Joseph Godlewski ’15 published his newest book The Architecture of the Bight of Biafra: Spatial Entanglements with Routledge Press. Based on fieldwork and archival research conducted during his time at Cal, the book examines the intersection of race and the built environment in the region now known as southeastern Nigeria. Enmeshed in the history of slavery, colonialism, and the modern construction of race, the spatial dynamics of the Biafran region have not been geographically delimited. The central thesis of this volume is that these spaces of entanglement have been productive sites of Black identity formation involving competing and overlapping interests, occupying multiple positions and temporalities, and ensnaring real, imagined, and sometimes contradictory aims. As the historian Nnamdi Elleh writes, “This erudite text ruptures the framework of everything we know about architectural and spatial productions in West Africa from the early modern period to the present.” Joseph is an Associate Professor at Syracuse University where he teaches in the School of Architecture and is a Senior Research Associate at the Maxwell African Scholars Union.
