Another Architecture

Citation

Richards D (2007) Another Architecture. In: Hardwick L & Gillespie C (eds.) Classics in Postcolonial worlds. Classical Presences. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 349-363. http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199296101.do

Abstract
This concluding chapter examines issues of ‘beginnings' in the narrative foundations of the physical environment, and probes its incompatibility with post-colonial intellectual architecture. This is used as a basis for discussing temporal uncoupling, which enables present models to be situated in the past, and vice versa. The chapter uses Christopher Okigbo's labyrinth as a metaphor for the productive incongruity of the openness to new experience-which is the defining feature of the encounter between classical literature and post-colonialism-and argues that this encounter enables classical and post-colonial to jointly challenge the conventional architecture of historical progress. The chapter's argument thus generalises out from the impact of the detailed case studies of the first section, and then returns to key examples which are scrutinised through new lenses which are sensitive to the themes of temporal and genre disjunction that emerged in the second part.

Keywords
Christopher Okigbo; labyrinth; metaphor; post-colonialism; classical literature; intellectual architecture; Nigeria

People

Professor David Richards

Emeritus Professor, English Studies