Pius Adesanmi was Professor of francophone and anglophone African and Black Diasporic literatures, politics and cultures and Director of the Institute of African Studies at Carleton University until his passing in the tragic Ethiopian Airline flight ET302 crash of March 10, 2019. His research fields also spanned Postcolonial writing and social media; Popular Culture, Street Culture in Africa; Postcolonial and cultural theory, and Third World feminist discourses. Adesanmi believed in public intellection and held high hopes for a Pan-African future. His first book, The Wayfarer and Other Poems, published in 2001, won the Association of Nigerian Authors prize for poetry. His 2010 book, You’re Not a Country Africa, won the Penguin Prize for African Literature. The remarkable collection of essays tried to unravel what Africa meant to him as an African and pull apart the enigma that is the continent. A subsequent celebrated book of essays on Nigerian politics and culture, Naija No Dey Carry Last: Thoughts on a Nation in Progress, was named to Channels Television Book Club’s prestigious list of the best 15 Nigerian books of 2015

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  • Africa Matters – Cultural politics, political economies and grammars of protest

    Africa Matters: Cultural politics, political economies, & grammars of protest provides a sampling of insightful articles from the first five issues of Nokoko, journal of the Institute of African Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. It brings together pieces that the journal’s editorial board felt were particularly perspicacious in their analysis and resonant in their crafting. Uniting them in this book permits a new dialogue to emerge around the key themes of cultural politics, political economies and grammars of protest. Their intersection here sheds light on important issues for Africans in the twenty-first century.

    Table of Contents


    Introduction: On the matter of African mattersBlair Rutherford and Pius Adesanmi

    Two cities: Guangzhou / LagosWendy Thompson Taiwo

    Catherine Acholonu (1951- 2014): The female writer as a goddess—Nduka Otiono

    Filming home, plurality of identity, belonging and homing in transnational African cinema—Suvi Lensu

    ‘Spare Tires’, ‘Second Fiddle’ and ‘Prostitutes’? Interrogating discourses about women and politics in
    Nigeria—Grace Adeniyi-Ogunyankin

    The South African Reserve Bank and the telling of monetary stories—Elizabeth Cobbett

    The neoliberal turn in the SADC: Regional integration and disintegration—Jessica Evans

    Indian hair, the after-temple-life: Class, gender and 137 race representations of the African American woman in the human hair industry—Nadège Compaore

    The role of radio and mobile phones in conflict situations: The case of the 2008 Zimbabwe elections and xenophobic attacks in Cape Town—Wallace Chuma

    The story of Cape Town’s two marches: Personal reflections on going home—Stephanie Urdang

    Beyond an epistemology of bread, butter, culture and power: Mapping the African feminist movement—Sinmi Akin-Aina

    Setting the agenda for our leaders from under a tree: The People’s Parliament in Nairobi—Wangui Kimari and Jacob Rasmussen

    Politics across boundaries: Pan-Africanism: Seeds for African unity—Gacheke Gachihi

    Afterword: Incorporeal words: The tragic passing of Pius Adesanmi—Blair Rutherford

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