Dr. Gloria Onyeoziri-Miller, Professor of French Studies at UBC, explores the notion of memory as a source of utopia in African and Caribbean francophone literatures.
Sankofa bird: traditional African symbol of flying forward, while looking toward the past.
“Utopian memory in African and Caribbean literatures is a dialogical practice related to oral tradition where previously underrepresented voices come to the foreground and where fixed social roles are subject to challenge.”
Research
My research project, titled “Utopian Memory: Remembering as Utopianism in African and Caribbean Francophone Literatures”, explores how African and Caribbean authors (novelists and filmmakers) use the representation of memory to construct utopian visions.
In particular, I am interested in exploring the following questions: What is the relationship between past social conditions, present problems and visions of and for the future? How can we reassess the role of women in understanding memory as a source of utopia? I am also interested exploring the project’s central hypothesis, which is this: Utopian memory in African and Caribbean literatures is a dialogical practice related to oral tradition where previously underrepresented voices come to the foreground and where fixed social roles are subject to challenge.
Approach
The project will be accomplished by studying six texts: Jacques Roumain’s Gouverneurs de la rosée (1944); Ousmane Sembène’s Les bouts de bois de Dieu (1960); Bernard Dadié’s Béatrice du Congo (1970); Abderrahmane Sissako’s film Bamako (2008); Gisèle Pineau’s Morne Câpresse (2008) and Léonora Miano’s La saison de l’ombre (2013).
We are preparing a book-length manuscript with the help of two doctoral students (J. Akinwumi and P. Booluck) and two master’s students (M. Levit and H. Arandi), who are my research assistants responsible for a particular study (conference paper and publishable article). My students and I will also be participating in international conferences with the African Literature Association (ALA), Association des professeurs des universités et collèges canadiens (APFUCC), Conseil international d’études francophones (CIEF).
Insights
We have discovered that the scope of interest in the works of African authors and critics is even deeper, broader and more urgent that we had imagined. Specifically, our work on the fiction of Léonora Miano has led to a theoretical discussion on her critique of ‘forgetting’ as a fundamental problem in postcolonial African societies.
Impact
This research is significant because memory is both an individual and a collective need, directly related to the question of identity.
All African communities on the continent and in the diaspora are continually grappling with this need.
For further information, all are invited to attend our session at the CIEF congress in Ottawa on June 20, 2019 titled “Migrations traumatiques et migrations créatrices dans l’espace géopolitique de la diaspora africaine”:
- Joël Akinwumi, « Migration Créatrice dans Assèze l’Africaine de Calixthe Beyala et L’exil selon Julia de Gisèle Pineau»
- Robert Miller et Gloria Onyeoziri, « Création migrante et mémoire dans Le terroriste noir de Tierno Monénembo »
- Pooja Booluck, « Migration et création : Désirada de Maryse Condé et Le Baobab fou de Ken Bugul »
Dr. Gloria Onyeoziri-Miller is a recipient of the Insight Grant by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), which enables scholars to address complex issues pertaining to individuals and societies, and to further our collective understanding. Learn more.
