Abstract

In The Wretched of the Earth (1963), Frantz Fanon holds an optimistic view of the intellectual in the colony, as one who plays a key role in confronting the colonial administrators and addressing them on level intellectual turf. Long after African countries have gained independence, university campuses continue to sprout and grow on the continent. The intellectual finds their position changed. Now, intellectuals are under scrutiny more than ever, pressed to illustrate their relevance to the continent, to indicate how their expertise is not limited to the professing of theory in university corridors. The discourse has been ongoing in various disciplines. This essay examines the area of poetry, arguing that this domain illustrates the continent’s disillusionment with the place of the African intellectual in relation to their immediate world and indigenous knowledge production within it. In poetry, we find insightful critiques of as well as recommendations for the role of the African intellectual. Through an exploration of several poems that touch on the academy and the intellectual, the essay illustrates how these poems fit into the ongoing discourse about the indigenization of knowledge vis-à-vis the pedagogy imported from the West.

Original language	en
Pages (from-to)	563-578
Volume	58
Issue number	3
Publication status	Published - 2023