Borders and Boundaries

July 12, 2022 from 14:45 to 16:00

Room Number: TRS 1-073

Join the Meeting: https://ryerson.zoom.us/j/97243073315?pwd=Qk1DeXgzQ0JkUHhGcjNzdDVoVnJkZz09

Chair: Felicity Hand (UA Barcelona)

Speakers:

Tomi Adeaga (U Vienna), “Crossing Borders and Boundaries in Helon Habila’s The Travellers and Tope Folarin’s A Particular Kind of Black Man

Megan Fourqurean (U Leeds), “Mami Wata and Spirit Kinship as Fluid Social Commons”

Isaac Ndlovu (U Venda), “Breaching Borders and Imploding Boundaries: Mapping and Re/establishing Morality in Deon Meyer’s Fever

Paper Summaries:

Tomi Adeaga (U Vienna), “Crossing Borders and Boundaries in Helon Habila’s The Travellers and Tope Folarin’s A Particular Kind of Black Man

Movements across borders and boundaries are driven by factors that are exemplified in the narratives of Nigerian authors, Helon Habila’s The Travellers (2019), and Tope Folarin’s A Particular Kind of Black Man (2019). This paper examines migration and the struggle to overcome racial and cultural challenges in their new locations.

Megan Fourqurean (U Leeds), “Mami Wata and Spirit Kinship as Fluid Social Commons”

This paper examines the role of Mami Wata worship as a form of indigenous theory of gender and identity. Akwaeke Emezi’s novel The Death of Vivek Oji serves as a medium through which to imagine expressions of gender nonconformity that prioritise an individual’s shared social, historical, and geographical environment.

Isaac Ndlovu (U Venda), “Breaching Borders and Imploding Boundaries: Mapping and Re/establishing Morality in Deon Meyer’s Fever

My paper utilizes Jordan Petersen’s insight that borders, boundaries, rules and life’s limitations are the conditions for human existence in examining Deon Meyers’ Fever. The post-apocalyptic world depicted by Meyer shows survivors creating a new community. In the novel, sociality which limits the individual’s freedoms is the very condition for the individual’s thriving.