Hello friends, Stephanie Shonekan is an author and musicologist who has worked with the BBC, public radio and written and taught extensively on music, from soul music, to country music, and Nigerian and African-American hip hop. Shonekan serves as the dean of the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Maryland, and we have created a podcast together, Cover Story with Stephanie Shonekan, at the University of Missouri and NPR-affiliate KBIA. Cover Story is all about life, history, love, identity, and music - through our culture’s favorite songs. And that is also what Stephanie Shonekan’s work is about. So: We talked about reading Jane Austen while growing up and going to college in Nigeria - and how the stories of Austen might play for young readers in Nigeria growing up and growing into life and literature. Again, it’s all about: culture, identity, love, and the stories we tell. In this conversation, Shonekan talks about the fact that in Nigeria as a colonial and post-colonial country, she was introduced to characters and stories that did not reflect her family, her friends, and herself - and that was both an awakening of sorts, and also a painful thing to discover. Her answer? To go and find the authors and the classic literature of Nigeria, her home country. Enter: Classic writers like : Chimimanda Adichie, Buchi Emecheta, Wole Solinka, and Chinua Achebe. And she asks a very simple but powerful question: Why weren’t these writers introduced to her as part of her education? Why did she have to go and discover them for herself? This is a question about the canon of classic literature - and how something that can bring transformation and joy, like classic literature, can also, and has been, used to disseminate power, nationalism and empire, and can be deployed to erase culture and identity. Dean Stephanie Shonekan, in this episode, talks with us about discovering the stories of Jane Austen, and then discovering stories of her own. And then, finally, circling back to come to terms with the stories of Jane Austen. And also: Bridgerton. Because in any conversation about romance, race, and the stories we tell, we have to talk about Bridgerton, right?! Enjoy this excerpt of our conversation: Links and Community * The Woman of Colour: A Tale is a Regency story chronicling the life, love and adventure of a Black heiress, Olivia Fairchild, who travels from a Jamaican plantation to 19th century England to marry. Here’s a wonderful edition from Broadview Press published in 2007 with historical notes by Professor Lyndon Dominique. Some teachers are including this book alongside Austen, an inclusion that would seem to direct address the canon of literary works and what gets taught - let us know if you are doing that and how it went for your class. * Stephanie Shonekan references some Nigerian classics, including: Chimimanda Adichie, Buchi Emecheta, Wole Solinka, Chinua Achebe, * Patricia Matthew is a well-known author and professor whom many of you in this community know and love. Professor Matthew has written about her complicated feelings about reading Jane Austen, with “On Teaching, but not Loving, Jane Austen,” and on Bridgerton here, and on how she embraced her inner Emma - who can relate?! * Here’s Chimimanda Adichie’s talk on The Power of Story - that is referenced in this conversation * We also talked about the writing of Alyssa Cole and her historic and contemporary romance fiction. Here’s the Loyal League series featuring romances set in the Civil War among a network of Black spies working to overturn the Confederacy, which looks absolutely amazing. Get full access to The Austen Connection at austenconnection.substack.com/subscribe
