{"id":3040,"date":"2023-07-31T11:19:37","date_gmt":"2023-07-31T10:19:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/cooper-gallery-inbetween\/?page_id=3040"},"modified":"2024-05-01T10:16:07","modified_gmt":"2024-05-01T09:16:07","slug":"akwugo-emejulu-september-2023","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/cooper-gallery-inbetween\/akwugo-emejulu-september-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Akwugo Emejulu, September 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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What I am Reading Now\u2026
Akwugo Emejulu<\/strong>
September 2023<\/p>


I don’t read non-fiction for leisure. It feels too much like a busman’s holiday. I’m always amazed (but secretly saddened) by fellow academics who read 500-page biographies to wind down.\u00a0<\/p>

Past<\/strong><\/p>

I just finished Sheena Patel<\/strong>‘s deeply unpleasant I\u2019m a Fan<\/em><\/strong>. That’s a compliment, by the way. I absolutely adore difficult and unlikeable heroines. I love that Patel trusts her readers to see all the nuances of her unnamed protagonist who is having a situationship with, as she calls him, ‘the man I want to be with\u2019. This man is married, someone of repute and is fixated on another woman, so named ‘the woman I\u2019m obsessed with’ by our heroine. Our heroine is currently stalking \u2018the woman I\u2019m obsessed with\u2019 on Instagram. However, she is no ordinary fan. As she watches, she critiques: nepotism, conspicuous consumption, whiteness, influencer culture and celebrity. This is a deliciously warped novel told through vignettes that function both as a masterclass in cultural criticism and a mediation on desire and sexual obsession.\u00a0<\/p>

Present<\/strong><\/p>

Whenever I’m visiting my friend Monica in Groningen, she’ll take me to a sweet little bookshop, Boeken Over, with a small but mighty English language section. During my last visit, the bookseller recommended Adrian Duncan<\/strong>‘s A Sabbatical in Leipzig<\/em><\/strong>. I’m about halfway finished with this rather short book. It’s written in that meandering style popularised by W.G. Sebald. In short, an older Irishman, a retired engineer, reflects on his life, his work and his loves. It’s a quiet, meditative text. I’m still of two minds about what I think of it.\u00a0<\/p>

I’m also reading Noragami<\/em><\/strong>, a long running manga by Adachitoka<\/strong>, the collective pen name of the mangakas, Adachi and Tokashiki. Noragami <\/em>is hands down my favourite manga. Yato is a minor god performing menial tasks for humans and fighting demons in a bid to raise money for a shrine so he can be worshipped and remembered. Without spoiling anything, it turns out Yato is a god of calamity. Why and how was he brought into being? What kinds of atrocities has Yato committed? Should he really be worshipped? And what of his regalia, the lost soul Yukine, who is Yato’s weapon, a ‘blessed vessel’, but has a dark and disturbing past life that still haunts him? I love Noragami<\/em> because even though this is ostensibly sh\u014dnen<\/em> manga, meant to be a boys’ action and adventure tale, this is a deeply affecting story about grief, trauma and family. What horrors will we perpetuate out of pain? How can we ever trust again? How might we rebuild what we have lost? There are various plot reveals in this manga that literally made me gasp and weep. It’s so good and very funny but it’s a painful and distressing read at times.\u00a0Also, if you read the tank\u014dbon <\/em>then the translators\u2019 notes are a real treat; they effectively serve as an introduction to Shint\u014d<\/em> cosmology.<\/p>

I keep returning to Warsan Shire<\/strong>\u2019s poetry collection, Bless the Daughter Raised By a Voice In Her Head<\/em><\/strong>. I feel like Shire is an inheritor of Lucille Clifton. They both write short, punchy verse and are both concerned with Blackness, womanhood, being and becoming. Shire\u2019s ease of interweaving pop culture references into her reflections on herself and her place in the world inject a dark humour into sometimes brutal poems about migration and survival.<\/p>

Future<\/strong><\/p>

I always have a tower of unread books close at hand. How I choose what’s next is simply whimsy. I think I\u2019ll read Julie Otsuka<\/strong>\u2019s The Swimmers<\/em><\/strong> next. Like the women in this novel, my friend Leah also found community and temporary refuge at the water\u2019s edge. Swimming in a time of crisis, a chance to dive into oblivion for a short while, is what many of us are doing at the moment. I haven\u2019t read any Victorian literature for awhile and it always seems to call to me during the summer, so I think I\u2019ll also read Anne Bront\u00eb<\/strong>\u2019s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall<\/em><\/strong>. Like many others, I haven\u2019t read any of this Bronte\u2019s work and I want to correct the record. \u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Akwugo Emejulu<\/strong> is Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick.\u00a0Her research interests include the political sociology of race, class and gender and\u00a0women of colour’s grassroots activism\u00a0in Europe and the United States. She is the author of several books including\u00a0Precarious Solidarities<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>(Manchester University Press, 2025),\u00a0Fugitive Feminism<\/em>\u00a0(Silver Press, 2022) and\u00a0Minority Women and Austerity: Survival and Resistance in France and Britain\u00a0<\/em>(Policy Press,\u00a02017).\u00a0She is co-editor of\u00a0To Exist is to Resist: Black Feminism in Europe\u00a0<\/em>(Pluto Press, 2019).\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Reading<\/p><\/div>

I\u2019m a Fan<\/em>, Sheena Patel (Rough Trade Books, 2023)<\/div>
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A Sabbatical in Leipzig<\/em>, Adrian Duncan (Tuskar Rock, 2020)<\/div>
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Noragami: Stray God 25<\/em>, Adachitoka (Kodansha USA Publishing, 2023)<\/div>
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Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head<\/em>, Warsaw Shire (Chatto & Windus, 2022)<\/div>
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The Swimmers<\/em>, Julie Otsuka (Fig Tree, 2022)<\/div>
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The Tenant of Wildfowl Hall<\/em>, Anne Bront\u00eb (Oxford World\u2019s Classics, 2008; First published 1848)<\/div><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Please note the views published in <\/span>What I am Reading Now…<\/span><\/em> are personal reflections of the contributors.
These may not necessarily represent the views of the University of Dundee.
<\/span>\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

Home<\/a><\/p>\n

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about projects What I am Reading Now\u2026Akwugo EmejuluSeptember 2023 I don’t read non-fiction for leisure. It feels too much like a busman’s holiday. I’m always amazed (but secretly saddened) by fellow academics who read 500-page biographies to wind down.\u00a0 Past I just finished Sheena Patel‘s deeply unpleasant I\u2019m a Fan. That’s a compliment, by the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":271,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3040","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/cooper-gallery-inbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/cooper-gallery-inbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/cooper-gallery-inbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/cooper-gallery-inbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/271"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/cooper-gallery-inbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3040"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/cooper-gallery-inbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3875,"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/cooper-gallery-inbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3040\/revisions\/3875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.dundee.ac.uk\/cooper-gallery-inbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}