Anna-Leena Toivanen
Biographic Data
| ID | 76194 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Anna-Leena Toivanen |
| GIVEN NAMES | Anna-Leena |
| FAMILY NAME | Toivanen |
| SIGNATURE | TOIVANEN A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Eastern Finland |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4588-2484 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 12 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Afroeuropean mobilities in francophone African crime fiction
Urban Mobilities in Literature and Art Activism
Alienation, Abjection and the Mobile Postcolonial City
This chapter analyzes portrayals of travel by means of public transport in two African literary texts: the short story “Niiwam” (1987), by the Senegalese author Ousmane Sembène, and the novel Without a Name (1994), by the Zimbabwean writer Yvonne Vera. Featuring protagonists carrying the corpse of their dead child on a bus, both texts invest a bus ride with alienating and abject meanings that are repeatedly contrasted with more banal and everyday…
On the move in the (post)colonial metropolis
Literary texts convey the complexities of the urban experience in a tangible way. While there is a wide body of work on literary representations of Paris, the role of public transport as part of the (postcolonial) urban experience has not received much attention. This article sets out to analyse the meanings of the mobile public space comprising the Paris Metro in Francophone African and Afrodiasporic literary texts from the mid-20th century to t…
Unruly Landscapes of a Diasporic Return
Juillet au pays: Chroniques d’un retour à Madagascar (“July in the Country: Chronicles of a Return to Madagascar,” 2007) narrates the “homecoming” of the diasporic author Michèle Rakotoson after several years of absence. Applying a literary mobility studies perspective and contributing to the dialogue between mobilities research and postcolonial literary studies, this article analyzes how Rakotoson’s return travelogue constructs Madagascan landsc…
Novel Reviews
Michèle Rakotoson, Elle, au printemps (Saint-Maur: Sépia, 1996), 122 pp. Kathleen Jamie, Surfacing (UK: Sort of Books, 2019), 240 pp., £7.99. Kathleen Jamie (ed.), Antlers of Water: Writing on the Nature and Environment of Scotland (Edinburgh: Canongate Books, 2020), 232pp., £20
Modes of transport and rhythms of mobility in Bernard B. Dadié’s Un Nègre à Paris (1959) and Tété-Michel Kpomassie’s L’Africain du Groenland (1981)
This article discusses Bernard B. Dadié’s Un Nègre à Paris (1959; 1994) and Tété-Michel Kpomassie’s L’Africain du Groenland ([1981] (2015); 2001) by focusing on their portrayals of transport and rhythms of mobility, and in so doing enhances the dialogue between travel writing studies and mobilities research. The texts’ representations of mobility practices and the rhythms thereof contribute to the production of the traveller figure (tourist; Arct…
Aeromobilities of diasporic returnees in Francophone African literatures
Postcolonial literary studies have not paid much attention to literary portrayals of mobility practices partly because the field promotes a reductive understanding of ‘mobility’ as a mere synonym for migration. In order to address this blind spot and to recognise African fictional characters as mobile subjects, the present article focuses on representations of aeromobility in Francophone African literary texts narrating diasporic returnees’ journ…
Afroeuropean peripheral mobilities in francophone African literatures
Paris is the axiomatic centre of francophone African literary representations of Europe. Focusing on narratives that revise Paris-centeredness, this article explores francophone African representations of European peripheries from the perspective of Afroeuropean (im)mobilities. The article shows how, in novels by Michèle Rakotoson, Kidi Bebey, Simon Njami, and Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, three specific Afroeuropean mobile subjectivities, namely the new…
European peripheries in the postcolonial literary imagination
The idea of unbalanced power relations between (post)colonial centres and peripheries lies at the heart of postcolonial studies. In this pattern, Europe, through colonial discourses, has constructe
Aeromobilities of Student Newcomers in Francophone African Fiction
In the field of postcolonial literary studies, representations of concrete forms of mobility have not received the critical attention they deserve. This is partly due to the field’s reductive understanding of “mobility” as a synonym for migration. In order to enhance dialogue between postcolonial literary studies and mobilities research, this article focuses on representations of aeromobility in the context of Afroeuropean student mobilities in a…
Aeromobilities of Student Newcomers in Francophone African Fiction
In the field of postcolonial literary studies, representations of concrete forms of mobility have not received the critical attention they deserve. This is partly due to the field's reductive understanding of “mobility” as a synonym for migration. In order to enhance dialogue between postcolonial literary studies and mobilities research, this article focuses on representations of aeromobility in the context of Afroeuropean student mobilities in a…
Failing border crossings and cosmopolitanism in Brian Chikwava’s Harare North
This article discusses Brian Chikwava’s novel Harare North (2009) and its representations of unsuccessful border crossings from the perspective of cosmopolitanism. Chikwava’s protagonist seems to be constantly on the “wrong” side of any border that he encounters. As such, he is the unwanted abject figure on whose exclusion different normative subjectivities are constructed. By addressing the problematics of border crossings and cosmopolitan ideal…
Zombified mobilities
peer reviewed
Uneasy “homecoming” in Alain Mabanckou’s Lumières de Pointe-Noire
Alain Mabanckou’s Lumières de Pointe-Noire (2013) is a travelogue in which the celebrated Los Angeles-based author returns to his native Congo-Brazzaville after 23 years of absence. As is typical in postcolonial travel writing, Mabanckou’s text foregrounds the traveller’s identity dilemmas. The “homecoming” is marked by a sense of unease. Firstly, this unease manifests itself thematically in how the text negotiates the traveller’s identity along …
Anxious Mobilities in Accra and Beyond
In Aidoo's Changes: A Love Story (1991), the characters are constantly on the move: tropes of mobility recur throughout the novel. Cars, hotels, business and leisure travel, modern technologies and the figure of what can be referred to as the Afropolitan avant la lettre play a pivotal role in embodying meanings that pertain to class, gender, globalization, and consumerism marking the postcolonial African condition, and give the novel an articulat…
Les lendemains de révolution avortée’
Nathalie Etoke’s novels Un amour sans papiers (1999) and Je vois du soleil dans tes yeux (2008) deal with the hardships of the African postcolonial condition in the global era through the trope of doomed romance. In these novels, the plight of the postcolonial nation-state drives people to emigrate in a search for more viable prospects. While the mobility theme addressed in her novels is typical of third-generation African literatures in general,…
The Unattainable Mediterranean
Sub-Saharan African aspiring migrants pursuing their clandestine odysseys through the Sahara toward the Mediterranean seem far removed from the figure of the upwardly mobile migrant paradigmatized by postcolonial theory. The attempt to migrate illegally represents a very precarious and time-consuming form of mobility, where the itinerary is subject to continuous revision and reaching the destination is never obvious. The present article analyzes …
Failing cosmopolitanism
peer reviewed
A romantic fairy tale in the era of globalization
Elizabeth Tchoungui’s Je vous souhaite la pluie (2006) is a pronouncedly cosmopolitan novel as it acknowledges the intertwined character of the local and the global. The novel could be defined as a romantic postcolonial fairy tale that is as much informed by the African predicament as it is by global inequalities. In the face of the fiasco of the postcolonial nation state, hopes for more viable future prospects are invested in western diasporic s…
Diasporic romances gone bad
peer reviewed
At the Receiving End of Severe Misunderstanding”
The Zimbabwean writer Dambudzo Marechera (1952–1987) is the object of a cult phenomenon: his figure represents a relevant site of sense-making and his earlier unfavorable African criticism is challenged. Marechera’s fiction has a strong autobiographical dimension that results in a metadiscourse on the meanings of authorship, where the notion of misunderstanding represents a central trope. This essay aims not only at drawing an overview of Mareche…
On the move in the (post)colonial metropolis
Literary texts convey the complexities of the urban experience in a tangible way. While there is a wide body of work on literary representations of Paris, the role of public transport as part of the (postcolonial) urban experience has not received much attention. This article sets out to analyse the meanings of the mobile public space comprising the Paris Metro in Francophone African and Afrodiasporic literary texts from the mid-20th century to t…
The Unattainable Mediterranean
Sub-Saharan African aspiring migrants pursuing their clandestine odysseys through the Sahara toward the Mediterranean seem far removed from the figure of the upwardly mobile migrant paradigmatized by postcolonial theory. The attempt to migrate illegally represents a very precarious and time-consuming form of mobility, where the itinerary is subject to continuous revision and reaching the destination is never obvious. The present article analyzes …
Zombified mobilities
peer reviewed
European peripheries in the postcolonial literary imagination
The idea of unbalanced power relations between (post)colonial centres and peripheries lies at the heart of postcolonial studies. In this pattern, Europe, through colonial discourses, has constructe
Failing border crossings and cosmopolitanism in Brian Chikwava’s Harare North
This article discusses Brian Chikwava’s novel Harare North (2009) and its representations of unsuccessful border crossings from the perspective of cosmopolitanism. Chikwava’s protagonist seems to be constantly on the “wrong” side of any border that he encounters. As such, he is the unwanted abject figure on whose exclusion different normative subjectivities are constructed. By addressing the problematics of border crossings and cosmopolitan ideal…
Anxious Mobilities in Accra and Beyond
In Aidoo's Changes: A Love Story (1991), the characters are constantly on the move: tropes of mobility recur throughout the novel. Cars, hotels, business and leisure travel, modern technologies and the figure of what can be referred to as the Afropolitan avant la lettre play a pivotal role in embodying meanings that pertain to class, gender, globalization, and consumerism marking the postcolonial African condition, and give the novel an articulat…
Failing cosmopolitanism
peer reviewed
At the Receiving End of Severe Misunderstanding”
The Zimbabwean writer Dambudzo Marechera (1952–1987) is the object of a cult phenomenon: his figure represents a relevant site of sense-making and his earlier unfavorable African criticism is challenged. Marechera’s fiction has a strong autobiographical dimension that results in a metadiscourse on the meanings of authorship, where the notion of misunderstanding represents a central trope. This essay aims not only at drawing an overview of Mareche…
Diasporic romances gone bad
peer reviewed
A romantic fairy tale in the era of globalization
Elizabeth Tchoungui’s Je vous souhaite la pluie (2006) is a pronouncedly cosmopolitan novel as it acknowledges the intertwined character of the local and the global. The novel could be defined as a romantic postcolonial fairy tale that is as much informed by the African predicament as it is by global inequalities. In the face of the fiasco of the postcolonial nation state, hopes for more viable future prospects are invested in western diasporic s…
Les lendemains de révolution avortée’
Nathalie Etoke’s novels Un amour sans papiers (1999) and Je vois du soleil dans tes yeux (2008) deal with the hardships of the African postcolonial condition in the global era through the trope of doomed romance. In these novels, the plight of the postcolonial nation-state drives people to emigrate in a search for more viable prospects. While the mobility theme addressed in her novels is typical of third-generation African literatures in general,…
The Unattainable Mediterranean
Sub-Saharan African aspiring migrants pursuing their clandestine odysseys through the Sahara toward the Mediterranean seem far removed from the figure of the upwardly mobile migrant paradigmatized by postcolonial theory. The attempt to migrate illegally represents a very precarious and time-consuming form of mobility, where the itinerary is subject to continuous revision and reaching the destination is never obvious. The present article analyzes …
Failing cosmopolitanism
peer reviewed
Uneasy “homecoming” in Alain Mabanckou’s Lumières de Pointe-Noire
Alain Mabanckou’s Lumières de Pointe-Noire (2013) is a travelogue in which the celebrated Los Angeles-based author returns to his native Congo-Brazzaville after 23 years of absence. As is typical in postcolonial travel writing, Mabanckou’s text foregrounds the traveller’s identity dilemmas. The “homecoming” is marked by a sense of unease. Firstly, this unease manifests itself thematically in how the text negotiates the traveller’s identity along …
Anxious Mobilities in Accra and Beyond
In Aidoo's Changes: A Love Story (1991), the characters are constantly on the move: tropes of mobility recur throughout the novel. Cars, hotels, business and leisure travel, modern technologies and the figure of what can be referred to as the Afropolitan avant la lettre play a pivotal role in embodying meanings that pertain to class, gender, globalization, and consumerism marking the postcolonial African condition, and give the novel an articulat…
Failing border crossings and cosmopolitanism in Brian Chikwava’s Harare North
This article discusses Brian Chikwava’s novel Harare North (2009) and its representations of unsuccessful border crossings from the perspective of cosmopolitanism. Chikwava’s protagonist seems to be constantly on the “wrong” side of any border that he encounters. As such, he is the unwanted abject figure on whose exclusion different normative subjectivities are constructed. By addressing the problematics of border crossings and cosmopolitan ideal…
Zombified mobilities
peer reviewed
Aeromobilities of Student Newcomers in Francophone African Fiction
In the field of postcolonial literary studies, representations of concrete forms of mobility have not received the critical attention they deserve. This is partly due to the field’s reductive understanding of “mobility” as a synonym for migration. In order to enhance dialogue between postcolonial literary studies and mobilities research, this article focuses on representations of aeromobility in the context of Afroeuropean student mobilities in a…
Aeromobilities of Student Newcomers in Francophone African Fiction
In the field of postcolonial literary studies, representations of concrete forms of mobility have not received the critical attention they deserve. This is partly due to the field's reductive understanding of “mobility” as a synonym for migration. In order to enhance dialogue between postcolonial literary studies and mobilities research, this article focuses on representations of aeromobility in the context of Afroeuropean student mobilities in a…
Novel Reviews
Michèle Rakotoson, Elle, au printemps (Saint-Maur: Sépia, 1996), 122 pp. Kathleen Jamie, Surfacing (UK: Sort of Books, 2019), 240 pp., £7.99. Kathleen Jamie (ed.), Antlers of Water: Writing on the Nature and Environment of Scotland (Edinburgh: Canongate Books, 2020), 232pp., £20
Modes of transport and rhythms of mobility in Bernard B. Dadié’s Un Nègre à Paris (1959) and Tété-Michel Kpomassie’s L’Africain du Groenland (1981)
This article discusses Bernard B. Dadié’s Un Nègre à Paris (1959; 1994) and Tété-Michel Kpomassie’s L’Africain du Groenland ([1981] (2015); 2001) by focusing on their portrayals of transport and rhythms of mobility, and in so doing enhances the dialogue between travel writing studies and mobilities research. The texts’ representations of mobility practices and the rhythms thereof contribute to the production of the traveller figure (tourist; Arct…
Aeromobilities of diasporic returnees in Francophone African literatures
Postcolonial literary studies have not paid much attention to literary portrayals of mobility practices partly because the field promotes a reductive understanding of ‘mobility’ as a mere synonym for migration. In order to address this blind spot and to recognise African fictional characters as mobile subjects, the present article focuses on representations of aeromobility in Francophone African literary texts narrating diasporic returnees’ journ…
Afroeuropean peripheral mobilities in francophone African literatures
Paris is the axiomatic centre of francophone African literary representations of Europe. Focusing on narratives that revise Paris-centeredness, this article explores francophone African representations of European peripheries from the perspective of Afroeuropean (im)mobilities. The article shows how, in novels by Michèle Rakotoson, Kidi Bebey, Simon Njami, and Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, three specific Afroeuropean mobile subjectivities, namely the new…
European peripheries in the postcolonial literary imagination
The idea of unbalanced power relations between (post)colonial centres and peripheries lies at the heart of postcolonial studies. In this pattern, Europe, through colonial discourses, has constructe
Unruly Landscapes of a Diasporic Return
Juillet au pays: Chroniques d’un retour à Madagascar (“July in the Country: Chronicles of a Return to Madagascar,” 2007) narrates the “homecoming” of the diasporic author Michèle Rakotoson after several years of absence. Applying a literary mobility studies perspective and contributing to the dialogue between mobilities research and postcolonial literary studies, this article analyzes how Rakotoson’s return travelogue constructs Madagascan landsc…
On the move in the (post)colonial metropolis
Literary texts convey the complexities of the urban experience in a tangible way. While there is a wide body of work on literary representations of Paris, the role of public transport as part of the (postcolonial) urban experience has not received much attention. This article sets out to analyse the meanings of the mobile public space comprising the Paris Metro in Francophone African and Afrodiasporic literary texts from the mid-20th century to t…
Urban Mobilities in Literature and Art Activism
Alienation, Abjection and the Mobile Postcolonial City
This chapter analyzes portrayals of travel by means of public transport in two African literary texts: the short story “Niiwam” (1987), by the Senegalese author Ousmane Sembène, and the novel Without a Name (1994), by the Zimbabwean writer Yvonne Vera. Featuring protagonists carrying the corpse of their dead child on a bus, both texts invest a bus ride with alienating and abject meanings that are repeatedly contrasted with more banal and everyday…
Afroeuropean mobilities in francophone African crime fiction
Art (19 works) · Sociology (16 works) · History (12 works) · Literature (12 works) · Political science (12 works) · Aesthetics (11 works) · Mobilities (9 works) · Travel Writing and Literature (9 works) · History (8 works) · Law (8 works)