African Freedom: How Africa Responded to Independence

✍ Scribed by Phyllis Taoua

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2018
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 334
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

The push for independence in African nations was ultimately an incomplete process, with the people often left to wrestle with a partial, imperfect legacy. Rather than settle for liberation in name alone, the people engaged in an ongoing struggle for meaningful freedom. Phyllis Taoua shows how the idea of freedom in Africa today evolved from this complex history. With a pan-African, interdisciplinary approach, she synthesizes the most significant issues into a clear, compelling narrative. Tracing the evolution of a conversation about freedom since the 1960s, she defines three types and shows how they are interdependent. Taoua investigates their importance in key areas of narrative interest: the intimate self, gender identity, the nation, global capital, and the spiritual realm. Allowing us to hear the voices of African artists and activists, this compelling study makes sense of their struggle and the broad importance of the idea of freedom in contemporary African culture.

✦ Table of Contents

The self: unfettering identity after independence
Gender: women's engagement with freedom
The nation: from liberation to meaningful freedom
Global Africa: pillaging with less impunity in the era of neoliberal capital
The spiritual realm: Okonkwo's unraveling and other responses

✦ Subjects

Human rights—Africa. | Human rights in literature. | Human rights in motion pictures. | African literature--20th century—History and criticism. | Motion pictures, African—History and criticism. | Self-realization—Africa. | Liberty. | Africa—Social conditions—20th century. | Africa—Social conditions—21st century.