University of Sussex
Browse

File(s) not publicly available

The power to name: a history of anonymity in colonial West Africa

book
posted on 2023-06-08, 09:11 authored by Stephanie Newell
Between the 1880s and the 1940s, the region known as British West Africa became a dynamic zone of literary creativity and textual experimentation. African-owned newspapers offered local writers numerous opportunities to contribute material for publication, and editors repeatedly defined the press as a vehicle to host public debates rather than simply as an organ to disseminate news or editorial ideology. Literate locals responded with great zeal, and in increasing numbers as the twentieth century progressed, they sent in letters, articles, fiction, and poetry for publication in English- and African-language newspapers. The Power to Name offers a rich cultural history of this phenomenon, examining the wide array of anonymous and pseudonymous writing practices to be found in African-owned newspapers between the 1880s and the 1940s, and the rise of celebrity journalism in the period of anticolonial nationalism. Stephanie Newell has produced an account of colonial West Africa that skillfully shows the ways in which colonized subjects used pseudonyms and anonymity to alter and play with colonial power and constructions of African identity.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Publisher

Ohio University Press

Pages

248.0

Place of publication

Athens, OH

ISBN

9780821420324

Series

New African Histories

Department affiliated with

  • English Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2013-03-25

Usage metrics

    University of Sussex (Publications)

    Categories

    No categories selected

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC