On African Fault Lines

Book excerpt: This collection of meditations reformulates the experience of African studies as a concern with three thematics: Africa's place within today's intellectual, economic, and cultural configurations; the main axes that structure disciplinary practices concerned with African difference; and the possibility of understanding being-in-the-world with reference to alienation, creativity, and friendship. *** This book is highly innovative in its re-evaluation of alterity. It marshalls a broad range of theories from Adorno to Marx to Walter Benjamin, all the while "grounding" it in African politics and aesthetics through the lens of Yacouba Konate. A veritable tour de force, if ever there was one. - Kgomotso Masemola, Associate Professor of English, U. of South Africa (Series: Thinking Africa)