Frieda has been selected to present her work at Festival Massimadi, an LGBTQ film and art festival in Brussel on May 3, 2016. Her presentation will interrogate questions at the intersection of queerness and Blackness in a contemporary African context.

“Blackness and The End of the Closet : Repenser l’homosexualité en Afrique sub-saharienne au 21e siècle”

« L’homosexualité est bonne à penser » est une formule du philosophe Camerounais Fabien Eboussi Boulaga. La pensée est un outil — et bien plus encore —, c’est le compagnon de la destinée humaine. On mesure son importance lorsque le temps a fait son œuvre. C’est pour cela que les ouvrages de Franz Fanon nous touchent tant. Bien entendu, l’Histoire les traverse. Mais qui le nierait ? Nous sommes le produit de l’Histoire. Oui, « l’homosexualité est bonne à penser ». Si la formule d’Eboussi Boulaga séduit tant, c’est qu’elle est en partie une citation des Evangiles. Il procède à la manière de Saint Augustin ou de James Baldwin : toutes ses phrases sont des citations cachées. Ce jésuite dit aux yeux de tous que l’homosexualité n’a rien de répréhensible au jugement des Evangiles. Dans la Genèse, à chaque acte créateur, revient le refrain : « Dieu vit que c’était bien ». Dans ce « bien » est comprise aussi la sexualité sous toutes ses formes. Et le reste est le moralisme, il appartient aux évangélistes et aux bien-pensants.

Dans cette conférence, il s’agit surtout de repenser la question de l’homosexualité dans le continent et les communautés de sa diaspora. J’utilise le mot ‘Blackness’ pour couvrir l’Afrique sub-saharienne et les communautés de sa diaspora. Comment enrayer l’homophobie en Afrique ? Comment l’extirper de nos mentalités ? Comment nous convaincre que l’homosexualité n’est pas une maladie contre laquelle les Africain (e)s sont naturellement vaccines ? Comment nous sortir du fantasme meurtrier qu’un Africain ne saurait être homosexuel ? C’est en assenant ce genre de lieux communs qu’on justifie les discours de haine. Un amalgame plus ou moins savant est entretenu entre l’essence de l’Africain et son devenir homosexuel. On en est arrivé a dresser l’identité contre la contingence, comme si la première était réputée immuable et la seconde changeante. Si la coupure s’opérait de la sorte, il nous serait impossible de définir notre africanité. Que dire de la situation singulière des femmes qui aiment d’autres femmes doublement minorisées, invisibilisées, parce que soumises de même au dictat phallocratique du pouvoir patriarcal ?

Indiana University Press

Rethinking African Cultural Production
Edited by Frieda Ekotto and Kenneth W. Harrow

“Ekotto and Harrow do an excellent job of contextualizing and framing the new parameters that must be part of the discussion when addressing African cultural production, critical theory, cultural studies, contemporary literature, film, media, the visual, cultural representation, and performance.” —Odile Cazenave, Boston University

Rethinking African Cultural Productions

Indiana University Press Introduces New Book: Rethinking African Cultural Production, coming May  2015

Frieda Ekotto, Kenneth W. Harrow, and an international group of scholars set forth new understandings of the conditions of contemporary African cultural production in this forward-looking volume. Arguing that it is impossible to understand African cultural productions without knowledge of the structures of production, distribution, and reception that surround them, the essays grapple with the shifting notion of what “African” means when many African authors and filmmakers no longer live or work in Africa. While the arts continue to flourish in Africa, addressing questions about marginalization, what is center and what periphery, what traditional or conservative, and what progressive or modern requires an expansive view of creative production.

The University of Michigan Daily’s student journalist Mahan Chitgari profiles Professor Frieda Ekotto. Click here to read from The  Michigan Daily’s website.

Prof. Frieda Ekotto is chair of the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies and a professor of comparative literature at the University. Ekotto was born in Cameroon and raised in Switzerland. She graduated from Colorado College in 1986 and received her Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of Minnesota. She has worked at the University of Michigan since 1994. Her body of work includes creative work such as ”Chuchote pas trop/Don’t Whisper Too Much” and scholarly work that covers film and literature.

What classes are you teaching this semester?

I’m teaching a course on Alice Walker’s work and I’m teaching a course on “Europe and Its Others.” It’s an honors and a comparative literature course and basically I talk about the history of colonialism and how people cross borders because they are trying to survive economic hardships from countries that were colonized to begin with.

What kind of classes are your favorites to teach?

Well this one, Europe and Its Others, I like teaching this class and then I am enjoying teaching this class on Alice Walker’s work and I am also adding other women writers in there. I’m adding in Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison and Angela Davis. So I like that, but I also like teaching graduate seminars, all different types of graduate seminars.

What kind of classes have you taught in the past that stand out to you?

I’ve taught African Cinema, which I liked. Last winter I taught a course on human rights and LGBT issues in Sub-Saharan Africa. I really liked it. I’ve taught a course on writing the colonial library. This is something that comes from a thinker who rewrote what Edward Said said about the orient so he did it within the context of Africa, so I enjoyed that too; it was a graduate seminar.

What current research or novel are you working on right now?

I’m writing my first novel in English. It’s really hard, but I’m doing it. It’s called “My Father’s Library.” So I’m doing that and I am also writing a book on women loving women in Sub-Saharan Africa. So I’m really busy to say the least.

What issues do you come across when writing in English versus writing in French?

I write in both languages easily now. For a while it was complicated because sometimes I was confused with the structure (of English), but I think I finally got it down. There are interesting moments when you write in different languages. There are moments of slippage where it goes in directions that you were not even expecting. Writing also by itself does that so when you are adding another complication like writing in a different language you can feel it.

How do you incorporate the historical aspects you’ve studied into your novels?

I’m a post-colonial subject so my novels are informed by that. I am extremely critical of colonial legacy and what colonialism has done to my continent, Africa. So my work is really informed by that.

Can you tell me about your favorite novel?

I just finished reading this woman called Jesmyn Ward. She got her MFA here at the University of Michigan in the English Department. I just finished reading “Men We Reaped: A Memoir” and I loved it, but I read novels for teaching and for pleasure. I’m teaching Toni Morrison’s “Sula” and I love that book. I have many, many books I love. My office upstairs is jammed with books. My home is jammed with books.

What is your favorite novel you have written?

I think this book I’m writing right now is going to be my favorite. I enjoy writing so much. Alice Walker was talking about how some of the characters didn’t like living in New York. It’s amazing, when I was writing my novel, I’m just revising it now, when I first started writing, the main character is called Violet, she used to tell me at night — she would tell me ‘Please don’t make me do this,’ and I was telling a friend of mine who is a writer. I told him this is happening to me and he said, ‘This means that you’re getting it. It means the story is getting into you.’ ”

How have your novels affected how you teach your classes?

They inform each other. In my novels I write about lesbians, women loving women, and I think I wanted to write about that because I think it is important to talk about this.

Do your students react well to the current topics, such as LGBTQ issues, that you discuss in your classes?

I think the students like what I have to say to them. We age and we’re getting older. I have this wise voice that I didn’t have when I started teaching. So I think its good too. It just makes me realize that years have passed.

Do you notice a difference in how students react when you talk about very current topics like LGBTQ as opposed to historical topics?

They react well because it’s all over us. The course I taught on human rights and LGBT was a very, very popular course. I brought in a South African feminist. She’s a visual activist, Zanele Moholi. The students enjoyed having her in class.

How did being born in Africa and raised in Switzerland affect the areas you have chosen to study?

I think it makes me savvy internationally. I am being recognized for my work on internationalism on campus tomorrow. I consider myself a citizen of the world. I go from one space to another space easily. That experience has just enlarged my aura. My entire experience has really shaped that.

You have worked at several different universities. How has the University of Michigan been different?

I have traveled to many different universities. I’ve taught at many different universities, but this has been my main job. I like this University because of the interdisciplinarity. You can work with colleagues from other disciplines and the administration takes the work we do seriously. I think I bring interdisciplinarity into my classes. I like the students here too. The students are fantastic.

Do you think the University of Michigan has been a good environment for you to do your research and your writing?

Yeah, the University is very supportive. They give you the resources to help you do your work. I have been very happy with that. I am very fortunate.

What do you do as the chair of DAAS?

This is a different kind of work. I’ve never been in administration before. Basically as a chair you are in charge of your faculty and you are in charge of the department. You have to defend your department. You have to defend your colleagues. You have to help them do your research. You have to maintain a kind of identity, a unit identity. What do we do? We talk about Blackness across nations, across the world, in different disciplines.

DAAS Chair, Frieda Ekotto, has been nominated by her students for recognition by the U-M Council on Global Engagement. The nomination highlighted her contributions to the success of the students’ international educational experience. She will receive a gift of appreciation from the Provost’s Office during an upcoming reception which the student(s) have also been invited to attend.

Click here to connect to this announcement on the DAAS site

DAAS welcomes its new chair Professor Frieda Ekotto, the 18th person to lead the department and the first African woman. Dr. Ekotto has been a Professor of Afroamerican and African Studies  and Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan since 1994. She holds a PhD from the University of Minnesota. She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including a Ford Foundation seed grant for research and collaborative work with institutions of higher learning in Africa. She is the author of six books and numerous articles in professional journals. She has lectured throughout the United States and in Australia, Algeria, Cameroon, Cuba, Canada, England, France, Ivory Coast, Malaysia, Malta, Nigeria Tunisia South Africa, and Singapore, among other countries. Dr. Ekotto has developed and taught a wide range of innovative courses on literature and law in France; literature and film in Africa, the Caribbean and Maghreb; postcolonial narratives by Francophone women and minorities; and representations of family and friendship in Francophone film and literature. Her curricular contributions have been critical to the emergence and consolidation of Francophone studies at the University of Michigan and to the teaching of race and ethnicity in the context of French-speaking cultures. Professor Ekotto is highly regarded by students and colleagues who praise her intellectual generosity and her success in motivating students to think critically.

Click here to read in the DAAS Summer 2014 Newsletter

Click here to read more on the DAAS Website