Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Literature, Power and the Academy

[Music] Madonna is reckless Madame Lanvin madam miss Olivia dear colleagues dear students ladies and gentlemen good evening and welcome on behalf of the committee of organisation in the Faculty of humanities and Social Sciences I am very pleased and honored to introduce ms Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie our doctor honoris causa 2019 [Applause] Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is an internationally renowned writer and the author of a hugely influential earth her novels / - Lee biscuits half of a Yellow Sun and Americana her volume of short stories the thing around your neck her poems her place as well as her essays we should all be feminists for the love of Biafra dear enjoy la etc she has been nominated for numerous awards and her books have been translated into many languages including French as published by gali MA German as published by Fisher for logic an Italian as published by an Audi miss Aditya is also celebrated for her political activism particularly in relation to race and to women's equality she wrote she was recently named the most influential woman of Africa recognizing the fact that her high international profile has given her an important voice in culture arts politics and academia as an introduction to the conversation that we are delighted to have with her tonight I would like to summarize the qualities of Meza DJ's work that have motivated three Brewers Faculty of humanities and Social Sciences to elect Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie as doctor honoris causa 2019 these qualities are indeed as numerous as the disciplines offered by our faculty they reflect the values and knowledge that we aim to develop in our research and that we are committed to instilling in our students literary first to the extent that clarity elegance and inventiveness of writing and creation are essential to the diffusion of a strong clear message whatever it is linguistic as the intricacy of language which registers the work on language and style spoken and written and the subtle weaving of English and evil languages in Chimamanda Adichie's novels are the key vehicles of every message social as well as sociological given that every truth in literature and in discourse always concerns human beings men and women and reflects as in a mirror ourselves political because the text created by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie testified to her activist and civic commitment to the values that are dear to her and that in the name of the freedom of thought and expression we defend in this faculty feminist and gender balanced which flows from the political commitment because the place of women and in quali an equality of opportunity in the city in the academy and in society are more than ever at stake historical since the stories told by Chimamanda Adichie resurrects crucial epochs of our past near or far whether the viet Renoir of the election of Barack Obama and thus ask us to interrogate the structures that underlie them from post-colonial gendered global and political points of view pedagogical because what is at the heart of all thinking is of course education access for everyone to instruction and to knowledge for these reasons and many more Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in her person and earth and bodies not only the intellectual and ethical values but also the hopes in for the future sure that move our faculty in cultural and ideological development within the university the city and the continent freeboard in this year of the women's strike in Switzerland and of the very recent votes that aim at changing the Swiss government landscape by betting on youth commitment and equal opportunities we are very thrilled to join the party by celebrating literature power and the Academy tonight along with Meza deechi with Elizabeth Dutton professor of English philology and Aleksandra douching professor of social linguistics I'm now very pleased to give the stage to a conversation with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie [Applause] thank you so much for that lovely welcome thank you I really appreciate it it's always nice to walk into a full room where people seem happy to see you it's always delightful I'm going to read a small excerpt from Americana and it's interesting because I I don't read my own work so this except was selected by these brilliant professors so we can ask them why they choose this excerpt when I'm done reading it and I have and have been read it in years so it's it's almost a revelation to me and then there was Christina Thomas Christina Thomas with her rinsed out look how was she blue eyes faded hair and pallid skin Christina Thomas seated at the front desk with a smile Christina Thomas wearing Whitefish tights but made her legs look like death it was a warm day if Emily had walked past student sprawled on green lawns cherry balloons were clustered below a welcomed freshman sang good afternoon is this the right place for registration if Emily asked Christina Thomas whose name she did not then no yes now you an international student yes family said you will first need to get a letter from the international students of this FML have smiled in sympathy because Christina Thomas had to have some sort of illness that made her speak so slowly lips scrunching and puckering as she gave directions to the International Students office but when a family returned with the letter Christina Thomas said I need you to fill out a couple of forms do you understand how to fill these out and she realized that Christina Thomas was speaking like that because of her hovering accent and she felt for a moment like a small child lazy Lind and drooling I speak English she said I bet you do Christina Thomas said I just don't know how well if Emily shrunk in that strained still second when her eyes met Christina Thomas's before she took the forms she shrunk she shrank like a dried leaf she had spoken English all her life led the debating society in secondary school and always thought the American twang inchoate she should not have coward and shrunk but she did and in the following weeks as autumns coolness descended she began to practice an American accent school in America was easy assignment sent in by email classrooms air-conditioned professors willing to give makeup tests but she was uncomfortable with what professor's called participation and did not see why it should be part of the final grade it merely made students talk and talk class time wasted on obvious Wars hollow words sometimes meaningless words it had to be that Americans were taught from elementary school to always see something in class no matter what and so she sat stiff toned surrounded by students who were all folded easily on their seats all flush with knowledge not of the subject of the classes but of how to be in the classes they never said I don't know they said instead I'm not sure which did not give any information but still suggested the possibility of knowledge and they ambled these Americans they walked without rhythm they avoided giving direct instructions they did not say ask somebody upstairs they said you might want to ask somebody upstairs when you tripped and fell when you choked when we fortune befell you they did not say sorry they said are you ok when it was obvious that you were not and when you said sorry to them when they choked or tripped or encountered misfortune they replied eyes wide with surprise oh it's not your fault and they overused the ward excited a professor excited about a new book a student excited about a class a politician on TV excited about a law it was altogether too much excitement some of the expressions she heard everyday astonished her jarred her and she wondered what who Benzes mother would make of them you shouldn't have done that there is three things I had a Apple I want to lay down these Americans cannot speak English she told her benzo on her first day at school she had visited the health center and had stared a little too long at the bin filled with free condoms in the corner after her physical the receptionist told her you're all set and she blank wondered what you're all set meant until she assumed it had to me that she had done all she needed to she woke up everyday worrying about money if she bought all the textbooks she needed she would not have enough to pay her rent and so she borrowed textbooks during class and made feverish notes which reading them later sometimes confused her her new class friend Samantha a thin woman who avoided the Sun often saying I burn easily wood from time to time let her take a textbook home keep it until tomorrow and then make notes if you need to Samantha would say I know how tough things can be that's why I dropped out of college years ago to work Samantha was older and a relief to befriend because she was not a slack-jawed eighteen year old as so many others in her communications major were still if Emily never kept the books for more than a day and sometimes refused to take that to take to take them home it's stung her to have to beg thank you very much Donald as for sharing with us an excerpt of one of your masterpiece Americana it's really a great honor for us for everyone here to have you here at the University of Freiburg and we are also amazed by the number of people who have come here to have a conversation between the concert to celebrate and honor your earth and also participating in this event which will be around literature power and the Academy so when we were thinking about this event we thought of this event as a kind of conversation first of all the first step of the conversation will be a stage conversation we have a series of question the three of us would like to share with you and to engage with you and we will have in a second moments the possibility also to share questions and exchange with the audience we close the event with another reading from you from another masterpiece which is half of a Yellow Sun and some concluding world so the first questions are the first discussion we were thinking of having with you is related to one of the talk you gave some years ago around the danger of a single story and that took you really very local into issues that single stories constitutes a danger in many ways it limits our thinking it limits our view on people communities situation social phenomena and you also say that many ways the single stories are incomplete and it drops I quote people of dignity it emphasizes differences and ignore similarities in that again fantastic talk you also consider that stories can repair and that we should really be Hemant Lee reject the simple story and regain in order to regain I can't get paradise so the question would be what do you think is the role of literature in going the way of rejecting the single stories and how did you go in your own world with that I I think literature is and and I say this not just because I am biased because I practice literature but because I really think that literature is maybe the best way of humanizing people and storytelling I think in general humanizes people and obviously the different kinds and ways of storytelling and I think film does that as well even journalism but there's something about new teacher there's something about the kind of storytelling that is interested in human motivation that forces us to look beyond stereotype my concern with stereotype is not necessarily that it's all true because many stereotypes are true but the problem with them is that because they're so incomplete they're not useful if you base your understanding of a place or a question on a stereotype it's like Beijing it's like trying to understand the whole by just having a very tiny part of it and which is why in some ways I am sociably buying reading stories about the world about people in my life and and I think I think most of us human beings are guilty of this of having a single story I don't think having a single story Nessus means that we are evil or bad it just means that we're limited and that for me it's a question of constantly being aware so I am constantly challenging my own assumptions of our people and constantly curious and constantly wanting to learn and to read and it's funny because this excerpt that I that was selected for me by you makes me think about this because I I haven't I haven't seen that in a while I mean obviously I routes it but even just reading it I started to feel a kind of sadness for not just my character family but of so many other young people who carried that label of foreigner in in a different place and who because of that are treated without there's a certain kind of smallness in a humiliation that comes with people assuming what you are without knowing you and it comes from the single story so you have this woman in the international students office who really should know better right if you've admitted a student from Nigeria you should at least know the basics that Nigeria's English speaking but because in your in her mind that you know maybe this person in front of her is just a vague black blur so and and it must be that people like that don't speak English and have AIDS and the villages were burned down one and they have lions in their backyard you know and so it means then that this person cannot speak English and the single story that you have blinds you so you can't actually see the individual in front of you and actually that that bit was from my personal experience and I used the real name of the woman so there isn't that the Christian October one can strike back in very subtle ways now I change this slightly but it's it's very easy to know who she was because I felt that she was she I felt that her world is young you know students were come from different parts of the world here in a new place you're vulnerable you're uncertain and you go to this office that's supposed to really be in some ways solace for you but instead it's it's run by a woman who is deeply condescending and and I just think that it can cause emotional damage and again I think that her problem was that she had a single story about people who came from other parts of the world Indira Tralee and we should all be feminists you discuss examples of sexist behavior and you draw them from Nigerian society and I was wondering how do you find that race and gender interact do you particularly perhaps in America living in America some of the time has that had an effect on your understanding of the interaction between the two I think I think when you well my experience has been that if I'm in a society if I'm in a country that is racist as America is and and I say this because I also think it's important maybe we should start reclaiming that word racist because I think the the kind of the kind of contemporary framing and understanding of the word racist is a bit too extreme so now we live in a world where there's racism but there are no racists because everybody says oh I'm not a racist and and sometimes it seems to me that people are more offended by the idea of being called racist than by the fact that racism exists and so I think I think that that people who probably have personal experience in this and and no but it's true and I think you know I think for us to have real conversations so so even the statement that I made if you live in a country that is racist like America I can tell you that there are many people even on the political left who accept that racism is I think who's ill that's too extreme but it's not right to be a racist doesn't mean that one is a is a a monster or sort of the devil with horns it simply means that you commit acts or participate in structures that are pressed into people of a certain race and and I think America is that and when I'm in America which I consider my second home now I'm very aware of race and gender intertwined and at that times when you don't know which it is you know and again for me the only reason it's important to talk about race is because of racism by which I mean that if racism didn't exist I wouldn't I mean I wouldn't really care what race anybody was right I mean I think the only reason I would care is make sure that the makeup counters have dark shades for some of us who have trouble finding our shades but in general that I think it's the only reason we should talk about race right we should talk about race as a way of dismantling racism and I find that in the u.s. there are times that things happen sometimes it's little things right and I say that because obviously I now occupy a position of privilege and so that privilege also kind of shapes my experience so I have the privilege of class I don't have the privilege of race and gender and and that's all also intertwined class plays a major role so I think that as a black woman in the u.s. so I'll tell you just little examples when I'm in at the airport and I'm I'm getting in line and because of my new fancy-pants life I'm now getting in the first-class lounge but always there's somebody saying to me ma'am this way because they look at me and I don't fit I should've been the first class line there's constantly somebody telling me to go to the other line it happens all the time and and for me this is a mix oh so it's that interesting thing where I'm thinking if I were a black man would it be different if I were a white woman would it be different right this idea that even the benefits that class affords you in a capitalist society recent gender deprive you of name so I think in America and so it's always entertaining for me I'm never quite but in Nigeria where race is not an identity marker well mostly because we're all mostly black I'm very much aware of gender much more aware of sexism in Nigeria and again sometimes it's little things it's that I own a home in Lagos but when maybe the plumber is coming or the electrician to fix something I - upstairs I put on lipstick I worry big boo-boo because I want to create the possibility of respect from him because if you're female and young you just do not get I mean the plumber will walk into your house and ignore you not acknowledge you because you're just a small girl so I do these ridiculous things like go and wear it put on lipstick to look a bit older and a bit more like a madam and again it's it's it's again trying to negotiate sexes and right so what I'm doing is I know these people are not going to respect me so I'm going to try and use the benefit of age in a society that that still has some value and still gives age some value because if you're an older woman in a culture like Nigeria you get a bit of respect not because you're a woman but because you're older which i think is kind of different for the west where as a woman gets older she becomes less visible in in other cultures as women get older they come more visible and I kind of feel like that which i think is why in the West you find many young women who can make the case for sexism it's really not that much of a problem we don't really need feminism until the turn 40 but but it's interesting because some ways in Asia makes the opposites and igv its opposite when you're young I mean you know that it's there's just so much going on with being female you get older you start to get a few benefits of you know of age so it for me it's always a complicated thing but I also don't want it to seem as though them for me like the story of sexism and racism for me is not a woe is me I mean these are oppressions that and systemic oppression that I'm interested in talking about because I think conversations will help us to start to dismantle them and so it's not about me so you know look how terrible my life is because actually it's not terrible my me personally is what I mean yet for me it's a somatic thing that we should and be talking about how to change as it's use how to change policies have to change laws well I have a question about literature so you encourage young novelists through writing workshops and we were wondering why is this important to you and how do you go about it and can you teach a person to be a novelist can you teach a person to be a novelist any person no no I think there's some people who just just you just can't so I think you know I think for example my father who is I had or my father my daddy's girl my father is 87 he's a brilliant professor of mathematics I don't think I could teach daddy to be a novelist it just will not happen you know it just won't happen um I think what you can't do and this is the the view that I take is that you can teach your writer how to read as a writer how to pay attention to to detail how to how to listen for language that kind of thing how to think about and this is something that's particularly important to me how to think about honesty I started the workshop ten years ago now actually this will be the 11th year because quite simply I wanted a young upcoming and young writers to have what I didn't have when I started out have a community to be in a room I think there is something potentially really life-changing for a young person who's creative especially in a society like mine where you're supposed to become a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer and actually maybe now an IT specialist right you're not supposed to say you want to be a writer and so I think for young people who have that dream to be in a room with people like them people who don't think that what they want to do is crazy can really be affirming and just the most wonderful way I didn't have that and after my novel was published I thought you know this is I really would like to do that and so the workshop started and mostly we read we talked about writing they write but actually I'm also really talking about politics and sociology and psychology so we start off I have them do very strange exercises I say to them what is it that you're most ashamed of and you need to tell us and the point of it apart from I know something a bit crazy is to say that writing has to come from a certain place of you cannot you cannot tell human stories if you are not familiar with both the heights and the depths of of human possibility you have to acknowledge to yourself that you're not a perfect person otherwise you're going to write rubbish you know I mean I and so I often say to them when you're writing the reason I want you to tell me about what you're ashamed of is that when you start writing I want you to start writing from that place so so you then see human beings as human beings you don't see them as ideological puppets you see that people are complicated that somebody who can be deeply kind - someone can also be terribly racist to someone else that's what human beings do and it's for me it's important that we talk about ourselves before we start to you know tell stories so we talk about that we talk about politics we talk about structures we talk about in Nigeria its classism sexism there's regionalism you know I tell them I ask them questions about the stereotypes they have about people from the north what does it mean where did it come from so really a friend of mine who visited the workshop some years ago said to me actually this is not so much about rights and this is about what you're doing here social engineering which despite its I know that social engineering concern especially in this area with Germany next door but I don't mean it in that way I think what he meant was that that it's a workshop that acknowledges that Righton doesn't fall from the sky that writes in storytelling is rooted in our in our political and social emotional realities and that we need to talk about those things as well so we don't only talk about the rhythm of sentences although that's important we also talk about what they're ashamed of and and one thing that makes me very happy is that afterwards it becomes a community of people you're the support one another and I then end up having to write way too many recommendation letters for graduate school it's terrible that's the only downside but I but I I don't think I'm teaching them how to write I think these are people who already are very talented but I think that maybe what the workshop does is that it gives them confidence and it starts to help them to see what it's like to send your workouts into the wall because it's quite difficult I mean many of them have never been read by other people or have been read only by their friends and then they come in and you have a room for twenty people reading your walk and talking about it and it can be difficult but it's part of the territory if you want to write you have to know that that's how it works there is somebody going to say to understand the story I don't think the story works and you might have to visit the bathroom and cry but it's part of the territory one advice to give to somebody to young people who would like to become novelist what would it be don't tell your parents I mean parents I know parents on a watch but don't because parents love you and they are going to think about how you're going to pay your rent and living and but two things I would say is if you it's important to to try I'm a great believer in trying and you just never know and so yes I don't know what the statistics are for success as a novelist but it's probably not the most encouraging statistics but but you won't know until you try and so if I think for a young person who has a dream of being a writer I would say try I'm trying means you have to read you have to really read I don't think it's possible to be a good writer if you're not a good reader and and then you have to write because it's actually work and you have to be willing to give up time for it you cannot have in my opinion the kind of full life and also write it the best that you can something has to give when I was an undergrad I remember just I didn't hang out I didn't go to bars because I wanted to write I wanted to save the time to write but that was the thing that gave me my high rights in so so if writing doesn't give you your high then I don't see why you should do it people are kind of solemn is talking about drugs in a tangential way bad in Switzerland all right so instead of high what makes you happy and the other thing I would see is I would say read and write and try and I would say possible keep your day job [Laughter] because I think I think it's too much pressure on even on your talent to make it to want to make it earn your living for you right away I mean it can be too much and if and I think rejection comes with the territory of writing I remember when I started trying to be publishing I got so many rejections and I think had I depended on that to pay my rent I probably might have stopped writing but what I was doing is I was babysitting so I could pay my rent and rights so I would so just keeping the day job [Laughter] another question about when you began writing and you talked about how you first read about snow and apples and so when you started writing me wrote about snow and apples instead of about mangoes and sunshine which were your experience so do you think and in in that situation what was it that gave you a sense of vocation as a writer and was it in some way kind of reaction against that experience do you think that's actually interesting I don't know I don't I I like to think that my ancestors brought me to the wall to tell stories I liked I really do believe that this is why I'm here and I and at the risk of sounding a little precious but it's because the urge to tell stories is something I've always had I don't remember when I didn't have it but then telling the stories that were not mine I think just happened to be a consequence of the books I was exposed I think had I started off reading books about nigerians rather than books about British kids and American kids I probably would have you know written the same stories I was reading so I don't really know if it's hard to say what was a how much of my it's really hard it's also really hard for me to write to talk about creative motivations because I don't always know you know why did I why did I decide that writing really was the thing was it because I read Enid Blyton when I was six I don't know yet I really don't know and and increasingly I don't even want to talk about writing literature because it feels like I mean me to be my own therapist boy it's not about your motivation for writing then you in Americana you treat the topic of different kinds of English and your central character consciously decides not to speak American English so do you think of yourself as speaking or indeed as writing in Nigerian English American English British English or does it even matter do you think I do I don't think I think about it consciously but but I do feel that I've become a kind of mongrel evades issues and I like to think that my walk reflects the English that I'm familiar with which is a certain kind of [Music] Nigerian English African English but also because class always plays a role in these things so it's it's also an educated Nigerian English right so but it's also an English that's deeply flavored by ebo the other language I speak but but I think that idea of being in some ways and I think I was telling you earlier how fascinated I am by this wonderful swiss penchant for multiple languages which languages fascinate me because I think we become different people different versions of ourselves speak different languages when I speak evil I think for me so it's very informal it's a language of love and laughter I'm Ramna Moony whenever when I what - a circuit that when they walk a candle get an e-book when you so it's it's it's warm that my and then there's the other English I speak which is when I'm when I go to the market illegals this I start to talk like this how much is this didna why why is the why is it not cheaper now I don't want to give me that's another English rate it's a class based English and then when I'm I speak to Jean as well and then when I am in places like this when I have to be properly educated I spent like this and I call I call this my mr. Abu English is that Abu was my English teacher in second BC and he used to do this thing where he would bring a radio and turn the BBC on and then have us talk and let me be like listen you need to sound like that and then we're all there thinking poor we don't know how to repeat repeat that would no no say it again so mr. boo is always in my head when I'm doing this when I get back to the hotel with my brother well switch you speaki boo and we'll speak a Nigerian English when I get back to Lagos and my driver picks me up I switch to another version of English if I go to my ancestral hometown I speak an English that has more people in it so it's constantly and and what I want to try and do in my fiction is to try and capture that so it's kind of why I have I throw in bits of evil words in the dialogue and sometimes I make the dialogue in English that one might call intentionally awkward but it's really just to capture that Nigerian but I don't know the multiple nests of the English is in my world oh sorry American bit yes I am so when I when I first went to the u.s. it's almost like if mmm I mean not I didn't quite practice in American accent like if Emily does in the novel but I did deliberately mimic an American accent because I think that when you're in your new place you're vulnerable you feel that people are looking down on you that the thing you least want is to be different and so I found myself then say in caps on water because because then Americans don't look at you in a strange way and then they don't talk to you in that slow condescending tone I did that for a while and apparently I'm told that I did a fairly good American but I remember just waking up one day and thinking what accent will I have if I I'm told that I'm in a room the door is locked and there's a fire you know am I going to see thanks a fire or am I going to see there's a fire I would say there's a fire so I thought I'm going to I'm going to use the energy that I have instead of sort of pretending to speak the way that's just takes of war I'm going to use that energy and write my fiction and I'm going to talk in a way that's more natural to me so that's why I made the decision to stop doing that American accent but at the same time I completely understand how people who go to a new place take on you know the code switch to just to be a little less different and I think in the end it's really about human beings looking for ways to find dignity because if signing a particular way means that some is going to look down on you then you make the choice to change how you sound so that you can just have a little bit of human dignity so still about literature in writing how do you actually go about writing you're right in your pajamas in the morning the right to the dare speed write with a pan or directly on the laptop do you're right drinking coffee and do you give yourself fuels like I have to write 500 words a day or do you know when you when you begin and enough well then you know how it is going to end no when I think in a novel I don't know how it's going to end and I don't want to know I think for me I have a general sense of what I want to do I like to call it that the spirits are talking to me but sometimes I imagine something will happen and then it doesn't that makes sense so half of a Yellow Sun ended in a way that I hadn't quite planned for it to end because I started it and things just happened it's true I I cannot tell you where I write what I can tell you is that I don't have I wish I had a schedule I remember reading about John Cheever who apparently every morning would dress up take the elevator down to the basement of his apartment building in New York City have a typewriter there right and then at 4 p.m. take the elevator batteries equipment when I read I thought my god how so did he actually write what was useful every day because I don't know how that happens I write when when it comes I wish it came more often i I don't have a word count when when when it's going well and deeply last I am I'm also quite obsessive and and you know I I'm I become consumed really when my writing is going well and I just it's like being it really is when the writing is going well when fiction is going well because it's quite different for nonfiction but for me when fiction is going well I feel that I'm transported I feel just so exquisitely happy but alas it never lasts so I really I don't have a pattern or that times when I want to really for me the only requirement is silence and space and light I like light there are obviously elements of autobiography in your novels so how do you invest yourself in your writing by not being I'm not necessarily Precious about the idea of the autobiographical in fiction because I think that all fiction is autobiographical if not in a literal way then surely in a in a more figurative way we we bring ourselves and our world Vienna and our interests to a fiction in general I borrow from my life but because my life is actually not that interesting I then I tweak I borrow from my life but I tweak so so the excerpt that I read there was somebody like a Christina Thomas she did speak to me this very condescending manner I didn't quite react like if Emily if I may lose reaction I made a bit more dramatic because it's it's just a more interesting reaction I just soaked for a few days but if emily is just more she does more so I it's again not always conscious things happen and I take notes and I don't know how I'll use them because again for me it's just never it's not an entirely conscious process fiction I think that if anything it's less maybe what is most autobiographical I think is the emotional landscape of my fiction not so much the things that happened but that feeling of just trying to mind what it feels like to be to long for something that I that feeling of wondering if there's another life somewhere that's better than the life you have which is something I feel very familiar with and I think that a lot of my fiction is really about the kind of longing which is to conclude for with the last question from our side before giving the floor to the audience you are a writer an artist but also a kind of public intellectual you are engaging also with academia in many ways like giving talks receiving honorary Doctorate is not the only one yeah I mean some people cause we're giving you honorary Doctorate from other places and we were just wondering what do you think about academia and about its role or useless maybe challenging or questioning issues of race class gender or other issues it really wants to know what I think yeah [Laughter] you've been very kind to me [Laughter] okay I'll tell you what it well first of all so having grown up on a university campus academia is very familiar to me and whenever I'm in a university environment or sets in I just feel instantly at home and it doesn't matter where in the world I think it's just that idea of being in a space that is dedicated to learning and because I grew up in that I just feel at home but at the same time I do have concerns and criticisms about a certain kind of contemporary academia and I can really only speak for the US because that's what I know well there is a sense in which and maybe it's it's it's a kind of disappointment the kind of disappointment that comes from love and so I feel that academia is becoming increasingly inward-looking so when I was in graduate school for example there were many books that I just thought were full of Jocko and I couldn't I didn't even understand half of them especially political science and the reason is frustrated me is that I thought these are such brilliant people in academia and it's almost as though the way that academia is structured they are no longer able to really engage with the world outside of academia which in my opinion is where they're most needed we live in a world of we live now in a world of kind of low information low understanding and it seems to me that if you look at so so reading academic papers from 1965 and reading academic papers from 2019 the difference is jarring the use of language years ago was much clearer it didn't feel as you know it didn't feel as though those papers were being written for two people the thesis supervisor and the former thesis supervisor because I'm just a believe I'm in knowledge and I feel as though I didn't mix them because you know to get to the point where you're in a university you've done so much walk there's a lot of knowledge there there's so much to give back and I feel as though it's not quite being done especially in the US and it's not about individuals I think it's about again I think it structural I'm not sure how much of it is about the American education system being so mired in money so there's a kind of I don't know I almost feel as though there's a rigor that's lost but I think part of part of it is the idea that students are kind of now clients you know students pay you right and therefore you owe them a certain kind of ease and on the other hand then you want to get tenure so you cannot write for the public because then your thesis supervisor will be like this is too simple you don't have enough jargon in here you're not going to get tenure so I don't know how much of all of these things are linked to sort of a larger kind of just I don't know financial system but so yes those are my I wish that academia would be more be less jargony be more because here's the other thing I find that when I need academics talking to them I'm fascinated I find them so interesting their ideas are interesting then I go and read their papers and so that's when you start to see that you know the sudden you know unfortunately some academics I think have to play the game the way it's played you know you have to think about that and and I experienced a bit of it when I was in graduate school and I remember thinking academia is not for me because I had kind of thought briefly that I would go on into a PhD but after doing the masters I thought I can't do this because I just really felt I thought constricted I felt yeah I am yeah wasn't it wasn't the Muslim that said for the students here please keep going to class there's still some good things about it but really I mean I think but but again this obviously this criticism is coming from the place of thinking that that academia deeply matters but intellectualism has to be a central part of any society that wants to function that the the discussion of ideas that ideas have to be part of of the wall that we create you know that we should be able to to talk about ideas discuss ideas I also think that academia in the u.s. I don't know how much it's happening here and in Europe in general but there is also I think that kind of fear when I talk to young students I often say to them are you afraid of saying the wrong thing and invariably they say yes so there's a kind I think of space that's been created in academia where curiosity is there you can do look a bit curious you should know it all already and and and there's there consequences for not knowing so already and I and I think that's also really harmful to that just the idea of ideas and again I don't know how much of this is about people so afraid of possible consequences you know you need to lose your job does your university not want to upset anybody so and so if you don't want to upset anybody it means that you have to be in a certain kind of middle ground where you know that yeah I read some academic papers and I'm like I don't even know what the argument is but I'm reading it thinking this person writes in me knows what the argument is but in this person's head is that thesis supervisor or that grant that they may not get if this just I don't know there's and I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist but all right I'll stop I'll stop now [Applause] ladies and gentlemen we invite questions from the floor can we ask you to shout really ugly because oh we do have the microphones excellent I thought for an awful moment we didn't but we do so wave your arms and wonderful and and I was wondering what were you what's the link between religion injuries [Music] um well thank you for being here I have to say every time every vent I have I feel as though I have sort of a core of incredible black women who are my guardian angel so I mean I feel as though if I didn't advance in I don't know Greenland there would be a core black women in some way that know and it's always very meaningful to me and they're always gorgeous and mostly have just the most incredible hair so thank you thank you it also means a lot to me see you i religion obviously is important I think for for Africa and I think I think this I think statistics I think what they're saying is Africa is really the frontier now of Christianity especially especially Pentecostal Christianity so if Emily's mother is a kind of her religion she represents a type she's a type and it's a type that's very familiar in Nigeria you know you you hope from church to church God is sort of it's very prosperity for cost wealth is a blessing a kind of thing and I think in the way that you can tell a writer's worldview I think it's clear that the writer of Americana is not very keen on if Emily's mother's version of religion because I just deeply opposed the idea of prosperity as a Christian virtue because I think I just think it's very problematic because then it means that that people living in structures and societies that make it almost impossible to rise up against poverty and then somehow you tell them that poverty is from the devil so in some ways you're making them complicit in something that's not their fault you know so I really have a problem with that um but in general I I also respect I think religion can be a force for good I've seen so I grew up Catholic my father is a very devoted Catholic and I find my father's faith quite beautiful because it's moderate and and wise and kind and increasingly for me thinking about feminism I've actually started studying the Bible now this is a bit strange but I'm doing it because you cannot engage with women on the continent of Africa in sub-saharan Africa if you're unwilling to engage with Christianity it's just not going to happen and so a lot of you in talking to women often it's religion that that creates the language of misogyny it's religion that in my opinion that people use and people manipulate and so what I want to do now and please I want African women who want to join me please in this Bible study for feminism is to find ways because scripture is often used to justify sexism and because I don't believe that Christianity is sexist I want to find ways to use that same scripture to push back and so one of the stories I love to tell whenever I'm in Nigeria is and then I adopt my Nigerian persona want me to do it now for you okay what is the most important part of Christianity it's not it's not Christmas oh it is Easter because if Jesus Christ is not raised from the dead there's no point in our faith okay so when Jesus rose from the dead who was the first person that saw Jesus was it a man or a woman so we have to and I say this and I say this I'm kind of laughing but I'm really not laughing what I mean is if you really and I think just the story of Jesus Christ and it doesn't matter whether one thinks of it in a spiritual way I think it's a very inspirational very moving story of a man who were he alive today people would call a crazy hippie am a man who growing up living in a world that was quite um structured and very clear about rules broke them all you know you don't you don't associate with tax collectors or sin as what he did you don't really talk to women oh he hangs out with Martha and Mary you don't so he you know he um oh look she's she committed adultery and he's like who's who he is without sin so for me in thinking about Jesus Christ really if we take away all of the things that religion has put on Christianity for me it's about a certain kind of equality of human beings it's a people a people which is really what feminism is and so I really do feel that religion is it has to be part of the conversation in Africa because it's impossible and and I think also other conversations about social oppressions we need to make religion part of it otherwise you lose people you just lose people because religion is such a central part of people's lives and and has meaning for people apart from you know the parts that are kind of messed up but has real meaning for people and gives meaning to them and and so yeah so I'm start my Bible study is join me a woman she's oh oh I'm so sorry no no it's all right no no he can go in there chicken though I'll be very quick though we need to be a me no see I I wish I just don't even ever want anybody to know that I ever wrote poetry I wrote poetry when I started writing poetry when I was maybe 11 and I was quite self-important so when I was maybe 13 I had my mother type up a manuscript called my anthology of 100 poems now I'm not a poet I'm Irene a lot of poetry but I'm I don't know why it is that prose is what speaks to me but it is prose is what I Prue's is if there is such a thing as a vehicle for your for your dreams then it's Prue's for me see misogyny click happy I'm gonna organize a translator just before she starts I'm going to thank you very much for being such a semi or everybody all around the world because you've been very very bad so she'd also like to thank she works as a responsible of the office for equality in the canton of three break such she'd like to say that they put a large number of your books is a french andhra with the aim to distribute them to most young people here aged fourteen fifteen and to hold the creative writing contest how to achieve men women equality from this work I'm sorry you have to read my book so my brother is always telling me that I my brothers like you would be very you will be filled comedians stop trying but I can't help myself I keep trying that's actually really lovely to hear I and I've been thinking a lot about young people and I think in general we have this very positive view of the young and we say oh things will get better when you know older people who are poisoned by all kinds of bigotry and Prejudice die out but I increasingly I don't think that's true at all I think that young people are just as susceptible to the prejudices in our society and in talking to young people sometimes I'm shocked because I think my god you still believe this sort of thing you still believe and I'm interested in boys in particular because you know I think feminism has to engage with boys on men and I find that while I'm very familiar with the stories of young girls I know I kind of feel that I know what the pressure points are I kind of feel that I know what the difficulties are I don't I don't feel I want to know what it is for boys so I think it would be good in having those conversations sometimes to separate them because I think sometimes peer pressure makes young people not really say what they think and um girls are socialized to perform for boys boys are socialized to perform for girls to an extent so I what I would say to them is be honest talk about what you're really what you really think about these things and I and I think it's important for adults to then step in without judgement right I find that for many young people you know that there might be a young boy who thing's little girls whatever it's not so much of that young boy is a bad person it's because he lives in a society that is steeped in misogyny and so for me it's a question of challenging the stereotypes of our girls that boys have but doing it in a way that isn't about you know you're so bad because I think if we catch them younger is hope and that there ways to do it I really believe in storytelling and to ask them to tell stories so you really think that girls are not as intelligent or as clever or girls should you know um do you have any stories in your life that show you that and then to show them stories that challenge that I really think that stories help people to start to see things in a way that theory really doesn't especially when you're that young so I think it would be and then to ask girls and and also to let girls know I mean I sometimes think that girls carry a heavy burden of growing up in a wall that is so misogynistic and then we also tell them or be strong you know you can be the best that you can but they're living in a world that is a structured to tell them that they're strong so now they're carrying that burden and I think it's important in talking to young girls to let them know you know your fee bill this is not your fault I mean the way that the world has socialized you is not your fault for all of us feminism is about unlearning I'm only I'm still on learning never mind that I'm supposed to be a feminist icon but the things that I yeah I mean I sometimes rule my eyes are but but they're things that I I was taught and that you know sit under my skin that even though intellectually I reject them I'm still doing the emotional battle you know this tendency to be guilty for wanting things for yourself I think it's something that women across the world across cultures were socialized to Vic to think of ourselves as caregivers so we put ourselves last all the time we you know and and I find that I'm still kind of struggling with that I was in pain maybe a week ago and this woman said to me you are the most visible I think she said visible female you're the best-known female writer from Africa and she said what do you think about that and I said to her take out female and what you know the thing but here's the thing the thing that happened right afterwards is that I started feeling ashamed of myself and I said to her something is just happening to me right now my female socialization is kicking in where I am now ashamed of having claimed what is mine and this I think it's it's such a thing I mean you talk to girls who are seven years old and they've already learnt that now you talk to boys and somehow it's the opposite right so I've read all of these studies about how boys are not as clever as they think they are and girls it's true I mean you could kind of look at the studies that have been replicated across cultures and girls are cleverer than they think they are we need to try and balance that out so that we get to a middle ground for both and I think the way to do it is to to make young people feel that it's a safe space they can really see what they think even if what they think is not the party line because that's the only way we can start to challenge it well thank you this actually makes me very happy [Applause] [Music] yours when they stopped writing I'm very proud that I that they need to be motivated writing but now we are at the point where the children are finishing the text and sometimes it's just a mess so I try to tell them that there is always a reader so it's important to realize it takes but don't really into it so do you have advice or like to write them with the grits grits 4 to 6 so what are they like 9 10 10 what's a good bride for that age I guess candy candy doesn't walk anymore no I think in general I kind of believe in a certain kind of rebel for young people maybe but they're young I mean I think you just telling them at this point is a good thing because in general I think about I think about when you were 10 I mean I don't I don't know who if you were as annoying as I was but when I was 10 I thought I knew it all I thought my teachers had no idea what they were talking about and then I turned maybe 21 and suddenly I thought my god my teacher was right so so I think what's important is for the children see here is you might not think that they're taking it in but trust me the students are using the 21 that will be revised in their walk properly because they had to it's true I had a fantastic teacher in grade five and really wonderful woman mrs. carlill and sometimes I thought doesn't really know what she's saying but I'm still using mrs. Khan's lessons today and I am 42 years old so you know [Music] [Laughter] [Applause] thank you I just want to know how did you also do you ever know I in general I do in the past few years I haven't really read a lot of academic writing I guess for the reasons that I said earlier which is half the time I don't know what must be I know some African academics I do so no really the honest answer to your question is no I I haven't really read I also don't want to read about myself and my walk I know it's it's a strange thing I don't read reviews I haven't read reviews since Purple Hibiscus so I am an academic writing is a bit different because you're less likely to get annoyed by it cuz you know reviews you get annoyed even if it's a fantastic movie and has one line that says something was bad you're like so this is the other thing I would say to any young any writers starting out try to start very early not read reviews because it really will help you in because if you believe the good you have to believe the bad and it can really mess with your head and and I think it also helps you to stay true to your artistic vision because if somebody is telling you oh you do ABC well if they tell you that two times when you're right and you start thinking oh I do ABC well so I better - ABC I find that the two reviews I read a Purple Hibiscus I still remember what forward and that's very bad so academic right - no not really I haven't read any but I know I mean I've been to some conferences I went to the African literature Association conference this year actually was really really fun really interesting how did I survive I didn't that's the point I really didn't and I have to say that it's not the problem was not the program now it's a very good program I went to Yale Yale has and the archives are fantastic what I liked the most was just being able to go to the library and look at all things the classes did not walk for me so the problem wasn't there wasn't anything particularly wrong with the program the program was just a very good American programming the way that contemporary academia is I just was not a good fit for it and so I didn't survive I was miserable I really was because I think part of it is also that maybe I kind of wanted to I went back to school because I wanted to learn in particular about pre-colonial West Africa it's it's something I'm very interested in I want to know where we came from so that I understand why we are where we are and the history that I'm familiar with started with colonialism and I'm and that's important obviously but I want to know what happened before because I think that's really the route for us Africans we need to know who we were before somebody started telling us who we were and I didn't really get that because I found that I took classes in which we were applying theories to things I remember in particular class about the war in Syria and which obviously was contemporary but and I wanted to know you know what happened but instead we're like this Columbia professor posits that the theory of war is this let's apply it to syria loon come we just know what happened in Syria I mean so it then becomes this thing where I felt that many of us were very versed in a kind of almost highfalutin language of academia but sometimes I worry that we didn't even know the basics you know I worried that it also is studying Liberia I was like I'll be in a Seminole I'd be like do people really know what some aldo stood for you know what I mean we're playing all these theories but yeah so no I didn't survive I'm sorry I wish I could be more positive but I'm not going to lie yeah he works for you do it doesn't I'm afraid I think we have to finish questions there and we've invited [Laughter] okay there's the young sustained the buoy she's occupying her space thank you so much I wanted to know practice especially being an African woman and how feminism has always been a very particular question in our conversations about it sound it's so it's really what we well in general my feeling is that and it's important to repeat this over and over that feminism that the Western Wall does not have a monopoly on feminism but because the most documented feminist movements are Western really American and partly British so we know about the suffragettes and then and then we know about the American first wave and second wave and all of those things but because those are the most documented strains of feminism it's somehow often seems to be the only and [Music] so which is why I often say that I became a feminist not because I read any feminist texts but because I grew up in Nigeria and I watched the world and because I heard stories of my great-grandmother who was a feminist and she's a feminist because they called her a troublemaker because she refused to accept certain things about the society she lived in and where it had placed women and maybe it's also why in general and maybe this is a bit linked to the question about academia I'm often and not enthusiastic about feminist theory but but really i should say i'm not enthusiastic about theory i know this is a terrible place to sit in a university in the city I think theory has its uses in the way that it can give us the language to think about things and in the way can help us to but but you know my my approach to life is that of a creative person I'm a storyteller and because I'm a storyteller theory can very often clash with the messiness of you of human beings I'm interested instead in women who are feminists but still have misogyny in their blood because we live in a misogynistic world but if were theorizing feminism there's hardly room for that and also for me you know feminism is worldwide every culture everywhere in the world as women they're women there who have resisted who have said no who have pushed back and were faced consequences for it I think of myself as part of a kind of global historical movement that isn't limited to first wheel and second wave I think of my feminism as rooted in a certain kind of African Ness because that's why I became feminist I became feminist because we went to the village in Anambra State in southeastern Nigeria and they told me I couldn't see certain interests in my spirits because I was a girl and so as a six-year-old I had rage because ahead riders felt that this made no sense that's how I became a feminist and and but I think that this kind of experience isn't necessarily captured in certain western-centric feminist debates but at the same time use an expression I think you said after oh yes can you define that for me you see the thing for me is uneven so intersectional has also I think become the kind of buzzword that I find myself wanting to constantly question and I think that it's come to mean all kinds of things and I think they initially mean I think that when kimberlé crenshaw came up with intersectional it's now being used in ways that I don't think she intended so she was talking about really in terms of law where where where the law wanted to separate people experiencing sexes among people experiencing racism I'm like women are like Hello you know where do we fit in I sometimes worry that there's a certain contemporary strain of them academic discourse that wants feminism to be everything and I'm going to tell you that I want feminism to be about women that there's somebody who said to me if you're feminist and you don't you're not a climate activists then you're not a feminist I just thought you know we can be many things right we don't have to and I again it worries me because I feel that there's a misogynistic strain to this kind of thinking where again the burden is on women to take on every damn thing and so for me feminism is about women and climate activism is about the climate do you see what I mean so and I sometimes worry that when we start talking about intersection it's in a way it feels to me that it was hands down the focus on women and so I don't even use that language because I've found that people have used it in all kinds of ways that I don't agree with and so my ask you to define afro feminism which maybe is kind of similar to Womanism but here's the thing I my thing is Western feminism has a history of racism actually maybe also quietly present or racism and I I feel as though that still hasn't really been acknowledged and so I also let I'll tell you the other worry I have about this intersection sometimes it can feel like window dressing so in in in American feminist circles I often find people now you know many white women saying white feminism is terrible I don't even know what that means and often it's white women saying that or when weren't women I asked about feminism they they go oh we should talk to black women I don't know it feels to me it feels me performative and the storyteller in me doesn't trust that I don't trust it what I would like is to have a kind of feminism that acknowledges difference that acknowledges that the ways in which we experience sexism differently bart's that they're all the ways in which because we are women they're things that are similar and universal I think for example that ok so here's an example I remember reading a review a white woman wrote about a white feminist woman wrote a book about feminism her and and there was a review written by another white woman but the review was like how terrible all she writes about is being a white feminist and somehow this was seen as valid criticism which was a white woman I don't so I sometimes worry also that intersectional means that people can no longer tell their stories III won't I don't want to white feminists to tell the story of black women I want to know what I experience as a white feminist is but the thing is that feminism should make room so that we also hear the stories of other kinds of feminists rather than insisting that won't pocket somehow fit in everyone and that we we fail to acknowledge difference that's you know in general how I kind of feel about it though and you probably won't hear intersectional come out of my mouth the section that was selected for me I think I'll just read here that's right the blood day's crawled into one another all I'm not grasped for thoughts for things to do the first time or Danny woke him to have flat she was unsure whether to let him in but he knocked and knocked and said in CHEM please open be Co please open until she did she sat sipping some water while he told her that he had been drunk that Amala had forced herself on him that it had been a brief rash lust afterwards she told him to get out it was grating that he remained self-assured enough to call what he had done a brief brash lust she hated that expression and she hated the firmness of his tone the next time he came and said it meant nothing and came nothing what mattered to her was not what it meant but what had happened his sleeping with his mother's village girl after only three weeks away from her it seemed too easy the way he had broken her trust she decided to go to carnal because if there was a place where she could think clearly it was internal her flight stopped first in Lagos and as she sat waiting in the lounge a tall thin woman hurried past she stood up and was about to call out chimera when she realized it could not be keine Ana was darker skinned than the woman and would never wear a green skirt with the red blouse she wished so much that it work I named a though she would they would sit next to each other and she would tell Kayla about with anyone and keine Ana would say something clever and sarcastic and comforting all at once in Colonel Ariza was furious that man is a wild animal from our back his rotted penis will fall off soon doesn't he know he should wake up every morning and kneel down and thank his God that she looked at him at all she said while showing on Lana's sketches of before wedding gowns knock Wednesday had finally proposed allign I looked at the drawings she thought them all to be ugly and over-designed but she was so pleased by the rage she felt on her behalf that she pointed at one of them and murmured it's lovely ant effect I said nothing about add anymore until a few days have passed all I now was sitting on the veranda with her the Sun was fierce and the zinc on in crackled as if in protest but it was cooler here that in a smoke-filled kitchen where three neighbors were cooking at the same time Alana fanned herself with a small raffia mat two women were standing near the gate one shouting in evil I said you will give me my money today doctor today not tomorrow you had me say so because I did not speak with water in my mouth while the other may please me pleading gestures with her hands and glanced sky ward how are you auntie Becca asked she was staring a paste of ground beans in a mortar I'm fine auntie I'm finer for being here and he feta reached inside the paste to pick out a small black insect Alana found herself faster and he fekus silence made her want to see more auntie I think I will postpone my program as a Sukkah and stay here in Cairo she said I could teach a while at the Institute No and defect I put the pestle down no I'm bad you will go about some suka but auntie I can't just go back to his house I'm not asking you to go back to his house I said you will go back to suka do you not have your own flat on your own job or Demi Moore has done what all men do and has inserted his penis in the first hole he could find when you were away does that mean that somebody died Oh Lana had stopped finding herself and could feel the sweaty wetness on her scalp when your uncle first married me I worried because I thought those women outside will come and displace me from my home I now know that nothing he does will make my life change my life will change only if I wanted to change what are you seeing aunty he's very careful now since he realized that I am no longer afraid I have told him but if he brings disgrace to me in any way I will cut off that snake between his legs auntie Becca went back to her staring and Alana's image of their marriage began to come apart at the scenes alumna you must never behave as if your life DeLong's to a man do you hear me auntie Becca said your life belongs to you and you alone saw sake you will go back on Saturday let me hurry up and mix on my badger for you to take she tasted a little of this awful paste and spat it out a very brief word of thanks when I think of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie as novels especially Purple Hibiscus which is my favorite I think of laughter at antia Fiona's house a house of refuge and freedom there is always laughter at the novel's end though there is sadness there is also something deep inside your belly that would rise up to your throat and come out as a freedom song as laughter there are plenty of things to be angry or anxious about and we've touched on some of them as evil climate disaster race gender discrimination and as we know our guest has many profound things to say about these but in her novels she shows us laughter - and laughter keeps us sane and hopeful and it shows us that our brains are switched on laughter is an assertion of strength medieval people laughed at the devil to show that he had no power over them and we can laugh at our own mistakes and our own weaknesses and in that way free ourselves from their power if we can laugh with someone else we can build with them a human bond even if they have been our enemy to momentum got Ciara cheer in her novels in her political speeches and I think you will all agree tonight here as well has modeled a gracious positive good-humoured way of challenging bad things a way that can persuade others to fight with us rather than against us we should as she says all the feminists and if we're all working together we will need to be able to laugh thank you very much thank you so much you [Music]

Channel: Université de Fribourg | Universität Freiburg

Views: 59,134

Rating: 4.8336978 out of 5

Keywords: Chimananda, Chimananda Ngozi Adichie, Unifr, Université de Fribourg, Fribourg University, Adichie, Nigeria, American Literature, African Literature

Id: AIeiyh5l-PI

Length: 100min 8sec (6008 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 18 2019