Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's Wizard of the Crow and Postcolonial Pedagogy

The encyclopedic nature of Ngugi's Wizard of the Crow makes it an overt summing up of the author's previous work. At the same time, the novel explicitly positions itself as a break from what came before by rethinking the anticolonial ideologies contained in the earlier work in light of wha...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Research in African literatures 2012-06, Vol.43 (2), p.138-154
Main Author: Dalleo, Raphael
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
African literature
Authors
Consciousness
Education
Essays
Gender
Gender relations
Ideology
Kenya
Kenyan literature
Keresiouan languages
Literary criticism
Ngugi wa Thiong'o
Novels
Pedagogy
Philosophy
Portrayals
Postcolonialism
Race relations
Schooling
Teaching
Thiongo, Ngugi wa
Works
Writers
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Summary:The encyclopedic nature of Ngugi's Wizard of the Crow makes it an overt summing up of the author's previous work. At the same time, the novel explicitly positions itself as a break from what came before by rethinking the anticolonial ideologies contained in the earlier work in light of what Wizard of the Crow references as an expanding postcoloniality. This shift can be seen in the philosophy of pedagogy the novel puts forward. Unlike the radical oppositionality of the anticolonial stance, postcolonial pedagogy is depicted as contingent, conflicted, but because of its decentralized, nonhierarchical nature potentially better able to redefine the field of possibilities than a radicalization of the master's tools. Wizard of the Crow refuses to retreat from the intellectual's obligation to oppose and critique global exploitation and inequality, positioning postcolonialism not as an abandonment or surmounting of anticolonialism as much as a re-imagining of its goals in changed circumstances. The novel seeks to imagine a decolonizing form of education that can stand against without replicating patriarchy and colonial hierarchy.
ISSN:0034-5210
1527-2044
DOI:10.2979/reseafrilite.43.2.138