I sent this email to A41 STREAM: TEXT, PARATEXT AND CONTEXT IN AFRICAN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NARRATIVES.
I am a PhD student at Coventry University. Some years ago, I met Mr Bhoke Munanka, a Tanzanian who was a freedom fighter, Minister of State in Nyerere's first Tanzanian Government and an entrepreneur. We become close friends. He asked me to become his biographer. With no previous experience I enthusiastically, and with hindsight, naively, started my biographical research. I spent many an hour with Munanka and in the Tanzania National Archives & the University of Dar-es-Salaam, Africana library. In my opinion, Munanka was a walking encyclopaedia of modern African history. He passed away in 2008. The incumbent and former Head of State attended his funeral and mama Nyerere (wife of Julius Nyerere) and other prominents. Sam Nujoma the founding father of Namibian wrote a touching letter to his family stating, among other things, how Africa has lost a hero and nationalist of epic proportions.
At this time, I was working for Coventry University as Regional Manager for Africa, Latin America & The Middle East. My colleagues from Coventry's African Studies Centre suggested that I consider a PhD. A biography, in general terms can be described as many things. One such description is ‘birth, rise to fame, fall from fame followed by death’. This is not a PhD. So how could I make biography into a PhD?
Kessler-Harris took a thematic approach when she wrote about Lillian Hellman who was a communist, feminist and a playwright among other things. She was interrogated several times by the US ‘witch-hunt for communists’ that become known as McCarthyism. So, through Hellman’s life experience Kessler-Harris made a new contribution to our understanding of McCarthyism. Here is the publication. A Difficult Woman: The Challenging Life and Times of Lillian Hellman.
Following Kessler-Harris and others I have taken a thematic approach to the PhD and by following various themes I am aiming to contribute to Tanzania history through Munanka’s life experience.
ASAUK 2018 - your stream caught my eye.
STREAM: TEXT, PARATEXT AND CONTEXT IN AFRICAN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NARRATIVES.
The paratext is interesting – if I understand this concept. Kessler-Harris did not want her work on Hellman published under the genre of ‘biography’ she coined in a ‘biography not’. In the end she had to capitulate, as the publisher insisted on the genre of biography.
I have my PhD proposal, literature research and methodology chapters written. I am now undertaking a range multi-disciplinary research activity.
This is my response
Dear Tim
This sounds like a fascinating and interesting project! We are most happy to include your proposal in the stream. Could you please formally register your paper on the ASA UK site? Inge Brinkman
Associate Professor African Studies.
African Languages & Cultures.
Postal address: Blandijnberg 2, 9000 Ghent, Belgium.
E-mail: Inge.Brinkman@UGent.be . Tel: ++32/(0)9 / 264 41 65.
I plan to develop a full paper before the deadline for submission 16th February 2018