Pan African Activism Meets Mamdanisation
[hr] Theory and practice have been butting heads at Makerere University’s Institute of Social Research, resulting in graduate students decrying the “authoritarian” leadership style of its director, public intellectual and crusader for the decolonisation of higher education, Mahmood Mamdani. Bwesigye Bwa Mwesigire chronicles the machinations of a protracted struggle against perceived creeping neoliberalism. [hr] On […]
Marcus Garvey is Alive in East Africa
[hr] A university in eastern Uganda, named in honour of the pan African giant, Marcus Garvey, seeks, through the philosophy of Afrikology, to reinstate and mainstream indigenous knowledge systems that were distorted by Greece and Rome. At MPAU, writes Bwesigye Bwa Mwesigire, the common Eurocentric hierarchies that serve to divide, invalidate and marginalise clearly haven’t […]
Under the Caine Bridge
by Bwesigye bwa Mwesigire 2000 There are two rivers of Literature, so-called mainstream Literature (Euro-American), and the Other Literature (including African Literature), named after their histories. They come from Europe and America and the rest of the world, from two different histories. They come from swathes and swathes of land in countries with different names, […]
Breaking the Rules Beautifully
by Bwesigye Bwa Mwesigire. “Breaking the rules attracts implications, Jennifer.” I overhear British writer and feminist Sara Maitland delivering these warning shots to Jennifer Makumbi. Makumbi has chosen to publish her debut novel on the continent and the snub felt by the publishing industry in the West has probably become more pronounced as Kwani?, a Kenyan […]