Book Project
Invitation to Prospective Contributors
Africa has been quite a dynamic continent. Unlike other continents where changes have occurred within a specific and anticipated range, and therefore controllable, Africa has suffered severe returns necessitating new beginnings. Nothing would seem to have escaped this law-like and seemingly cyclical pattern of development: its economies oscillating between forms of state control and free-fall models; its politics from militarization to re-democratization; and its cultural life hanging somewhere between the African and conceptions of the Western. The end of the Cold War, with the redirection of attention of Western countries it occasioned, has only confirmed the cyclical patterns of development in Africa. Africa is in a state of crisis.
What seems obvious is the fact that the issues that are thrown up by the African situation have always recurred: absence of good governance and democracy, political corruption, personalization of state power, widespread diseases, persistent policy failure in education, economy and infrastructural development and dependence on Western expertise.
Yet, the current form of these issues cannot be said to be the same as they were some decades ago. Intervening factors in the domestic and international environment, in the intellectual and policy environment, have caused mutations and transformations of a qualitative character. What are the contemporary forms of these problems? How does the contemporary African situation relate to Africa’s past? How can Africa break out of the cycle of return?
Call for Chapter Proposals
Interested contributors are invited to respond to these questions by submitting a one-page chapter proposal. Such a proposal should connect with the proposed book title:
Contemporary Issues in Africa
Editor: Professor Richard A. Olaniyan
Each proposal should propose a related problem, exhibit familiarity with the literature and debates of the specific area and indicate likely conclusions.
Deadline for Submission: All proposals should reach
Prof. Richard Olaniyan,
olarich42@yahoo.com
P.O. Box 1045, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.
on or before May 30, 2008. Authors of accepted proposals will be expected to submit fully developed papers by September 13, 2008.
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