English Department Welcomes New Faculty Member Chigbo Arthur Anyaduba
Tue. Feb. 19, 2019
The Department of English is very pleased to welcome new faculty member Chigbo Arthur Anyaduba. We asked Professor Anyaduba a few questions about his research and teaching. Check out his fantastic list of book recommendations at the end of this story!
Q: What is your educational and professional background?
“I come from a background of literary studies specializing in African and postcolonial cultural experiences and expressions. I had my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in literature from Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria, and my PhD in English from the University of Manitoba. My honour’s research focused on the uses, patterns and implications of “magical realism” in writing postcolonial epochs or histories of transition. My master’s thesis examined the poetics of African historical fiction by focusing on two histories: the so-called Cattle-Killing Movement in nineteenth-century Xhosa land (part of present-day South Africa) and slave trade experiences in the Gold Coast (Ghana). My doctoral research explored fictional representations of genocides in Nigeria and Rwanda in part to make a case for the influence of the Holocaust on the representations of African experiences of genocide. The thread running through these phases of my educational life manifests as my desire to chart the various ways and forms humans use stories as a response to traumatic experiences and histories.”
Q: What are your main research interests and how did they come about?
“My research interests have bordered on African literary and cultural expressions, particularly as they relate to representations of mass violence and traumatic histories. My current interest in the cultural and artistic representations of genocides in Nigeria (1966-1970) and Rwanda (1990-1994) arose in 2012 following the publication of Chinua Achebe’s Biafran memoir, There Was a Country. Achebe’s memoir reignited debate in Nigeria about the genocide of Igbos in the late 1960s prior to and during the country’s so-called civil war (1967-1970). My family lost relatives and had property stolen from relatives during those crisis years. My maternal grandma who was about 100 years in 2012 could still not talk about that past. The history of the genocide and the war was not taught in schools in Nigeria. My interest in that history became (perhaps understandably so) uncontainable. Also, at the time, I had ‘discovered’ some interesting books concerning the genocide in Rwanda. The experiences of genocide in Rwanda and those in Nigeria were not dissimilar, besides matters of context. All of these things added up to my doctoral dissertation research. These issues have continued to haunt my present research interests and teaching preferences.”
Q: What courses are you interested in teaching or developing in the English Department?
“It’s a hugely fascinating opportunity in the English Department to live passions that I have carried for a long time and to share with students the troubles of literature and the arts. I look forward to developing courses in African literatures, literatures of genocide, global black liberation struggles in art and popular culture, and literatures of migration/diaspora. For the winter term, I am teaching a first-year Introduction to English course (Reading to Write). It’s a delicacy.”
Q: What is your recommended reading list for students who are interested in an introduction to your field?
“That’s a tricky one, because there are so many lovely texts to consider. Anything written by Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Chiekh Hamidou Kane, Bessie Head, Tayeb Salih, Ama Ata Aidoo, and Ngugi wa Thiong’o is always a good way to be introduced to African literature. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun is kind of a ‘pleasurable’ introduction to literature of postcolonial genocide. Boubacar Boris Diop’s novel, Murambi, the Book of Bones will make a philosopher out of any reader and a must read for anyone interested in the subject of African (Rwandan) genocide. Zakes Mda’s novels (particularly The Heart of Redness) as well as novels by Congolese Alain Mabanckou (e.g., The African Psycho) can mess up the ribs with their dark humour.
I will also recommend (at the risk of raising the sugar levels both of the mind and the body) such appetizers as NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names, my good friend Ayobami Adebayo’s Stay with Me, Lola Shoneyin’s The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives, and not forgetting the indelible Tsitsi Dangarembga’s trilogy beginning with the immortal Nervous Conditions. You may have noticed that I focused so much on novelists and novels (besides Soyinka). It’s because I do not recommend poetry (also drama), the genre in which I’m currently sweating out a writing career. That will be bad business.”