Afro

Concepts and Documents

* What are the three ground rules of intellectual work and what is the significance of “translation and recovery” to the work of disciplinary Africana Studies?

Three ground rules of intellectual work: 1. Be Present. 2. Read and Write (listen and inscribe). 3. Speak Mekhet

Africana studies utilizes normative theory (changing the norms) to practice acts of translation and recovery

* What is an intellectual genealogy? How might one go about (re)constructing intellectual genealogies?

An intellectual geneaology is the relationship between ideas and thinkers over time./ translation and recovery (written narratives)

* What does Wole Soyinka consider the “dynamic possessions” that human beings in general and Africans in particular must use as “commodities of exchange”? [Soyinka, p. vii]

Language and culture meaning making. Ways of knowing

* What is the role of migration in human history and how, according to Ayi Kwei Armah, do traditions of migration frame the long-view genealogy of Africana intellectual work?

Studying migration is the most fruitful method of understanding the evolution of African society over time; migration allowed people miles apart to mix cultures resulting in a shared similarity in material and culture across Africa.

* What, according to Ngugi, are “linguicide” and “linguifam”?

“Linguicide” is the linguistic equivalent of genocide.

“Linguifam” is the deliberate starving of one’s language.

* What, according to Ngugi, is the major difference between the continental African and the diasporic African as it relates to how each group relates to the “crypt”? [Chapter 2]

Here then is the major difference between the continental African and the diasporic African. Forced into a crypt, the African in the diaspora tries to break out of the crypt, and grasps whatever African memory he can reach, to invent a new reality. On the continent, the reformed African tries to enter the...