Interrogating African Modernity Symposium

Okediji

This address interrogates African modernity with the lenses of amnesia and memory, through four complementary tensions: between African versus Africana modernity; visual versus literary criticisms; algebra versus theories of representation; and semioptics versus semiotics. Following a short enumeration of the historiography of modernity in Africa, the address explores the role of artists, scholars and museums in the fracturing of African modernity. Concluding notes investigates ways of conducting an algebra of African modernity with speculative orthopedic archaeology.