Mobilities and Cosmopolitanisms in African and Afrodiasporic Literatures

Download or read book Mobilities and Cosmopolitanisms in African and Afrodiasporic Literatures written by Anna-Leena Toivanen and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-03-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Mobilities and Cosmopolitanisms in African and Afrodiasporic Literatures, Anna-Leena Toivanen explores the representations and relationship of mobilities and cosmopolitanisms in Franco- and Anglophone African and Afrodiasporic literary texts from the 1990s to the 2010s. Representations of mobility practices are discussed against three categories of cosmopolitanism reflecting the privileged, pragmatic, and critical aspects of the concept. The main scientific contribution of Toivanen’s book is its attempt to enhance dialogue between postcolonial literary studies and mobilities research. The book criticises reductive understandings of ‘mobility’ as a synonym for migration, and problematises frequently made links between mobility and cosmopolitanism. Mobilities and Cosmopolitanisms adopts a comparative approach to Franco- and Anglophone African and Afrodiasporic literatures, often discussed separately despite their common themes and parallel paths.