Michael Janis, Africa after Modernism: transitions in literature, media and philosophy. London and New York NY: Routledge (hb £65.00 – 978 0 4159 5723 6). 2008, 280 pp.
This dense philosophical enquiry considers interdisciplinary approaches to the theorization, figuration and image production of modernity and contemporary Africana cultures, having defined Africana philosophy as ‘a mode of analysis of African and diasporic theories’ (p. 144). To do that, Janis considers relationships between Europe and Africa in the course of history and the impact of colonialism and a stream of publications on the rise and development of African philosophy. His study is an attempt to chart a trajectory from narrative to image and to concept, revealing how these different cultural forms interact. Moving freely across genres, linguistic and cultural boundaries, and surveying Francophone, Anglophone and Lusophone African literatures through intertextuality, the author spins a web of intellectual relationships between philosophers, writers, artists and journalists.
The first chapter, revisiting the work of anthropologists from the late nineteenth century to the late 1960s, evokes slave narratives, the Harlem Renaissance and Negritude, and the search in French arts and literature for new aesthetic visions on the African continent. Exoticism is deconstructed as Eurocentrism. Janis sees Pan-Africanism's relationship with the diaspora as opening new dialogues on African and diasporic modernity, with West African intellectual cultures confronting colonial politics and aesthetics and calling for the liberation of Africans from the yoke of European racism. He considers modernist sociological and anthropological approaches to Pan-Africanism and post-modernism's satirical vision of anthropology, together with the deconstruction of African authenticity and identity. The complexities of contemporary African and diasporic cultures are reflected in the diversity of African modernisms that emerged in response to European exoticist approaches. These modernisms are presented as artistically intercultural, with global and interdisciplinary perspectives challenging modes of representation of Africa. The chapter on Leiris in Africa reveals Leiris as a ‘reluctantly philosophical ethnographer’ (p. 62) who made significant contributions to anthropology by crossing genres in literature and ethnography ‘into the novelty of cultural difference and collective experience’ (p. 45). Chapter 3 studies Carpentier's novels, his African Antillean influences, fascination with American multicultural reality and interest in an Afro-Cuban ‘methodological and aesthetic syncretism’ (p. 73). The chapter highlights Carpentier's interest in music and exploration of religious aesthetics, literary philosophy and marginality through characters with African roots, adapting from the European philosophical tradition while keeping a distinctly Cuban perspective.
Chapters 4 and 5 are perhaps the best chapters in the book. The first focuses on Ouologuem's Devoir de violence (1968), a ‘polyvocal and transcultural critique’ (p. 92) with a linguistic and cultural entwining, set between orality and writing – ‘the first African novel to undertake a sustained parody of modern exoticism’. Focusing on slavery and colonialism and their ill-treatment of Africans, the novel paints Africa as an allegory of exploitation, linking readings of Arab, European and African excesses while doing violence to colonialism through language and questioning literature's search for origins and identity. Chapter 5 is heralded by this quote from Hawk: ‘Western beliefs about Africa have constructed an image of Africa as the repository of our greatest fears. The colonial image has become the media image. Image becomes fact’ (p. 105). It discusses media theories on the circulation and reception of African images and similarities between fiction and documentary. The author interrogates Western and African-American journalistic practices in Africa and reveals the influence of modernist racism and late colonialism on international media coverage in Africa, while highlighting Africa's efforts to present a better image of itself and challenge ‘widely held stereotypes of the continent as rife with famine, civil war and disease’ (p. 109), poverty and political instability. New forms of media are briefly surveyed and mention is made of the Africa channel now broadcasting in the US which aims to ‘demystify the continent for American audiences’ (p. 112). The author evaluates Western TV and newspapers reports on Africa and shows them as sharing with anthropology a presentation of ‘otherness’. For him, media should abandon generalizations, reassess distinctions of centre/periphery and metropolis/margin, and read images of Africa beyond the limited framework of ‘race’, moving towards a new vision of the continent and ‘a new cultural reciprocity in media relations’ (p. 133). The last chapter examines new directions in Africana cultural theory. For Janis, contemporary Africana philosophy in its entirety, including orature – proverbs, narrative arts and esoteric knowledge – can do for Africa what anthropology could not do: facilitate a fruitful dialogue between Africa and the diaspora. To achieve this, the process of canon formation needs more attention; African philosophy must confront the exoticization of Africa and respond to it by going back to its traditions. Meanwhile, cross-cultural dialogue must push philosophical enquiry into new directions and aim for the convergence of a multiculturalist and Pan-Africanist discourse. Janis's book shows the way.
