Cross-Connections between Nigeria and Négritude in the Decades of Decolonization. Exploring and Translating the Archives of Orphée noir – Schwarzer Orpheus – Black Orpheus
Cross-Connections between Nigeria and Négritude in the Decades of Decolonization.
Exploring and Translating the Archives of Orphée noir – Schwarzer Orpheus – Black Orpheus
Förderzeitraum: 01.07.2024 - 30.06.2027
Mittelgeberin: Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung
Format: Trilateral research linkage partnership
Projektleitung:
Prof. Dr. Susanne Gehrmann, Institut für Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften, HU Berlin
Prof. Dr. Aderemi Raji-Oyelade, Department of English, University of Ibadan
Prof. Dr. Sylvère Mbondobari, LAM, Université Montaigne, Bordeaux
Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeitende:
Dr. Charles Akinsete (Ibadan)
Dr. des. Laurel Braddock (HU Berlin)
Ana Carolina Coppola de Miranda (Bordeaux)
Research Questions
- Which continuities and ruptures between Sartre’s Orphée noir preface, Jahn’s Schwarzer Orpheus anthology and Ibadan’s Black Orpheus journal can be traced through the archival materials in Berlin and Ibadan?
- How has the exchange of ideas between African and Afrodiasporic authors, in particular Nigerian and francophone Négritude poets, along with their German mentors and translators fostered the development of poetics, aesthetics and ideologies in the writing of the decolonizing decades (1950s and 1960s)?
- How do the intellectual dialogues and poetic forms of that time speak to today’s current debates on coloniality, postcoloniality and decoloniality?
Research Goals
- to explore the cross-connections between Nigerian writers and academics and their Négritude counterparts in the development of their poetics, literary and political discourse as well as dissemination of decolonizing agendas in the 1950s and 1960s
- to help with the archival preservation of the Abiola Irele estate and curate the Black Orpheus stocks at the University of Ibadan
- to elaborate an annotated translation of the correspondence between Janheinz Jahn and Ulli Beier (1959-1972) that will allow Nigerian and international researchers to explore the founding of Black Orpheus journal
- to draw on the literary value of the correspondence between Janheinz Jahn and Abiola Irele and other Nigerian authors, and to point at the significance of these dialogues for the development of modern Nigerian/African literature
- to establish points of (dis)integration and (dis)connexions in Negritudian communiqué between Jahn and Irele, Jahn and Senghor and Césaire, Irele and Senghor .
- to further explore (dis)continues in Ibadan’s Black Orpheus journal through the archival materials in Berlin and Ibadan, by also including South African and Lusophone perspectives
- to engage poetic forms and philosophical concepts of the 1950s and 1960s Négritude poets that thrive on current intellectual debates on postcolonial and decolonial nuances
- to foster an exchange of ideas between scholars located in France, Germany and Nigeria and underscore literary connections through the lens of Senghor’s, Jahn’s, and Irele’s contributions on Négritude and further epistolary exchanges across the continents
- to promote young researchers by enabling their postdoctoral and doctoral research
- to develop, widen and sustain academic collaboration among scholars of the global North and South: Brazil, France, Gabon, Germany and Nigeria
- to foster networking and exchange of ideas in African and literary studies across the anglophone/francophone divide
- to publish individual and joint papers and to edit special journal issues