Readings in ... series
This series makes a representative selection of the best and most exciting work in fields where standard textbooks have not yet been published. Located across the full range of Africanist humanities and social sciences, the series emphasises newly emerging fields and fields that cross disciplinary boundaries. Each book published in the series includes materials from journals, books, as well as newly commissioned essays from Africanist scholars based on all continents. Guiding introductory sections make a significant contribution in their own right as they survey new methods and theories, recent developments, and contemporary issues and problems for readers who are newly acquainted with Africanist scholarship. All regions of sub-Saharan Africa are considered in each volume.
Series editors
Jocelyn Alexander
David Pratten
‘The series is published for the IAI by James Currey Publishers, part of the Boydell & Brewer Group; and by Indiana University Press.
Titles published by James Currey Publishers
Titles published by Indiana University Press
For other details about the series please contact sk111[AT]soas.ac.uk.
Readings in Sexualities from Africa
Edited by Rachel Spronk and Thomas Hendriks
Images and stories about African sexuality abound in today's globalized media. Frequently old stereotypes and popular opinion inform these stories, and sex in the media is predominately approached as a problem in need of solutions and intervention. The authors gathered here refuse an easy characterization of African sexuality and instead seek to understand the various erotic realities, sexual practices, and gendered changes taking place across the continent. They present a nuanced and comprehensive overview of the field of sex and sexuality in Africa to serve as a guide though the quickly expanding literature. This collection offers a set of texts that use sexuality as a prism for studying how communities coalesce against the canvas of larger political and economic contexts and how personal lives evolve therein. Scholars working in Africa, the U.S., and Europe reflect on issues of representation, health and bio-politics, same-sex relationships and identity, transactional economies of sex, religion and tradition, and the importance of pleasure and agency. This multidimensional reader provides a comprehensive view of sexuality from an African perspective.
Published for the IAI by Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253047618; 357pp, March 2020
Readings in the International Relations of Africa
Edited by Tom Young
These readings in international relations in Africa grapple with the continent’s changing place in the world. The essays confront issues such as the increasing tempo of armed conflict, the tendency of Western states and agencies to intervene in African settings, the presence of China, and the health of African states and their ability to participate in the global economy. Questions regarding sovereignty, leading regional actors, conflict and resolution, and the neoliberal African renaissance, add to the broad thematic coverage presented in this timely volume.
Published for the IAI by Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253018946; 400pp, January 2016
Readings in African Modernity
Edited by Peter Geschiere, Birgit Meyer, Peter Pels
Scholars have felt the urgency to understand modernity in present-day Africa, and have tried to make sense of these desires to ‘develop’. Yet, people often regard ‘modernity’ as an abomination as much as a blessing, and yearn nostalgically for a vanished past. These varied forms of modernity are the focus of this volume.
‘The stimulating introduction and essays in this volume underscore why modernity remains a factious yet highly significant concept for Africans – and thus for scholars of Africa.’ - Professor Emmanuel Akyeampong
ISBN 9780852558980, 240pp. Oct 2008
Readings in Gender in Africa
Edited by Andrea Cornwall
This book brings together existing work in a number of key areas so placing the substantial growth of interdisciplinary teaching and research in African gender studies during the last decades. African gender relations emerge as a key arena of social transformation, which has inspired theoretical insights of global import.
‘[Cornwall] is to be commended for including the work of leading African scholars alongside that of their European and North American counterparts, thus providing an excellent and long overdue teaching text that works to remedy the over-determination of African scholarship by Western institutional and intellectual interests.’
Amina Mama, African Gender Institute, University of Cape Town
Andrea Cornwall is a research fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex.
ISBN 9780852558713, Xvii + 248 pp., 2005
Readings in African Politics
Edited by Tom Young
This overview volume represents core knowledge in the field of African politics. Topic areas covered are: methods for appraising the modern African state, approaches to understanding African states and their politics, dimensions of regional conflict, conflict between traditional and modern values, the politics of new social forces, and the meaning of contemporary trends.
Tom Young is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.
ISBN 9780852552575, x + 242 pp., 2003
Readings in African Popular Fiction
Edited by Stephanie Newell
This rich and intelligently conceived anthology challenges the paradigms taken for granted in postcolonial studies, and demonstrates that ‘subaltern voices’ so often assumed to be silent or suppressed can be heard loud and clear if one cares to locate oneself outside Western academies and networks.
‘…forces a reconsideration of the idea of “African literature”. -Eileen Julien, Indiana University.
Stephanie Newell is Lecturer in English and Convenor of MA in Colonial and Postcolonial Studies at the University of Sussex.
ISBN 9780852555644, 224pp., 2002
Readings in African Popular Culture
Edited by Karin Barber
This book is about `cultural productivity'. In the last fifteen years, African `popular culture' has moved centre stage, attracting excellent scholarship. In her seminal introduction Barber writes: ‘The emphasis is biased towards the verbal rather than the visual; this could be taken as an antidote to the predominant view of Africa as producer of masks, figurines and airport art. The emphasis is on works – recognisable genres, known and discussed as such in the communities that produce them.'
‘…a critical testament of African popular culture. I strongly recommend it to readers and libraries.’ Tanure Ojaide in African Studies Review.
Karin Barber is a professor at the Centre of West African Studies at the University of Birmingham.
ISBN 9780852552360 184pp. 1997
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