This November, Professor of English Language and Culture Jopi Nyman was invited to attend the Nobel in Africa symposium organised by Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study in South Africa. Also attending the symposium were two Nobel Prize laureates in Literature. Organised under the theme Retrieving Pasts, Imagining Futures: Creative Forms in African Writing, the symposium brought together selected and distinguished scholars and authors in African literature, as well as members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which is responsible for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Located in Stellenbosch, South Africa, Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, STIAS, organises Nobel in Africa symposia in collaboration with the Nobel Foundation and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, inviting leading scholars and other experts in their respective fields to attend. The fields are chosen based on scientific breakthroughs or their societal and cultural significance.
This year, the main theme of the symposium was African literature, with the 2021 Nobel Literature Prize laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah as one of its co-convenors. Born in Zanzibar, Gurnah is a versatile writer who has built his career in the UK, both as an author and as a scholar.
In total, the symposium brought together 40 leading authors and international scholars of African literature, alongside Gurnah, another Nobel laureate, the South African writer J.M. Coetzee. The symposium sought to build strong bridges between authors, literary scholars and other experts, including translators.
Robust expertise in border studies offers new insights into literature
Jopi Nyman has a long history of studying postcolonial Anglophone literature. His research focuses particularly on African diaspora literature, which is often referred to as Afro-European literature. He has published scholarly articles not only on Gurnah and Coetzee but also on other authors who attended the symposium.
“I specialise in the ways their works depict migration and displacement, as well as cultural encounters and their hybridisation. Recently, I have applied concepts and methodologies from humanistic border studies, such as border poetics, in my research. These perspectives have clearly introduced new insights into the field, and this is now recognised even more broadly,” Nyman says, reflecting on the background to his invitation.
The symposium fostered significant conversations
The symposium placed particular emphasis on the diversity of African literature and its important role in the global literary landscape. This was explored through both scholarly presentations and lectures given by authors. The programme also included author interviews and opportunities for conversation.
“Opportunities to meet authors are quite rare even for us literary scholars. Personally, I found the meeting and exchange of ideas with Gurnah especially meaningful. I value his reflective approach to the cultural encounters unique to East Africa, and the significance of the region’s cultural history, as part of the emergence and setting of his works.”
According to Nyman, Gurnah’s birthplace, Zanzibar Island, is an exceptionally fascinating location where, for centuries, different empires, peoples and languages – African, Arab and European – have come into contact with one another.
“For me, this was the first time participating in an event that featured conversations with authors of this calibre.”
Research has deep roots in Eastern Finland
Nyman’s research forms part of the postcolonial literary research conducted at the University of Eastern Finland, some of which has roots in African studies at the former University of Joensuu. In recent years, the focus has mainly been on African diaspora literature and on the examination of various forms of migration and mobility.
“In addition to my own research, I should also mention Anna-Leena Toivanen, Associate Professor of Literature, whose research addresses Francophone diaspora literature and mobilities. Our expertise lies in analysing cultural encounters, mobilities and border-related themes, which is one of the University of Eastern Finland’s global profile areas in research.”
The BOMOCULT research community’s focus on literature has gained international recognition and is now intertwined with top-level interdisciplinary research with broad international networks.
