Loyal Blues Book Club with Evviva
![Evviva Weintraub Lajoie, Vice Provost for University Libraries.]()
Evviva Weintraub Lajoie, Vice Provost for University Libraries
Evviva Weinraub Lajoie, Vice Provost for University Libraries hosts our virtual book club exclusively for Loyal Blues.
You’ll have the opportunity to connect with alumni and friends, all while having an expert educator guide you through several books annually.
Our Winter Book
Nnedi Okorafor is former UB professor, and an international award-winning New York Times Bestselling novelist of science fiction and fantasy for children and adults. She coined the terms africanfuturism and africanjujuism for her work, and is known for drawing from African cultures to create captivating stories with unforgettable characters and evocative settings.
Her ground-breaking novella Binti, first published in 2016, won both Nebulla and Hugo awards. In this ground-breaking trilogy, we follow a young and brilliant mathematician from the Himba tribe who leaves home as the first of her people to attend a prestigious intergalactic university. Through her journey, we are able to explore the construction of gender and intricacies of race, as well as examine the concept of "outsider" versus "insider." I look forward to reading this unique and captivating collection with you all.
How it works
![book cover for Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O'Neil.]()
There is no cost to participate. Simply purchase a copy of the book and sign up below to receive emails. This title is available as an audiobook, though a variety of vendors as an eBook, and also through the Public Library through Overdrive. If you have trouble finding a copy, just let us know.
Winter Reading Cycle
Once you've signed up, you will receive weekly emails to guide you through the reading period, which will run from February 6 until March 5. You can also join our Facebook Forum to discuss the book and post questions.
Virtual Events
Afrobeats Artistes as Master Harmonizers: Reflections on Binti and Afrobeats Aesthetics
February 13, 2024 | 6:00-7:00 p.m.
Since emerging in the 2010s and gaining global prominence during the COVID lockdowns, Afrobeats, a genre of Nigerian popular music, has ruled the global airwaves by storm. Not only are Afrobeats artistes Grammy-award winning and nominated, they have earned themselves a spotlight at the American Music Awards, the Grammys, Billboard, Madison Square Gardens, UK O2 Arena and on the runways of top-fashion labels like Burbery, Ray Bans, Dior, Dolce and Gabana and Balmain to mention a few. In spite of the economic and political instabilities of their home country, Afrobeats artistes have produced a sound that is a creative and chaotic fusion of Nigerian neo-traditional rhythms (juju, fuji, highlife and Afrobeats), makossa, zouk, coupe decale, reggae, dancehall, hip hop, R n B, soca, reggaetón, grime and the list remain limitless and endless. This sound, cooked up on the streets of Lagos, routed through London, the U.S and Jamaica for technological touch ups, repackaged in Lagos for sprinklings of street credibility and spiritual vigor, and served to the world through music and social media platforms has re-introduced the world to the soundscapes of Nigerian cities like Lagos and Port-Harcourt divided along class, ethnic, gender and religious lines yet united by the soulfulness of great music. More importantly, through its rhythms, sites, dance, style, jives, cool, themes and fashion, listeners are invited into the “cosmopolitan cum nativist” mind of Afrobeats artistes- a world-sense invested in blending diverse worlds through sound, fashion and dance without displacing the centrality of home to the art-music form. Yet, while the sound of home is significant to Afrobeats, its global appeal is also informed by the its complicated re-sounding of the world. To put it simply, when you hear Afrobeats, you hear Nigeria and the world in an organic and orgasmic fashion. Against this foundation, this lecture examines Afrobeats artistes as master harmonizers using Nnedi Okorafor’s Biniti as the inspiration for this conceptualization. By juxtaposing Binti’s conceptualization of harmonization with the aesthetics and practice of Afrobeats, I argue that the effortless fusing of local and global cultures in Afrobeats is influenced by the cosmopolitanism of Lagos, the border-crossing activities of these artistes and resulting fractured and complex identities produced.
About Dr. Mope Ogunbowale:
Mope Ogunbowale is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Africana and American Studies. Her interests are in Afro-Atlantic religions, popular music, gender and urban studies. She is currently a Fellow with the Humanities Institute and she is taking the semester to work on her current book manuscript titled The Spirit is the Music: Osun’s Aesthetic Manifestation in Reggae-Dancehall Music. In this work, she observes the workings of Osun, a West African Goddess associated with creativity, power and feminist resistance in the aesthetics, embodied practice and resistance politics in Konto, a genre of reggae and dancehall music produced in Ajegunle, an urban poor neighborhood in Lagos, Nigeria.
Thursday, March 7, 2024 | 12:00-1:00 p.m.
I hope you can join us to discuss the reading at this virtual event, hosted by with Vice Provost of University Libraries, Evviva Weinraub Lajoie.
Discussion Questions & Resources
Questions:
1. Consider how Okorafor explores the concept of home. While Binti clearly feels deeply connected to her home and family – physically carrying her homeland with her in the clay of the otjize that covers her skin – she is also conflicted as her world continues to expand, and both leaving and returning are difficult. How does her connection to her home, as well as the act of leaving the only home she ever knew, shape her identity and behavior?
2. In what ways does the author present and explore the themes of transitions, transformations, and the quest for belonging in Binti? How has Binti changed?
3. The Himba people practice a blend of mathematics and spirituality, and Binti is a master harmonizer, with the ability create unity with numbers and the divine. How is this different from how we normally understand science and the sacred? Why do you think Okarafor chose to make this such an important part of the story?
Links:
Nnedi Okorafor: Sci-fi stories that imagine a future Africa | TED
National Museum of African American History & Culture: Afrofuturism: A History of Black Futures Exhibition
Questions:
1. Binti grapples with anger and post-traumatic stress disorder following the massacre on the Third Fish, and she eventually speaks with a therapist. Consider how this work approaches mental health, do you consider it a departure from what you might expect? How is it significant?
2. Consider how Okorafor presents the relationship of modernity and tradition, or even just the concept of modernity more generally. How does she change the script?
3. How do Binti’s thoughts about herself reflect her attitude towards other cultures? How does she reconcile her ideas about her culture and identity with learning that she is not pure Himba?
Links:
A Spacefarer's Next Great Adventure Begins At 'Home', Amal Al-Mohtar, NPR
Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti steers the reverse-colonialism story in a new direction, Noah Berlatsky, Medium
Questions:
1. In Chapter 8, Destiny is a Delicate Dance, while Binti is traveling in the desert with the Enyi Zinariya people, she remembers finding her edan and thinks “…how different my life would have been if my parents had just let me dance.” Do you think that this is true?
2. Binti’s grandmother refers to the edan as “an ancient work of art and use.” She continues, “It’s old, but that doesn’t always mean it’s less advanced.” In Binti, Okorafor continually challenges expectations, both ours as readers and Binti’s. How are Binti’s own beliefs and expectations challenged by meeting the Enyi Zinariya people and learning about her true identity?
3. Reflecting on the events in chapter 12, Initiative, particularly Binti's decision to activate the nanoids and the consequences that follow, consider the symbolic significance of Binti's connection to the "Mother" and her awakening experience. How does this moment deepen the exploration of identity, home, and the challenges Binti faces in reconciling her past and present?
Links:
More breakthroughs, less crossover: Afrobeats is here to stay, on its own terms from Sidney Madden, NPR.
Questions:
1. What has shifted within Binti in The Night Masquerade? Consider the emphasis on synthesis in this work – Binti refers to herself as a collective, she says “I am worlds.” How do the seemingly disparate elements of her identity now work together? How does she continue to struggle with being an outsider despite the fact that her identity continues to broaden?
2. On page 228, Mwinyi confronts Binti about her ingrained beliefs and prejudices. Considering all that Binti has survived and learned, what does this say about the difficulty of unlearning what you have been culturally conditioned to believe? How does this Binti’s investigation of her own prejudices fit within the broader theme of transformation?
3. Consider the parallels between astrolabes in Binti with our contemporary technology and how we utilize it. What might the author be conveying about the relationship between technology, identity, and societal structures through the representation of astrolabes in the story?
Links:
Instagram Reel from NPR Music Producer, Alanté Serene.
Binti's Story Is Finished — But Don't Expect Completion by Amal El-Mohtar, NPR.
Questions:
1. Taking the the articles below into consideration, how would you compare what is represented here with Okorafor's portrayal of the Himba people? What do you think that Okorafor meant when she says in the Wired interview "I want her to be Himba, I want her to take that with her."
2. Consider the roles of the supporting characters in this series, particularly those closest to Binti - Dele, Okwu, Mwinyi, and Haifa. Reflect on the similarities among these characters and the distinct influence each has on Binti. Additionally, what might these characters symbolize within the broader narrative.
3. Thinking back on the entire Binti series, what do you now see as the primary themes? Do you think this work challenged the traditional narratives within the science fiction genre?
Links:
Namibia's Himba people caught between traditions and modernity by Pumza Fihlani, BBC News
Nnedi Okorafor on Writing, Rage, Bugs, and Aliens by George M. Eberhart, American Libraries.
Nnedi Okorafor Finds Inspiration Everywhere—Including Jellyfish.
Suggest a Book
Have a book that you think might be interesting for the book club to read? Drop us a note and we'll add it to our list of recommendations.