| CONTEMPORARY ART THEORY |
| COMPARATIVE LITERATURE |
| PRACTICE |
The Singular Instability: Action, the Ear, and the Eternal Return In Americanah and Wax Bandana
The question of what is “transnational identity”, and more specifically, how is it prescribed, diagnosed, and presented in non-Western literature and the visual arts is drawn to the foreground throughout this essay enabling an engagement with the question, or rather, the problematic of transnational representation in literature and the visual arts - arguing against any notion of a “fixed” position, or hybridization of identity – presenting in its stead a space of “eccentricity” and “cultural overlap”. This essay presents a specific case study of transnational identity in two works: Americanah (2013) by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie of Nigeria, and Wax Bandana (2009) by Romuald Hazoumé of Benin; literature and sculpture respectively.
The Piracy of Myth and the Seas of Discourse
“The advantage of good scholarship is that it presents us with evidence which is an invitation to the critical faculty of the reader: it bestows a method, rather than a judgement.”1
The piece you are about to read is both a narrative about mythic writing and mythic thinking, but too, it is a myth in itself. It is a story told that acts as a threshold to the world around us. It is a map to a buried treasure – a visual artefact composed of the remains of many myths – an interrogation of academic writing and the potential enterprises of new frontiers that come from crossing boundaries. It is a way forward within the tumultuous seas of discourse that are divided by the Gods and Monsters of disciplinary specificity. However, this is not a tale of ancient Gods and Monsters, but rather, a tale of pirates and farmers, of poets and critics. So, Avast ye hearties, and hear this sailors song, but listen closely, for this tale is spun, by the stolen words of a pirate’s tongue.
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PHD, UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, 2025