Manufacturing African studies and crises

This book is an interrogation of African studies, its formulations and
fetishes, theories and trends, possibilities and pitfalls. As a discursive
formation, African studies is, of course, immersed in the contexts and
configurations of the western epistemological order. « This is a « docu-drama
» in book form. It uses both fact and fiction, and mobilizes both the computer
and the muse. Paul Tiyambe Zeleza reinterprets the African condition and
examines those who study it. Especially fascinating is his scrutiny of
Africa's most dangerous marabouts of the twentieth century - academic
Africanists from Western and neo-western universities. Postmodernism and
postcoloniality may still be in vogue, but this book inaugurates the new era
of post-pessimism. » Prof. Ali A. Mazrui, Albert Schweitzer Professor in the
Humanities, Binghamton University, Binghamton, New York « The Manufacturing
African Studies and Crises is a provocative and stimulating book written by a
brilliant angry mind. It is a challenge to the practice of African Studies and
its political significance. The book is important for all Africanists. It will
upset you, as it did me, and force you to re-evaluate our work and understand
our predicament as students of African cultures and affairs. » Prof. V. Y.
Mudimbe, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of French, Comparative Literature &
Classics, Stanford University, Stanford, California « To the student of
Africa, this collection of essays offers irreverent insights of an informed
outsider, at a time when the field is in great need of reflection. To some in
the « African Studies » establishment, its words may prick like coming from
the pen of an inside agitator. If the result has the feel of a bitter
medicine, it will be no less therapeutic for those who dare read through it.
In short, Zeleza's book merits diverse audiences and has the potential of
triggering a much-needed soul-searching in « African Studies ». Prof. Mahmood
Mamdani, University of Cape Town, South Africa « One of the most comprehensive
and effective rebuttals of the way in which Africa has been studied in much of
North America and Europe. » Prof. Adebayo O. Olukoshi, Nordiska
Afrikainstitutet, Uppsala, Sweden