Two: Ritual and Humanism in Zakes Mda's She Plays with the Darkness Thomas Spreelin MacDonald
Chapter Three: Through the Eyes of Dogsa: Reflections on Misanthropy and Humanism in a Senegalese Novel Lifongo Vetinde
Part II: Power, Dystopia, and Postcolonial Violence
Chapter Four: Remember the Childrena: Humanism in Contemporary East African Fiction Marie-Thérèse Toyi
Chapter Five: André Brink and the Politics of Humanism Hervé Tchumkam
Chapter Six: Of Painting and Politics: Postcolonial Violence and the Rhetoric of Feymania in Cameroon Jean-Blaise Samou
Part III: History, Trauma and the Pedagogy of Human Rights
Chapter Seven: Ojukwu's War Speeches and the Rhetoric of Humanism Uchenna David Uwakwe
Chapter Eight: Drawing (on) the Past in Histories of the Present: Dialogues and Drawings of Women's Organized Resistance to Forced Removals in South Africa's Past and Present Koni Benson
Chapter Nine: Remembering the Past and Building the Future in Boubacar Boris Diop's Murambi, the Book of Bones Mohamed Kamara
Chapter Ten: An Exploration of Human Rights in the Postcolonial Text: The Conspiracya by Henri Lopes Janice Spleth
Introduction: The Crisis of Humanism in Contemporary Africa Lifongo Vetinde and Jean-Blaise Samou Part I: Foundational Visions Chapter One: Humanist Thought in African Oral Literature Adrien Mbar Pouille Chapter Two: Ritual and Humanism in Zakes Mda's She Plays with the Darkness Thomas Spreelin MacDonald Chapter Three: "Through the Eyes of Dogs": Reflections on Misanthropy and Humanism in a Senegalese Novel Lifongo Vetinde Part II: Power, Dystopia, and Postcolonial Violence Chapter Four: "Remember the Children": Humanism in Contemporary East African Fiction Marie-Therese Toyi Chapter Five: Andre Brink and the Politics of Humanism Herve Tchumkam Chapter Six: Of Painting and Politics: Postcolonial Violence and the Rhetoric of Feymania in Cameroon Jean-Blaise Samou Part III: History, Trauma and the Pedagogy of Human Rights Chapter Seven: Ojukwu's War Speeches and the Rhetoric of Humanism Uchenna David Uwakwe Chapter Eight: Drawing (on) the Past in Histories of the Present: Dialogues and Drawings of Women's Organized Resistance to Forced Removals in South Africa's Past and Present Koni Benson Chapter Nine: Remembering the Past and Building the Future in Boubacar Boris Diop's Murambi, the Book of Bones Mohamed Kamara Chapter Ten: An Exploration of Human Rights in the Postcolonial Text: "The Conspiracy" by Henri Lopes Janice Spleth
