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Gondola Co-edits “Frenchness and the African Diaspora”

News Categories: African American and African Diaspora Studies | Books by Faculty | Faculty and Staff | History | International | Research

/_Assets/uploads/images/Speech_Night_Finalist.jpgIn 2005, following the death of two youths of African origin, France erupted in a wave of violent protest. More than 10,000 automobiles were burned or stoned, hundreds of public buildings were vandalized or burned to the ground, and hundreds of people were injured.

With Frenchness and the African Diaspora (IU Press, Oct. 2009) Charles Tshimanga, Didier Gondola, Peter J. Bloom, and a group of international scholars seek to understand the causes and consequences of these momentous events, while examining how the African Diaspora has reshaped the notion of what it means to be French and France’s colonial legacy.

Didier Gondola, Professor of African History and Africana Studies, says of the book, "It comes at a propitious time when France is engaged in a complex and contentious debate about national identity and immigration. We have started the process of translating the volume for publication in France and hope it will contribute to recasting this debate by providing a unique perspective."

Dominic Thomas, author of Black France, said the book is "essential in order to accurately contextualize the complex reformulation of identities on the European landscape." University of Pennsylvania faculty member Lydie Moudileno, called it "an important contribution to scholarship dealing with contemporary France and post-colonial identities."

Author of The History of Congo, Gondola’s research interests center on the social history of Central and West Africa, the African Diaspora, popular cultures and gender issues in colonial and postcolonial Africa. He recently completed a Fulbright IN the Congo where he furthered his ongoing research on the "Tropical Cowboys," looking at how young people in colonial Kinshasa, Congo, fundamentally reshaped notions of masculinities and resistance by reapropriating elements of the American west. Hollywood renditions of the bygone American west, in cowboy movies such as The Lone Ranger and Buffalo Bill, served as scripts for Kinshasa’s youth to reinvent their own identity.

 [IU Press]

 

Published on: January 08, 2010