Reading Chinua Achebe
Welcome to the second BIRMAC Writing Culture reading group. The reading group is student-led and will include books suggested by MA and PHD students at or around Birkbeck. The name for our group, Writing Culture, is of course in reference to the influential volume edited by anthropologists, James Clifford and George Marcus. We take this book as a starting point and move its arguments beyond the confines of anthropology and into works of storytelling that bring worlds and ways of being ‘into the making’. This second session is on Chinua Achebe’s last book, “There Was a Country“. Joining us is Dr Rogers Orock (Louisiana State University) and we will be drawing on Dr Orock’s recent publication in Africa entitled, “Chinua Achebe’s postcolony: a literary anthropology of postcolonial decadence“.
We will be reading the book and article then discussing how it relates to Nigerian politics, post- and de-colonial movements, and Nigerian cultural identities.
Read as you have time and all are welcome.
Event time: 15 March 2024, 17:00-19:00 UTC/12:00-14:00 UTC-6
Location: Online, Link and registration here.
