When Nigeria hosted the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC) in 1977, it celebrated a global vision of black nationhood and citizenship animated by the exuberance of its recent oil boom. Andrew Apter's The Pan-African Nation tells the full story of this cultural extravaganza, from Nigeria's spectacular rebirth as a rapidly developing petro-state to its dramatic demise when the boom went bust. According to Apter, FESTAC expanded the horizons of blackness in Nigeria to mirror the global circuits of its economy. By showcasing masks, dances, images, and souvenirs from its many diverse ethnic groups, Nigeria forged a new national culture. In the grandeur of this oil-fed confidence, the nation subsumed all black and African cultures within its empire of cultural signs and erased its colonial legacies from collective memory. As the oil economy collapsed, however, cultural signs became unstable, contributing to rampant violence and dissimulation. The Pan-African Nation unpacks FESTAC as a historically situated mirror of production in Nigeria. More broadly, it points towards a critique of the political economy of the sign in postcolonial Africa.

Stereomodernism and amplifying the Black Atlantic -- Sight reading: early Black South African transcriptions of freedom -- Négritude musicology: poetry, performance and statecraft in Senegal -- What women want: selling hi-fi in consumer magazines and film -- 'Soul to soul': echo-locating histories of slavery and freedom from Ghana -- Pirate's choice: hacking into (post- )pan-African futures -- Epilogue: Singing songs.

The first survey of the Pan-African movement this century, this book provides a history of the individuals and organisations that have sought the unity of all those of African origin as the basis for advancement and liberation. Initially an idea and movement that took root among the African Diaspora, in more recent times Pan-Africanism has been embodied in the African Union, the organisation of African states which includes the entire African Diaspora as its 'sixth region'. Hakim Adi covers many of the key political figures of the 20th century, including Du Bois, Garvey, Malcolm X, Nkrumah and Gaddafi, as well as Pan-African culture expression from Négritude to the wearing of the Afro hair style and the music of Bob Marley.

W. E. B. Du Bois was the pre-eminent African American intellectual of the twentieth century. As a pioneering historian, sociologist and civil rights activist, and as a novelist and autobiographer, he made the problem of race central to an understanding of the United States within both national and transnational contexts; his masterwork The Souls of Black Folk (1903) is today among the most widely read and most often quoted works of American literature. This Companion presents ten specially commissioned essays by an international team of scholars which explore key aspects of Du Bois's work. The book offers students a critical introduction to Du Bois, as well as opening new pathways into the further study of his remarkable career. It will be of interest to all those working in African American studies, American literature, and American studies generally.

With forty accessible essays on the key intellectual contributions to Pan-Africanism, this volume offers readers a fascinating insight into the intellectual thinking and contributions to Pan-Africanism. The book explores the history of Pan-Africanism and quest for reparations, early pioneers of Pan-Africanism as well as key activists and politicians, and Pan-African philosophy and literati. Diverse and key figures of Pan-Africanism from Africa, the Caribbean, and America are covered by these chapters, including: Edward Blyden, W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, Amy Ashwood Garvey, George Padmore, Kwame Nkrumah, Franz Fanon, Amilcar Cabral, Arthur Lewis, Maya Angelou, C.L.R. James, Ruth First, Ali Mazrui, Wangari Maathai, Thabo Mbeki, Wole Soyinka, Derek Walcott, and Chimamanda Adichie. While acknowledging the contributions of these figures to Pan-Africanism, these essays are not just celebratory, offering valuable criticism in areas where their subjects may have fallen short of their ideals.

A Guyanese by birth and a Kenyan by citizenship, Ras Makonnen would still regard these two aspects of his life as accidents of history—his roots and destiny are in the continent of Africa. For the last half of the twentieth century, he has striven, along with the other major architects of pan-Africanism, to reconcile the forces that still divide the continent. This volume is a further contribution to that struggle. Makonnen’s analysis of the pan-African movement starts in the former British Guiana (Guyana) in the early twenties, warms up to the North American scene where, as a young man, he got increasingly more aware of the African and diasporic African person’s position in world history. He then describes his days in London and Manchester from the mid-thirties to the fifties; Accra (Ghana) until the fall of Kwame Nkrumah in 1966 and thereafter Nairobi (Kenya), where he worked and made his transition. Although the narrative is peppered with the most delightful character sketches of early African and other Black leaders, the author’s main concern is to interpret the quality of life amongst Black people at home and abroad. He does so by employing a wide historical perspective and by infusing into his study of particular pan-African actors his knowledge of the intellectual and political climate at large. He produces in the process a vivid participator’s commentary on whole areas that have been quite neglected in conventional studies of pan-Africanism. Black intergroup relations in North America and the African diaspora in the Caribbean; race relations in Britain; Black intellectuals and the white Left; Black expatriates and African socialism—these are just a few of the themes examined against a background of individual famous personalities as well as others not documented before. With an autobiographical thread that runs throughout, Makonnnen’s narrative is a uniquely diversified pan-African portrait.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.