Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Kultur-, Sozial- und Bildungswissenschaftliche Fakultät - Institut für Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften

Abstract:
Ngugi wa Thiong’o argues that the lower esteem with which oral material was historically treated became ‘the basis for expelling some cultures from history and complex thoughts, consigning them to a place in hell’. Moving beyond this much discussed albeit inconclusive debate on the tension between orality and literacy, this talk takes a more productive path, asking, what happens to theories of community formation when previously hidden, ignored, and suppressed oral knowledge is unearthed? Taking as a case in point the history of Fort Jesus in Mombasa, I think about the implications of such a project, showing the theoretical and narrative possibilities that reside in an attempt to re-figure the colonial archive. The aim is to make manifest the constellation of ideas, truths, and realities that emerge when new perspectives are brought to light.

Bio:
Jacky Kosgei is junior professor of Global Epistemologies at University of Tübingen in Germany. She received her PhD in English Studies from Stellenbosch University in South Africa in 2020 and BA (Literature and Sociology major) and MA in Literature from the University of Nairobi in Kenya, which she obtained in 2014 and 2017. She has been a postdoctoral fellow in the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER) at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in South Africa, and a Recalibrating Afrikanistik fellow in the Institute of African Studies at Leipzig University in Germany. Her interdisciplinary research which is mainly located at the intersection of Indian Ocean literary, cultural, historical and anthropological studies, advocates for indigenous knowledges and argues for the inclusion of oral sources in mainstream discourse.
Email: jacky.kosgei@es.uni-tuebingen.de