African Sources of International Humanitarian Law

Kelvin Mbithi

Edited by Ketaki Zodgekar

Illustration by Mohasin Ahmed

Africa has always been considered the subject of International Humanitarian Law (IHL). In late 2019, I was a final year law student at the University of Nairobi School of Law. I picked IHL as one of my optional units of study in my final semester of my final year as I wished to learn about the role of Africa in the formation of IHL. Having learnt in my third year that International Law is primarily based on the consent of states, I was shocked to learn that Africa was discussed only with regards to the implementation of IHL.

Posted by admin

Harmonia Rosales’ Black Female Universe

Words and Illustration by Tanatsei Gambura @tanagambura

Edited by Veronica Vivi

The Black imagination is a dangerous, radical phenomenon. More still is the Black, female imagination. It is an envoy into the speculative realm of pure freedom. In an existence that is marked by the suppression of the Black female form in all its shapes, the Black imagination functions as a powerful and liberating force. That being said, a pleasurable Afrocentric paradigm of the world is too abstract and incomprehensible to many. However, for Afro-Cuban artist Harmonia Rosales, not only is it conceivable, but, more importantly, it is a divine universe that can be translated into compelling visual representations for others to bear witness to.

Posted by admin

Jackie Kay’s ‘The Lamplighter’: Tuning into History

Elspeth Walker

Edited by Maria Elena Carpintero Torres-Quevedo

Illustration by Elspeth Walker

Jackie Kay’s The Lamplighter is a poetic radio play that explores the British role in the transatlantic slave trade, honing in on the lost voices and experiences endured by female slaves.

Posted by admin

Basking in the Afterglow: Barry Jenkins’ ‘Moonlight’

Laura Hackshaw

Edited by Veronica Vivi

Artwork by Maia Walcott

Moonlight has been an unprecedented and much needed piece of art which transcends the basic categories and labels that accompany the ideals of it simply being a unique ‘independent’ movie or at its most reductive, a movie about what it is like to be a young, black, gay boy becoming a man. Moonlight is about running through doors with your eyes closed not knowing how to find your way to the other side. It is about the fear, the panic, the discomfort and the frustration of having to come to terms with your own identity when your identity itself is based on societies preconceptions and expectations of who you should be, how you should talk, walk and who you should love – all before understanding how to first love yourself. It is profound because it transforms and challenges common ideologies surrounding black male-hood; black male tenderness and affection, the redemptive power of mentors, music and community and how these all shape the people we become.

Posted by admin

Sun Ra’s Space Is The Place: A Radical Black reimagining of a better future

Oluwaseun Matiluko

Edited by Maria Torres-Quevedo

Artwork by Olivia Twist: YesOliviaTwist

I am currently in the final year of my Law degree. When the time came to select the modules I would study this year I decided to pick the modules in which I knew I would feel represented and seen. Although I enjoyed the previous years of studying ‘Contract’, ‘Tort’, ‘Criminal’ and ‘Property Law’ I felt the need to expand my horizons; to study something that I had never had the opportunity to study before and probably would not have the opportunity to study again. So, alongside my modules ‘Equity Law’ and ‘Employment Law’, I elected to study modules in ‘Sex, Gender and Law’ and ‘Law and Race’. I had one more option left, and I was struggling to fill it when I spoke to my good friend Sheila. She had seen an open module listed on our University website– ‘African-American Music in the 20^th century’– and when I clicked on it I immediately smiled. A module focussed on the music that I love but also drew on its West African heritage seemed to perfectly intersect with my interests and my personal heritage and so I jumped at the chance to study it. I am so grateful that I did.

Posted by admin

Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman: a Mirrored World

Erin Hutton

Edited by Maria Elena Carpintero Torres-Quevado

Artwork by Natasha Ruwona: https://www.behance.net/natasharuw40cf

I read Noughts and Crosses when I was about thirteen. It is the first powerful book that I can remember reading. However, re-reading my slightly battered copy at eighteen was a very different experience. It was easier to understand that good people, like the characters in the book, could react so badly to violence. The terrorism in the story is painfully similar to current news headlines. Finally, after studying the fight for Black American civil rights at school, I could clearly see where Blackman got her inspiration. The scene where nought children face a mob of angry crosses to get into a decent school could have been drawn straight from the textbook photos of Little Rock Central High School, Arkansas, 1957. This seems especially important when one considers the things people said to the author as she was writing: “‘Slavery is in the past’, ‘Why d’you want to rehash something so painful?’, ‘Why do black people always harp on about slavery?’”(Penguin Random House, 2016). Perhaps, if books like Blackman’s were studied at university level, people would be less likely to have these attitudes, especially if the novel’s stark confrontation of cruelty made them consider that their comments are insulting. There are many example of history where people have ignored atrocities as they occurred.

Posted by admin

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Jasmine Thakral

Edited by Karl Egerton

Illustration ‘Double Consciousness’ by Natasha Ruwona, https://www.behance.net/natasharuw40cf

The Hate U Give deals with the way in which police brutality and systematic criminalisation of black bodies damage African American communities, depicting the struggle often felt by people of colour between who they are and how they are perceived by the world. The events of the novel are particularly resonant in light of recent cases of police brutality which have resulted in the death of victims such as Trayvon Martin, which sparked the activist movement, Black Lives Matter. The Hate U Give follows Starr Carter as she negotiates the fallout from the horrific police brutality suffered by her friend Khalil. The novel explores Starr’s journey to finding her voice so that she can explicitly challenge police brutality against African Americans.

Posted by admin

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

Lily Thwaites

Edited by Maria Elena Carpintero Torres-Quevedo

Illustration by Holly Summerson hollysummerson.wix.com/arts

Ying-Ying, you have tiger eyes. They gather fire in the day. At night they shine golden”’ – Amy Tan (The Joy Luck Club 1989) (246)

Many times in my life I have wished to be more like my mother; she is strong, independent, smart, but also a little bit wild. When I was eleven, I went over to one of our bookshelves and found a fairly worn copy of The Joy Luck Club, picked it up and brought it to her. She told me to read it and I did.

Seven years later and only now am I beginning to understand the significance of this book for women like my mother; strong and independent women who were once caught between cultures, but also for others, who cannot grasp the complexities of a mother-daughter relationship strained in a cultural cross-fire. It is a book my mother and her friends have all given their partners to read, and it is one that deserves attention, specifically in English Literature syllabi, where I find texts with Asian influences are often disregarded.

Posted by admin

The Road To Wanting by Wendy Law-Yone

Isabel Lwin May Khine

Edited by Ketaki Zodgekar

Art by Livi Prendergast https://liviprendergast.wordpress.com/

TW: Suicide, Sexual assault

The study of migration is interdisciplinary. Despite this, I have not come across much discussion in literary studies about the role that contemporary human migration plays on the way we read and what we choose to read. While universities would like to present themselves as progressive through a nod to Postcolonial Studies, in the arts we fall into the trap of discussing migration as if it is a static thing of the past and not alive today. This is because most discussion in the arts about migration is retrospective and looks to history for examples of human migration and migration crises, rather than looking at the situation today. I would like to move away from the institutional focus on the history of human migration. Instead, through analysis of The Road to Wanting by Wendy Law-Yone, I will be focusing on what the migrant has to say about themselves, their own existence, and their experiences in a contemporary context. By doing so I hope to centre conversation on the migrant’s agency and personhood.

Posted by admin

Black Girlhood in ‘Bone Black’ by bell hooks, and ‘Zami’ by Audre Lorde

Francesca Sobande

Edited by Veronica Vivi

Art by Olivia Twist: http://www.yesoliviatwist.com/

For some, the work of bell hooks needs no introduction. It may have represented their entry into Black feminist media and cultural critique, or the starting point of their understanding of the intersections of sexism and racism. I will always remember when I first came across the writings of hooks. I found such excitement in reading a distinctly Black feminist voice that is rarely found in university curricula. As I read hooks’ engaging analysis of media and consumer culture, I thought to myself “I never knew that academic writing could be like this!”.

Posted by admin

No more posts.