Great Ideas V an Image of Africa

Author: Chinua Achebe
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 0141192585
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Beautifully written yet highly controversial, An Image of Africa asserts Achebe's belief in Joseph Conrad as a 'bloody racist' and his conviction that Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness only serves to perpetuate damaging stereotypes of black people. Also included is The Trouble with Nigeria, Achebe's searing outpouring of his frustrations with his country. GREAT IDEAS. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.

Heart of Darkness

Author: Joseph Conrad
Publisher: W. W. Norton
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 294

Book Description
An authoritative text, backgrounds and sources, criticism.

An Analysis of Chinua Achebe's An Image of Africa

Author: Clare Clarke
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1351351958
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 78

Book Description
Few works of scholarship have so comprehensively recast an existing debate as Chinua Achebe’s essay on Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Achebe – a highly distinguished Nigerian novelist and university teacher – looked with fresh eyes at a novel that was set in Africa, but in which Africans appear only as onlookers or as indistinguishable "savages". Dismissing the prevailing portrayal of Joseph Conrad as a liberal hero whose anti-imperialist views insulated him from significant criticism, Achebe re-cast the Polish author as a "bloody racist" in an analysis so cogent it changed the way in which his discipline looked not only at Conrad, but also at all works with settings indicative of racial conflict. The creative contribution of Achebe’s essay lies in delving far beneath the surface of Conrad’s novel; he not only generated new and highly influential hypotheses about the author's modes of thought and motivations, but also redefined the entire debate over Heart of Darkness. Just because the novel had been accepted into the "canon", and now falls into the class of “permanent literature”, Achebe says, does not mean we should not question it closely – or criticize its author.

Hopes and Impediments

Author: Chinua Achebe
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 030781646X
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 210

Book Description
One of the most provocative and original voices in contemporary literature, Chinua Achebe here considers the place of literature and art in our society in a collection of essays spanning his best writing and lectures from the last twenty-three years. For Achebe, overcoming goes hand in hand with eradicating the destructive effects of racism and injustice in Western society. He reveals the impediments that still stand in the way of open, equal dialogue between Africans and Europeans, between blacks and whites, but also instills us with hope that they will soon be overcome.

The Image of Africa

Author: Philip D. Curtin
Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press
ISBN: 9780299830250
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 316

Book Description
In this encyclopedic work of intellectual history, Philip D. Curtain sought to discover the British image of Africa for the years 1780 1850. "

An Analysis of Chinua Achebe's An Image of Africa

Author: Clare Clarke
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1351350161
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 89

The Image of the Black in Western Art: From the "Age of Discovery" to the Age of Abolition : artists of the Renaissance and Baroque

Author: David Bindman
Publisher: Belknap Press
ISBN: 9780674052635
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Presents a collection of art that showcases visual tropes of masters with their adoring slaves and Africans as victims and individuals.

Envisioning Africa

Author: Peter Edgerly Firchow
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813149754
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 291

Book Description
For one hundred years, Heart of Darkness has been among the most widely read and taught novels in the English language. Hailed as an incisive indictment of European imperialism in Africa upon its publication in 1899, more recently it has been repeatedly denounced as racist and imperialist. Peter Firchow counters these claims, and his carefully argued response allows the charges of Conrad's alleged bias to be evaluated as objectively as possible. He begins by contrasting the meanings of race, racism, and imperialism in Conrad's day to those of our own time. Firchow then argues that Heart of Darkness is a novel rather than a sociological treatise; only in relation to its aesthetic significance can real social and intellectual-historical meaning be established. Envisioning Africa responds in detail to negative interpretations of the novel by revealing what they distort, misconstrue, or fail to take into account. Firchow uses a framework of imagology to examine how national, ethnic, and racial images are portrayed in the text, differentiating the idea of a national stereotype from that of national character. He believes that what Conrad saw personally in Africa should not be confused with the Africa he describes in the novel; Heart of Darkness is instead an envisioning and a revisioning of Conrad's experiences in the medium of fiction.

Africa's Media Image in the 21st Century

Author: Mel Bunce
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317334280
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 259

Book Description
Africa’s Media Image in the 21st Century is the first book in over twenty years to examine the international media’s coverage of sub-Saharan Africa. It brings together leading researchers and prominent journalists to explore representation of the continent, and the production of that image, especially by international news media. The book highlights factors that have transformed the global media system, changing whose perspectives are told and the forms of media that empower new voices. Case studies consider questions such as: how has new media changed whose views are represented? Does Chinese or diaspora media offer alternative perspectives for viewing the continent? How do foreign correspondents interact with their audiences in a social media age? What is the contemporary role of charity groups and PR firms in shaping news content? They also examine how recent high profile events and issues been covered by the international media, from the Ebola crisis, and Boko Haram to debates surrounding the "Africa Rising" narrative and neo-imperialism. The book makes a substantial contribution by moving the academic discussion beyond the traditional critiques of journalistic stereotyping, Afro-pessimism, and ‘darkest Africa’ news coverage. It explores the news outlets, international power dynamics, and technologies that shape and reshape the contemporary image of Africa and Africans in journalism and global culture.

Joseph Conrad

Author: Robert D. Hamner
Publisher: Lynne Rienner Publishers
ISBN: 9780894102172
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 294

Book Description
Issues of racial discrimination, imperialist exploitation, and accuracy of observation have long interested Conrad's critics. As a European writing about imperialism in exotic lands, Conrad offered a vivid, but subjective account of the confrontations between the cultures and peoples of East and West. Though some in Africa have condemned his novels as racist, the books have been used as models for the work of recent generations of native writers. This collection of essays places Conrad's work under the scrutiny of an international array of scholars, who explore the response to Conrad in contemporary times, as well as during his own era.