tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2413938396840929733.post5077666707759205265..comments2024-03-28T15:47:57.016-07:00Comments on Mbele: Teaching "A Wreath for Udomo"Mbelehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16077261126944002622noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2413938396840929733.post-9558655532559533842011-05-12T10:55:39.166-07:002011-05-12T10:55:39.166-07:00I am teaching "A Wreath for Udomo" in a ...I am teaching "A Wreath for Udomo" in a 20 week honors Post-Colonial African Literature class in high school. As a happy accident, the history teacher chose to focus on African history this term as well, so we were able to collaborate on details of our study periodically to enhance one another's class. I chose "Udomo" (before I knew of the history class) because of the beauty of the prose--my intention was to have to students look at wide selection of works (novels, plays, poetry, political writings, non-fiction essays, etc.) to look at the cultures of different African societies and the effects of European education and colonization have on those societies. (We have also studied Achebe, Coetzee, Farah, Fanon, Dangarembga, Dasenbrock, Shohat, Sugnet,Busia, and the poets Awoonor, Okara, Diop... the list goes on.) <br /><br />With "Udomo" along with the concurrent African history class, an unexpected line of thinking developed. My students have begun exploring beyond cause and effect, assimilation of culture vs. coercion...they are making connections of how culture evolves with shared experience. They ask the questions: once change is forced upon a culture, can the culture ever go back to what it once was? Can complete assimilation ever happen? What happens to a political system that is uprooted? How does education affect subsequent generations? <br /><br />My students had begun making their own assertions, but "Udomo" made some of them look at the material in a completely new light as they tried to sort out the politics of African cultures as they deal with the history of their colonization.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2413938396840929733.post-2072411315142146572010-10-15T15:17:17.201-07:002010-10-15T15:17:17.201-07:00This novel was published in London by Faber and Fa...This novel was published in London by <a href="http://www.faber.co.uk/work/wreath-for-udomo/9780571063468/" rel="nofollow">Faber and Faber</a>. <br /><br />Here in the USA, it is often difficult to obtain foreign books. I have experienced this over my twenty years of teaching here, when I wanted to have texts from Australia, India, UK, Anglophone Africa, and so on. <br /><br />In my "African Literature and Politics" course, I have had to make copies of several of the books I am using, including "A Wreath for Udomo," following the appropriate legal channels, of course.<br /><br />Certain online bookstores feature copies of such books, but not in quantities enough for the kind of classes I teach.Mbelehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16077261126944002622noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2413938396840929733.post-20062435125874664692010-10-10T10:11:13.352-07:002010-10-10T10:11:13.352-07:00African literature has always been something emanc...African literature has always been something emancipatory save that western machinations and bigotry made it nothing. But as the time goes the truth will surface and nobody will have any wit to sink it back to historical dustbin.<br />I'd like to read the same save that I don't know where to get it in North America.Ndugu Nkwazi N Mhangohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11640087613265490788noreply@blogger.com