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The theologico-political problem, traditionally concerned with the question of the seat of authority or sovereignty in the West (rendered through the metaphor of Jerusalem vs Athens or Revelation vs Reason), has been brought to the fore of late in a number of nation-states in Africa. To the end of rethinking the theologico-political problem or decolonising it, this article draws on Achille Mbembe's notion of improvisation as an important avenue through which the decolonisation of the theologico-political problem can be situated meaningfully in the African context. Its core argument is that such a decolonisation of the theologico-political problem is not only useful for centering African experiences in political theology broadly, but also for further problematizing the decontextualized ways in which notions such as the theologico-political problem elide a history of "others" in their continued access primarily or even solely through Western experiences of state formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article argues that narratives of transitional justice have been placed on a somewhat unexamined pedestal in the social sciences and the humanities. Within such narratives, transitional justice, as both a phenomenon and a conceptual tool, is regarded as inevitable and commonplace for anyone wishing to address the issue of past human rights violations. The article suggests that while the concept of transition, strictly speaking, is merely descriptive of processes of change and thereby assumedly a neutral signifier, it has been positively oversignified by various fields of study. The article also examines literary narratives that have political transitions as their foci, proposing that a literary theory approach to transitional narratives should not be dictated only by the privileged themes, forms and narrative structures of the normative narratives of transitional justice (such as truth commission reports), but be open to fictional narratives as having something valuable to contribute within the context of political transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]