Mind the Gap, Mind the Gaze.

I find myself living in the British Isles. That great land of the Queen. Of Parliament. Of constant cigarette smoke and centuries old buildings. Of English breakfasts and other such cliches that characterize the UK. I have developed extremely radical views of this country, this county and this school which I attend. Living in London, thus far, has become a form of exile for me. And I do not mean that to have any dramatic, political agenda. I say exile because, although I was not forced out of my home, I cannot yet return home. I have also been forced to refashion and reposition these notions of "home." This reformation is much different than when I was living in Ghana--when home was the current location, time, and space. I was not idealizing a land far away, I was in the land that was the ideal. Perhaps one can criticize my own romanticism of Ghana. Here, however, I am constantly thinking about home being elsewhere. In a sense, it has strengthened my Americanness. The irony. 


I was exchanging emails with a former professor of mine from UCSB, Dr. Mhoze Chikowero, about the problematic nature of SOAS. I wonder why all of my courses are being taught through a colonial/western lens? I expressed to Dr. Chikowero this terrifying curiosity that at once paralyzed me and made me want to take up arms against my former colonizers. It has been the fuel to my raging fire. I will include his entire email at the end of this wordy post, but he said something very profound, that in one sentence reframed how I view SOAS and its position in Academia. 


He told me that he had tried his luck at SOAS when looking outside for graduate school and he remembered "abruptly stopping all the communication when they told me they in fact, don't teach African ideas or history as such, but western ideas about Africa." To contextualize when I received this message, I was in the library waist deep in reading a dense (boring) article about First, Second and Third Cinema and how each layer of cinema is in dialogue with each other--they are all mutually constitutive. It is postcolonial (western) theory, though they would get mad at me for saying so. It is eurocentric in nature--the very impulse to categorize. I laughed out of relief upon receiving this message. Africa has come to rescue me out of these ideological pitfalls, by way of email. And in so doing, Dr. Chikowero has opened up a very interesting conversation. 


What do we mean by African Literature? That is the very course in which I have chosen to pursue, the very title which will be printed on my diploma--if received. However, if we are teaching through a framework of western notions, do we still get to reserve the right, the authority, to call "it" African Literature? It sounds more like cultural studies, postcolonial studies, popular (mis)representation/culture--anything but the specificity of African Literature. And what a betrayal it is, to misrepresent and mistake African Literature in such an essentialist manner. This narrative is not new to Africa and it remains a dangerous trail to embark on. 


This, of course, highlights the significance of the power of naming; how such names can either dismantle or perpetuate the colonial mission we are so adamantly against. And yet, there is a fascination, it seems, with this regime that dehumanizes people. I would argue it is directly related to the love and theft of the Black body, which has been demonized throughout history, its prime perpetrators being those of the west. So while these courses may illuminate the falsification of western representations of Africa, they fail to become anti-racist in one fundamental way. It is, at its core, obsessed with, fascinated and aroused by the idea of pain, brutality, and enslavement to the constructed sub-human. It becomes thrilling. To study African philosophy, life, culture, in a sense becomes mundane because it rejects the embodiment of the grotesque. In fact, it completely subverts the grotesque.


This goes back to our fascination with the gaze--the desire to stare at something so beastly, someone on the cusp of freak. It awakens our own primeval emotions but justifies such inhuman feelings by projecting it on to the Black body--the alien, the Other. This, however, illuminates the very anxieties expressed by eurocentrism in that it reveals the very reason why the gaze is an untrue mystification. 


Yet, the beast in us cannot help but stare.


Letters from Abroad:


Hi Lauren,

Thanks for the fulsome, tremendous response. I have just read your email again and how hilarious!! I am happy you are racing through all these knots and contrary feelings, and enjoying some of the lessons coming there from. I think a good part of what education means is getting through these kinds of quandaries and still finding your way.

I think the gaps that you are facing on courses that would matter most must allow you the independence to do your own readings the way you see them, especially as you have an advisor who is Ghanaian himself.

I tried my luck at SOAS when I was looking outside for graduate school, and I remember abruptly stopping all the communication when they told me that in fact, the don't teach African ideas or history as such, but western ideas about Africa. I was applying to do Development Studies, I think, and what the school told me struck me as quite an unreformed approach to Africa. But I hear SOAS can be a good place to do research -- they reportedly hold all these archives on Africa that I plan to explore some time.

Best,

Mhoze