Essay On Western Authorship

“Ibn Battuta’s stories give us a picture of Africa through eyes of a devote Muslim traveling all over the continent of Africa and the world. In his accounts sub-Saharan Africa is described prior to colonialism and racism. Ibn Battuta’s stories as they are transcribed in “Ibn Battuta, In Black Africa” by Said Hamdun and Noel King are representative of the only written account of this period and give us the most realistic and accurate account of this time in history.

There are 3 main ideals and values that early American writers found worth while to write about. These ideals are piety, courage, and industry. The main reason that early writers thought of piety as an important value is their religion. A majority of early Americans and the authors of just about every work we have read were very strong in their Puritan religious beliefs.

German Egyptologist Hellmut Brunner translates the “Inscription of Antef,” which defines a philosopher as: “[He is the one] whose heart is informed about these things which would be otherwise ignored, the one who is clear-sighted when he is deep into a problem, the one who is moderate in his actions, who penetrates ancient writings, whose advice is [sought] to unravel complications, who is really wise, who instructed his own heart, who stays awake at night as he looks for the right paths, who surpasses what he accomplished yesterday, who is wiser than a sage, who brought himself to wisdom, who asks for advice and sees to it that he is asked advice. (Inscription of Antef, 12th Dynasty, 1991–1782 bc)” This displays that a philosopher is a multi-faceted human being, a jack-of-all trades. A philosopher is one who is able to give advice on topics of interest, and when he or she does not know, they are not afraid of searching through texts from civilizations older than themselves. They do this as a means to solve the various problems that they are given. Africana philosophy is a tool such that one is able to tap into past texts in order to provide support for those around them. In this essay I will further discuss Africana philosophy as well as its characteristics and how it differs from Eurocentric philosophy.

Africa’s Discovery of Europe, written by David Northrup and much as its name implies, is a monograph detailing Sub-Saharan Africa, starting from 1450 to 1850. This broad timespread starts just before Columbus sailed the ocean blue and ends just beyond the Industrial Revolution. Originally published in 2002, Northrup intended for readers to see Europe from a different perspective; from the lense of African people. The title, Africa’s Discovery of Europe, is interesting within itself. In many cases, majority of people believe it was Europe that opened up the world and conquered the Americas and discovered all this new land, and a sliver of that is true, so many countries surrounding Europe were already major, active players in the modernizing world already. In this case, as Europe was discovering Africa, Africa was also discovering Europe. It switches the mind of the reader from a Eurocentric role to an African one. Northrup discusses how contact was not one-sided, and depicts accurate descriptions of African interactions amongst other Africans and Europeans. Northrup shows the reader that African people were discovering Europe very actively, not passively; African people physically go to European countries and have first-hand experiences with European people and lifestyles.

In Basil Davidson’s video “Different but Equal,” he outlines the European perception of Africa upon their discovery of the continent. Claims that the Europeans were making about African culture, however, were far fetched and did not depict Africa in a positive manner. History according to pre-European Africa was rich and diverse, but once Europeans saw for themselves how different their continent was from Africa, they began to make up their own version of African history.

Keim suggests that colonization of Africa led to “direct or indirect” belief that African culture was inferior. The growth of colonization led to the term “Dark Continent” being thrown around in regard to Africa, ultimately leaving the continent with a single story.

By reading this poem, the reader can understand the viewpoint of many Europeans, and how they viewed themselves as being significantly “more intellectual” than the Africans.

The motivations behind the civilization of Africa are viewed in documents 1, 4, 7 and 11. Economic motivations and political global power such as the advantages of

The cultural diversity and advancements portray the progression developed in African history. The growth of these two subcontinents prove that American and European historians were incorrect on how advanced and civilized Africa was.

What took me by surprise were the endless amounts of unexpected delays Barley faced on his trip to the study site. “With delays in documentation, I was now two months into my fieldwork time and not even seen a Dowayo (Barley 27)”. The officials in West Africa seemed very uninterested in his mission and were constantly demanding numerous forms and fees from him.

1. “The particular cultures and societies of Africa and of the Americas discussed in this chapter

In a freezing class, two brilliant minds unlocked the fiery passion that is their talent one an artist the other a writer. Bringing to light a history long forgotten creating abstract thoughts arbitrary to our own. Komi Olaf the artist and Okey Ndibe the writer not only enlightening the class but also the world with each brush stroke and each word. Every creation stemming from the hands of these masters tell of issues at the heart of Africa from colonialism to existential dilemmas. Thru spoken word, hip-hop, art, music, poems and literature issues close at heart to the artists and to Africa are portrayed. This paper will focus on the art exhibit by Komi Olaf and Foreign Gods inc by Okey Ndibe as spoken by them during their discussion in the class on October 13th. Where the talks focused on the key course objectives being stereotypes, post-colonialism, youth culture, and resistance.

This chapter in Africans and Their History by Joseph Harris presents some of the roots of the stereotypes and myths about Africa in the past and for the most part are still held today. Harris discusses how the “greats” of history, geography, and literature starting a path of devaluation of Africans that writers after their time followed. Harris also denounced the language that these “greats” used to describe and talk about Africans. He asserts that this language inherently painted Africans as inferior and subhuman.

The desire of writers of African oral literature to preserve, assert and showcase their rich cultural heritage to the outside world informed the transfer of oral traditions into the written form. From the colonial era till date, African writers in all genres have taken this as a great challenge to promote this literary tradition.In view of this, writers such as Amos Tutuola, Chinua Achebe, John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo, Wole Soyinka, NgugiWaThiog’o, Ferdinand Oyono, MugoBeti, and a host of others, skillfully infused one form of oral tradition or the other into their literary works.Like the foremost Nigerian writers and most authors of the subsequent generations, Habila visibly weave a handful of African oral resources into his fictional work

Now lets just say an Anthropologist went on to study an African cultural group in Nigeria. Now let 's consider that Anthropologist went on to live exactly like that African group, and the Anthropologist decided to report his findings as if an individual from that cultural group was writing about the experience. Now think about the controversy that will be caused, and the debate regarding if this is truly African experience. Ever since the mid 1700’s to 1800’s, European countries were taking interest in colonizing African countries. Since then there has been many works of literature that came from Africa from people who have European ancestry in them. On one side, people would argue that these writers are authentic African writers. On the other hand, some would disagree that these writers are authentic African writers because of the European influence within the writing. One African writer in particular Ngugi, believes that to be truly authentic, African literature must be written in an African language;however, another African writer Chinua Achebe thinks the opposite of Ngugi. In Achebe’s novel, “Things Fall Apart” the novel takes place in postcolonial Africa viewed in the eyes of an African instead of the European. Many people have debated whether if these writers are to be considered authentic African writers.