Northeastern Illinois University Associate Professor of English and African American Studies Chielozona Eze has published his third book, “Ethics and Human Rights in Anglophone African Women's Literature: Feminist Empathy.”
Published by Palgrave Macmillan Press, the book proposes feminist empathy as a model of interpretation in the works of contemporary English-speaking African women writers.
By showing how this literature deploys imaginative shifts in perspective with women experiencing unfairness, injustice or oppression because of their gender, Eze argues that by considering feminist empathy, discussions open up about how this literature directly addresses the systems that put them in disadvantaged positions.
Eze’s book has received a number of positive reviews from authors Chantal Zabus and Tsitsi Jaji, and from University of Denver Associate Professor Maik Nwosu.
“A remarkable work, both for its compassion and critical insights, Chielozona Eze’s ‘Ethics and Human Rights in Anglophone African Women’s Literature: Feminist Empathy’ ‘liberates’ empathy from ideology and offers a focused way of reading literature within and across borders that also transcends limiting contexts,” Nwosu wrote.
Eze’s previous books are “Postcolonial Imagination and Moral Representations in African Literature and Culture,” published in 2011, and “The Dilemma of Ethnic Identity: Alain Locke’s Vision of Transcultural Societies,” published in 2005.
Later this year, Eze will participate in a fellowship by the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program, his second South Africa-based fellowship in as many years. Eze will work with Stellenbosch University and Professor Louise du Toit on a project titled “Decolonizing the Curriculum: Exploring the Interplay of African Philosophy and Literature for Curriculum Co-development and Collaborative Research.”
