Ramon FonkoueVisiting ScholarAssociate Professor
My research examines subjectivity as mediated in literature and other arts, individual and collective rapport with memory in French and African literatures and films and African arts, and nation building in the French Caribbean and Africa. My recent publications include a co-authored translation of Carlo Severi’s works entitled Capturing Imagination: A Proposal for an Anthropology of Thought (2018), and a monograph: Nation Without Nation: History, Memory and Nation Building in Postcolonial Cameroon (2019). An upcoming book on French Caribbean literature and political thought examines “subjectivity and the sense of urgency” that marked French Caribbean writing at the turn of 20th Century.
I am currently preparing an edited volume on representations of the francophones African cities in contemporary literature and film, while working on a new monograph entitled Reclaiming the Spoils: The Struggle for the Return of Looted African Cultural Property. This book project is supported by a Research Excellence Fund (REF) Grant from Michigan Technological University. Other works at various stages include a paper on Claude Simon’s relationship with other Nouveaux Romanciers, a paper on Nicole Brossard’s radical brand of feminism and another one on the rapport with the Other in Marie Darrieussecq’s novels.
Another project in its early stage, Les sociétés de pénurie, explores the postcolonial condition through lack and scarcity, considered as the most visible markers of the postcolonial condition today.
Recent Publications
2019
Nation Without Narration: History, Collective Memory and Nation Building in Post-colonial Cameroon. Amherst, New York: Cambria Press, November 2019.
2019
“La déchéance de Christophe : défis esthétiques et écueils de la construction d’une figure tutélaire antillaise.” Lettres, sciences humaines et problématiques contemporaines. Hommage au Pr. Albert Azeyeh. Ed. Pierre Martial Abossolo. Paris: Éditions Connaissances et Savoirs, 2019, pp. 77-91.
2018
Capturing Imagination: A Proposal for an Anthropology of Thought. Translated from French by C. Howard, M Carey, E. Bye, R. Fonkoue, and J. Suechun Cheng, Chicago: Hau Books, 2018.
2018
“The Impossible Craft of Nation-Building in Postcolonial Africa: The Example of Cameroon.” Africa and the World: Challenge of Globalization, Governance, and Creativity. Ed. Kenneth Kalu and Toyin Falola, Durham: Carolina Academic Press, June 2018.
2018
“Le héros sassinien : une lucidité toute sisyphienne ?” William Sassine n’est pas n’importe qui. Ed. Florence Paravy. Bordeaux : Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux, Collection Littérature des Afriques, no. 4, décembre 2018, pp. 129-141.
2016
“En attendant la nation à venir : essai sur l’imaginaire de l’État en Afrique.”Agamben et l’Afrique : Quelle pertinence ? Terroirs. Revue africaine de sciences sociales et de philosophie Vol. 1 No. 1-2. Ed. Fabien Eboussi Boulaga, Yaoundé : Éditions Terroirs, 2016, pp. 101-116.
2013
“De l’insularité à la globalité : subjectivité et discours humaniste chez Édouard Glissant.” Francophonies d’Amérique No 33, Spring 2013, pp. 111-122.
