← New Books in African Studies
Jeremy Harding's Analogue Africa: Notes on the Anti-Colonial Imagination artwork

Jeremy Harding's Analogue Africa: Notes on the Anti-Colonial Imagination

New Books in African Studies
E87049:55
Play episode

Show notes

Jeremy Harding has long been one of the premier essayists and journalists of our day. Elegant, committed and free of cant, Harding's writing has often appeared in the London Review of Books, from which a number of these essays were drawn. Harding explores the intersection of politics and culture on the African continent, and unearths stories that explain the dialectical relations between the two spheres during the colonial and post-colonial moments. Never heavy-handed, Harding's mode is the exploratory, and one comes away from his nuanced narratives edified. Discussed in the podcast are several of Harding's pieces, including the complicated and unanticipated journey of Kamel Daoud in his rewriting of Camus's The Stranger, and Camus's own ambivalent legacy around colonial rule. Read the transcript here. Leonard Benardo is a vice president for the Open Society Foundations. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-studies Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

More from this show

More
  1. The French Médersa: Islamic Education and Empire in Northwest Africa with Samuel D. Anderson (Cornell UP, 2026)

    The French Médersa: Islamic Education and Empire in Northwest Africa (Cornell UP, 2026) explores how the French state pursued a century-long project of bicultural Franco-Muslim edu…

    E153155:48
  2. An Anticolonial Development: Race, Schooling, and Emancipation in Twentieth-Century West Africa with Elisa Prosperetti (Cambridge UP, 2026)

    In An Anticolonial Development: Race, Schooling, and Emancipation in Twentieth-Century West Africa (Cambridge UP, 2026), Elisa Prosperetti argues that while racialized, colonial no…

    E153001:00:30
  3. Egyptian Male Film Stars in the Nasser Era: Envisioning a National Identity with Samar Abdel-Rahman (American U of Cairo Press, 2026)

    Samar Abdel-Rahman's Egyptian Male Film Stars in the Nasser Era: Envisioning a National Identity (American University of Cairo Press, 2026) explores male stardom in Egyptian cinema…

    E152901:15:49
  4. The Jew Who Would Be King: A True Story of Shipwreck, Survival, and Scandal in Victorian Africa with Adam Rovner (U California Press, 2025)

    This vivid reconstruction of one man’s life reveals the harsh realities and moral ambiguities of colonial power. The Jew Who Would Be King: A True Story of Shipwreck, Survival, an…

    E152801:00:51
  5. Compromised Coalitions: The Paradox of Postconflict Power Sharing in Africa with Alexander Noyes (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026)

    When an election turns violent and neither side will concede, why is the usual answer to put both sides in the same government? Alex Noyes has spent nearly two decades asking wheth…

    E152729:23
  6. Karline McLain, "Living with Gandhi: Experiments in Utopia" (Association for Asian Studies, 2026)

    Mahatma Gandhi was an anticolonial activist, lawyer, and politician. Less famously, but no less importantly, he was also a back-to-the-land farmer, a founder of communes, and a see…

    E152642:41
Now Playing