Speeches and Addresses
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Item German studies in Africa: towards “Pan-African Germanistik”(Faculty of Arts, University of Uyo, Nigeria, 2018-05) Eke, J. N.This paper explores the conflict of interests between Pan-Africanist aspiration for an Africa (and her Diaspora) that is self-confident and free from cultural and other forms of foreign domination and the discipline of Germanistik1 in postcolonial Africa that represents German nationalist aspirations and advances in Euro-Western cultural identity ideals. This conflict resonates the paradox of being a Germanist and a Pan-Africanist that is relevant to the study, learning and teaching of 'things German'2 in institutions of learning in Africa. Adopting historical comparative and critical intercultural analyses of secondary historical and ideational data sourced through close reading, the paper reviews the respective (pan-nationalist) conceptualization and history of Pan-Africanism and Germanistik, examines the cultural context of conflict between the two and the mediatory approaches to the conflict in the study and teaching of 'things German' in Africa. The paper concludes that Germanistik needs to be 'truly' reinvented as “African-Germanistik” in the African postcolonial educational environment for it to reconcile itself with the aspirations of Africans and build a synthesis for mutual acceptance, cooperation, and development.Item Skopos translator theory, text-type and the African postcolonial text in intercultural postcolonial communication(John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2016) Eke, J. N.The postcolonial text is a political and ideological text that is differentiable in translation. This is because of its location in the dialogic and discursive communicative exchange between former colonizer and formal colonized cultures and societies. This communitive exchange takes place in the situation and condition of asymmetrical relations and relations of inequality and involve the contestation of histories, cultures, meaning, identities and representation. The functionally of the postcolonial text with its message IS fixated on this dialogue and discourse; and each postcolonial text is a single statement directly and specifically responding to this dialogue and discourse in some ways. This paper examines the African postcolonial text and its communicative location in the of postcolonial theory and possibilities offers by the skopos functional theory in translation to set aside the purpose and function on the source text intended by the author. Using Chinua Achebe’s text, it would conclude that the mediator role of the translator in the dialogic and discursive exchange between former colorizer and former colonized cultured and societies need not become interference in the applications of the skopos theory.Item Postcoloniality, interculturality and cultural identity: the African foreign culture classroom as a postcolony(Ibadan Journal of European studies, 2006) Eke, J. N.The experience of colonialism and the neo-colonial practices of the Western Metropole, including the categorization of Africa as area in the disciplinary structuring of knowledge in the academia, sustain in the African teacher of Western culture, in the least, an ambivalent attitude towards the African cultural self and sets off, as well, an undercurrent of cultural asymmetry and cultural identity conflict in the African foreign culture classroom. This ambivalent attitude potentially affects the representation of both the African and the Western cultural identities and shapes the attitude of the African learner of Western culture towards his/her African cultural identity. This paper emphasizes the critical positioning of the (African) teacher of Western cultures to African learners in the cultural identity dialogue between Africa and the West and posits that appropriate and authentic knowledge both of the West and Africa, cultural self-knowledge and cultural self-acceptance are critical base knowledge required of the teacher - of Western culture to African .learners. This base knowledge combined with a “postcolonial Intercultural” model to foreign culture teaching and learning will enable the teacher to deal with the postcoloniality, asymmetry and conflict of cultural identities inherent in the African foreign culture classroom.