Pub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.2979/reseafrilite.53.2.16
Stephanie Diane Tsakeu Mazan
Reviewed by: Politiques de la Critique : Essai sur les limites et la réinvention de la critique francophone by Kasereka Kavwahirehi Stephanie Diane Tsakeu Mazan Politiques de la Critique : Essai sur les limites et la réinvention de la critique francophone BY KASEREKA KAVWAHIREHI Hermann, 2021. 310 pp. ISBN 9791037008848 paper. Kasereka Kavwahirehi is a professor of Francophone literatures at the University of Ottawa. He has authored several essays on the practice of literature, philosophy, and religion in relation to politics in Africa. In his new book, Politiques de la critique : Essai sur les limites et la réinvention de la critique francophone [Politics of Criticism: Essay on the Limits and Reinvention of Francophone Criticism], he calls for the renewal of the policies of literary and cultural criticism in Francophone Africa by recommending a more political and communal practice of reading. He also deconstructs the compartmentalization of artistic productions as well as their subdivision into "high" and "low" cultures. Politiques de la critique also presents itself as the other side of What Is Literature? by Jean-Paul Sartre. In his famous essay, the father of existentialism interrogates the function of literature through the questions "What is writing?," "Why do we write?," "For whom do we write?" to reach the conclusion that the author who is socially situated cannot escape the world of meanings. Therefore, Sartre considers the writers who defend the purely poetic conception of art as accomplices of the bourgeois and racist system in place in his time. Kasereka Kavwahirehi's book, which formulates similar questions, examines the emancipatory function that Francophone criticism should play in the era of globalization. He deplores the fact that many works by Francophonists, which are still very often confined to routine practices inherited from the French school—dictated by the capitalist bourgeoisie—are intended exclusively for scholars in a continent where schooling is still for many an unaffordable privilege. Following in the footsteps of Sartre and many other thinkers who dispute the neutrality of literature, Kasereka Kavwahirehi challenges the neutrality of criticism in his new book organized around two main axes. The first section of the book, titled "Défis de la critique à l'heure de la mondialisation" 'Challenges of Criticism in the Age of Globalization,' recounts the history of criticism, which, since the 12th century, has positioned itself as a social machine of resistance. That orientation given to the practice of criticism, which has mainly challenged the political power since the Middle Ages, is unfortunately marginalized today by thinkers who find refuge behind the neutrality of literature in their analysis of texts. This first section of the essay is divided into three subsections. In the first section, "Figures de la critique moderne" 'Figures of modern criticism,' the essayist underlines how the insurrectionary and emancipator
作者:政治批判:法语国家的政治批判:法语国家的政治批判:法语国家的政治批判:法语国家的政治批判:法语国家的政治批判:法语国家的政治批判:法语国家的政治批判:法语国家的政治批判:法语国家的政治批判:法语国家的政治批判:法语国家的政治批判。310页。ISBN 9791037008848纸。Kasereka Kavwahirehi是渥太华大学法语文学教授。他撰写了几篇关于非洲政治与文学、哲学和宗教实践的文章。在他的新书《批判的政治:批判的政治:论法语批评的局限和再创造》中，他呼吁通过推荐一种更具政治性和群体性的阅读实践，来更新非洲法语国家的文学和文化批评政策。他还解构了艺术作品的划分，以及它们对“高”和“低”文化的细分。《批判的政治》也表现为《什么是文学?》让-保罗·萨特。在他著名的论文中，这位存在主义之父通过“写作是什么?”“我们为什么要写作?”，“我们为谁写作?”从而得出结论，处于社会地位的作者无法逃离意义的世界。因此，萨特认为那些捍卫纯粹诗意的艺术概念的作家是他那个时代资产阶级和种族主义制度的帮助者。卡塞雷卡·卡瓦希里的书提出了类似的问题，探讨了法语批评在全球化时代应该发挥的解放作用。他感到遗憾的是，法语国家的许多作品仍然经常局限于从法国学校继承下来的常规做法，这些做法是由资产阶级资本主义支配的，这些作品专门针对欧洲大陆的学者，在那里，上学对许多人来说仍然是一种负担不起的特权。跟随萨特和其他许多思想家对文学中立性提出质疑的脚步，卡塞雷卡·卡瓦希莱希在他的新书中围绕两个主要轴心挑战了批评的中立性。这本书的第一部分题为“全球化时代批评的挑战”，叙述了批评的历史，自12世纪以来，批评一直将自己定位为一种反抗的社会机器。这种自中世纪以来主要挑战政治权力的批评实践取向，不幸地被今天的思想家边缘化了，他们在对文本的分析中寻求文学中立性的庇护。这篇文章的第一部分分为三个小节。在第一部分“现代批评的人物”中，散文家强调了在乔治Lukács、米歇尔·福柯、卡尔·马克思、沃尔特·本雅明、弗里德里希·尼采、爱德华Saïd等思想家的作品中，对批评的反叛和解放方法是如何发展起来的，这与法语思想家的作品中对技术性的偏爱和文学与其他艺术流派的分离形成了鲜明对比。对于散文家来说，这种态度使他们远离了一种基于现存关系的智力反思，一方面是文学与其他艺术之间的关系，另一方面是学术界与大众之间的关系，后者很少有机会接触到文化产品。在第二部分“Les dsamfiis de la Criticism l' re de la mondialisation”“全球化时代批评的挑战”中，Kasereka Kavwahirehi指出，除了反思非洲少数民族的主体性和法语的词典编纂者外，还必须建立一个考虑多样性的阅读网格。这种新方法可以促进对文学中社会主题的分析的回归，并有助于新自由主义资本主义非人化的社会的蜕变。在第三篇文章“La philosophie, sans lieu propre”(没有适当位置的哲学)中，作者回到了非洲哲学弱化的根源，这在于自独立斗争以来它与群众的距离。为了振兴批评，他建议哲学家们在小说中探索与社会政治产生共鸣的细节……
{"title":"Politiques de la Critique : Essai sur les limites et la réinvention de la critique francophone By Kasereka Kavwahirehi","authors":"Stephanie Diane Tsakeu Mazan","doi":"10.2979/reseafrilite.53.2.16","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/reseafrilite.53.2.16","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: Politiques de la Critique : Essai sur les limites et la réinvention de la critique francophone by Kasereka Kavwahirehi Stephanie Diane Tsakeu Mazan Politiques de la Critique : Essai sur les limites et la réinvention de la critique francophone BY KASEREKA KAVWAHIREHI Hermann, 2021. 310 pp. ISBN 9791037008848 paper. Kasereka Kavwahirehi is a professor of Francophone literatures at the University of Ottawa. He has authored several essays on the practice of literature, philosophy, and religion in relation to politics in Africa. In his new book, Politiques de la critique : Essai sur les limites et la réinvention de la critique francophone [Politics of Criticism: Essay on the Limits and Reinvention of Francophone Criticism], he calls for the renewal of the policies of literary and cultural criticism in Francophone Africa by recommending a more political and communal practice of reading. He also deconstructs the compartmentalization of artistic productions as well as their subdivision into \"high\" and \"low\" cultures. Politiques de la critique also presents itself as the other side of What Is Literature? by Jean-Paul Sartre. In his famous essay, the father of existentialism interrogates the function of literature through the questions \"What is writing?,\" \"Why do we write?,\" \"For whom do we write?\" to reach the conclusion that the author who is socially situated cannot escape the world of meanings. Therefore, Sartre considers the writers who defend the purely poetic conception of art as accomplices of the bourgeois and racist system in place in his time. Kasereka Kavwahirehi's book, which formulates similar questions, examines the emancipatory function that Francophone criticism should play in the era of globalization. He deplores the fact that many works by Francophonists, which are still very often confined to routine practices inherited from the French school—dictated by the capitalist bourgeoisie—are intended exclusively for scholars in a continent where schooling is still for many an unaffordable privilege. Following in the footsteps of Sartre and many other thinkers who dispute the neutrality of literature, Kasereka Kavwahirehi challenges the neutrality of criticism in his new book organized around two main axes. The first section of the book, titled \"Défis de la critique à l'heure de la mondialisation\" 'Challenges of Criticism in the Age of Globalization,' recounts the history of criticism, which, since the 12th century, has positioned itself as a social machine of resistance. That orientation given to the practice of criticism, which has mainly challenged the political power since the Middle Ages, is unfortunately marginalized today by thinkers who find refuge behind the neutrality of literature in their analysis of texts. This first section of the essay is divided into three subsections. In the first section, \"Figures de la critique moderne\" 'Figures of modern criticism,' the essayist underlines how the insurrectionary and emancipator","PeriodicalId":21021,"journal":{"name":"Research in African Literatures","volume":"161 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134950121","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.2979/reseafrilite.53.2.03
C. Mackay
ABSTRACT:Though still arguably marginal in the notoriously centralized French language literary landscape, texts produced by Afropean authors, meaning authors of sub-Saharan origin born or currently residing in Europe, now constitute a corpus of their own with well-known authors, including Alain Mabanckou, Léonora Miano, Abdourahman Waberi, and Fatou Diome, gaining in readership and reach. Central to their works is the consideration of culturally hybrid identities whose multi-belongingness across and beyond continental sub-Saharan and European spaces is depicted in an overwhelmingly positive light. This article diverges from past scholarship through its consideration of the difficult identarian compromise for the culturally hybrid protagonists in Miano's L'intérieur de la nuit and Diome's Le Ventre de l'Atlantique. Close reading of these texts, and namely of the experiences of their female Afropean protagonists, suggests a more nuanced, complex, and less positive vision of contemporary Afropeanity than that lauded by theorists concerning a celebrated, emancipatory, and overwhelmingly coveted condition of postmodernity.
{"title":"Afropean Aporias: Problematic Cultural Hybridity in Léonora Miano's L'intérieur de la nuit and Fatou Diome's Le Ventre de l'Atlantique","authors":"C. Mackay","doi":"10.2979/reseafrilite.53.2.03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/reseafrilite.53.2.03","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:Though still arguably marginal in the notoriously centralized French language literary landscape, texts produced by Afropean authors, meaning authors of sub-Saharan origin born or currently residing in Europe, now constitute a corpus of their own with well-known authors, including Alain Mabanckou, Léonora Miano, Abdourahman Waberi, and Fatou Diome, gaining in readership and reach. Central to their works is the consideration of culturally hybrid identities whose multi-belongingness across and beyond continental sub-Saharan and European spaces is depicted in an overwhelmingly positive light. This article diverges from past scholarship through its consideration of the difficult identarian compromise for the culturally hybrid protagonists in Miano's L'intérieur de la nuit and Diome's Le Ventre de l'Atlantique. Close reading of these texts, and namely of the experiences of their female Afropean protagonists, suggests a more nuanced, complex, and less positive vision of contemporary Afropeanity than that lauded by theorists concerning a celebrated, emancipatory, and overwhelmingly coveted condition of postmodernity.","PeriodicalId":21021,"journal":{"name":"Research in African Literatures","volume":"53 1","pages":"41 - 59"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47220484","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.2979/ral.2023.a905360
Kelvin Acheampong
ABSTRACT: Feminism represents the battle for equal access to opportunities in society for males and females and, therefore, a necessary struggle for social justice. It is sometimes the case, however, that feminism degenerates into a battle against men, a tendency Mawuli Adzei refers to as “radical separatist feminism” (47). In African literature, this standpoint is reflected in the abject degradation of male characters, who are usually presented as the oppressors of women, enemies of women, barriers to women’s progress, and only without whom women would be able to achieve their highest potentials in society (Adzei 47). Against this backdrop, and using El Saadawi’s Woman at Point Zero as a primary text, this paper, while acknowledging the validity and necessity of the crusade for gender equity in African societies, contests the logic fueling male-bashing by foregrounding certain often-ignored variables in this debate: first, the faulty homogenization/essentialization of men and women (and by extension, the neglection of intersectionality) and, second, the constraints certain cultural expectations pose to men. I conclude by highlighting Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s point that—because feminism is potentially liberating for both women and men—we can all be feminists.
{"title":"The Curse of Manhood: Reflections on Male-Bashing in Radical Separatist Feminist African Literature","authors":"Kelvin Acheampong","doi":"10.2979/ral.2023.a905360","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/ral.2023.a905360","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT: Feminism represents the battle for equal access to opportunities in society for males and females and, therefore, a necessary struggle for social justice. It is sometimes the case, however, that feminism degenerates into a battle against men, a tendency Mawuli Adzei refers to as “radical separatist feminism” (47). In African literature, this standpoint is reflected in the abject degradation of male characters, who are usually presented as the oppressors of women, enemies of women, barriers to women’s progress, and only without whom women would be able to achieve their highest potentials in society (Adzei 47). Against this backdrop, and using El Saadawi’s Woman at Point Zero as a primary text, this paper, while acknowledging the validity and necessity of the crusade for gender equity in African societies, contests the logic fueling male-bashing by foregrounding certain often-ignored variables in this debate: first, the faulty homogenization/essentialization of men and women (and by extension, the neglection of intersectionality) and, second, the constraints certain cultural expectations pose to men. I conclude by highlighting Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s point that—because feminism is potentially liberating for both women and men—we can all be feminists.","PeriodicalId":21021,"journal":{"name":"Research in African Literatures","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135495347","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.2979/reseafrilite.53.4.10
Njeri Githire
ABSTRACT: This essay exposes the imagery of cannibalism as a critique of unfettered consumption and greed at the root of the exploitative structures in The Farming of Bones (1998). The essay contends that the symbolic tapestry of Edwidge Danticat’s second novel is woven around metaphors of consumption and excretion. In a bid to unpack the inner workings of a plantation system that reduced human beings to commodities, I tease out the novel’s layered reflection on these metaphors and their meaning. I demonstrate that the purported menace posed by Haitian immigrants in the Dominican Republic is but a deflection of the violence exerted on working bodies on a constant basis. A scheme that serves to mask the assault and plunder that are commonplace, the ascription of malevolent intent onto the immigrants strips them of their humanity and justifies their expulsion from the national territory. I further expose the strategies used by the exploited to counter the consuming carnage and restore dignity.
{"title":"Eating Bodies: Edwidge Danticat’s The Farming of Bones","authors":"Njeri Githire","doi":"10.2979/reseafrilite.53.4.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/reseafrilite.53.4.10","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT: This essay exposes the imagery of cannibalism as a critique of unfettered consumption and greed at the root of the exploitative structures in The Farming of Bones (1998). The essay contends that the symbolic tapestry of Edwidge Danticat’s second novel is woven around metaphors of consumption and excretion. In a bid to unpack the inner workings of a plantation system that reduced human beings to commodities, I tease out the novel’s layered reflection on these metaphors and their meaning. I demonstrate that the purported menace posed by Haitian immigrants in the Dominican Republic is but a deflection of the violence exerted on working bodies on a constant basis. A scheme that serves to mask the assault and plunder that are commonplace, the ascription of malevolent intent onto the immigrants strips them of their humanity and justifies their expulsion from the national territory. I further expose the strategies used by the exploited to counter the consuming carnage and restore dignity.","PeriodicalId":21021,"journal":{"name":"Research in African Literatures","volume":"36 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136208909","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.2979/reseafrilite.53.4.09
Nikita Anand, Kumar Parag, Aditya Prakash
ABSTRACT: Buchi Emecheta’s The Rape of Shavi (1985) is representative of African women’s subordination in “motherhood,” “body movements” (used for communication in the absence of any bridge language), and “marriage” after the arrival of a group of uninvited exclusively white people (albinos) from England in the land of Shavi, a land that was abundantly blessed with a robust matriarchal spirit and self-sustaining powers of African women. This article examines how African women novelists shaped heteronormative plots as a compulsory gendered perspective for articulating the politicized disappearance of African femininity left for organizing African manhood and the masculine principle of the social, political, and heterosexual in a community like Shavi. Extending old Shavian men’s vision, Queen Mother attempts to reawaken European visitors’, such as Flip, Mendoza, Ronje, Andria, and Ista, struggle for a heterosexual role and desire limited to their race so as to save Shavian women from the men’s sexual advances and to assist Shavian women in the preservation of African virtues such as hospitality, cooperation, equality, and love besides protection against Western and young Shavian men’s critical and oppressive attitudes. This article thus contributes to persistent discussions on heterosexuality, the masculinity-femininity division, and heterosexual imaginary.
{"title":"Heteronormative Plots and African Feminine Powers in Buchi Emecheta’s The Rape of Shavi","authors":"Nikita Anand, Kumar Parag, Aditya Prakash","doi":"10.2979/reseafrilite.53.4.09","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/reseafrilite.53.4.09","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT: Buchi Emecheta’s The Rape of Shavi (1985) is representative of African women’s subordination in “motherhood,” “body movements” (used for communication in the absence of any bridge language), and “marriage” after the arrival of a group of uninvited exclusively white people (albinos) from England in the land of Shavi, a land that was abundantly blessed with a robust matriarchal spirit and self-sustaining powers of African women. This article examines how African women novelists shaped heteronormative plots as a compulsory gendered perspective for articulating the politicized disappearance of African femininity left for organizing African manhood and the masculine principle of the social, political, and heterosexual in a community like Shavi. Extending old Shavian men’s vision, Queen Mother attempts to reawaken European visitors’, such as Flip, Mendoza, Ronje, Andria, and Ista, struggle for a heterosexual role and desire limited to their race so as to save Shavian women from the men’s sexual advances and to assist Shavian women in the preservation of African virtues such as hospitality, cooperation, equality, and love besides protection against Western and young Shavian men’s critical and oppressive attitudes. This article thus contributes to persistent discussions on heterosexuality, the masculinity-femininity division, and heterosexual imaginary.","PeriodicalId":21021,"journal":{"name":"Research in African Literatures","volume":"95 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136208917","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.2979/ral.2023.a905369
Nhlanhla Dube
Reviewed by: Mobility in Contemporary Zimbabwean Literature in English: Crossing Border, Transcending Boundaries by Magdalena Pfalzgraf Nhlanhla Dube Mobility in Contemporary Zimbabwean Literature in English: Crossing Border, Transcending Boundaries BY MAGDALENA PFALZGRAF Routledge, 2022. 260 pp. ISBN 9780367637811 cloth. Zimbabwean literary criticism is effectively in the doldrums. This is not to say that creative writers are not producing exceptional content. Rather, the Zimbabwean academy is failing to diligently appraise and survey relevant and topical fields in the canon. The many nonplussed scholarly attempts that lack critical insight and bonhomie have only made the situation worse. Magdalena Pfalzgraf’s book Mobility in Contemporary Zimbabwean Literature is a breath of fresh air. Pfalzgraf’s monograph makes an astute contribution to literary scholarship focused on Zimbabwean literature. Pfalzgraf expatiates migration as the number one issue that has beleaguered both the nation and its literature since the early 2000s to date. [End Page 175] Pfalzgraf has characterized this period as being a state of “large scale out-migration” (5). The Zimbabwean crisis of the early 2000s led to a spike in migration as people made their way overseas to attempt to find clean running water, consistent electricity, and food. “Labor migration to South Africa was so pervasive that it became an engrained part of Zimbabwean life, and it also formed a collective imaginary which persists in contemporary representations of migration to South Africa” (25). Pfalzgraf explores how these struggles have been explored in creative fiction, and she honestly deliberates on their effects. Pfalzgraf starts off by pointing to the circuitous nature of migration and movement. “In the primary texts analysed here, we will come across numerous instances where being ‘on the move’ does not mean moving on, where movement is not necessarily mobilizing and where city dynamism is not always indicative of development. This contradictory dynamic is a central concern of this study” (2). Movement is thus anfractuous, and it does not result in liberation. The greener pastures sought by itinerants remain a dream deferred. This sometimes eventually results in migrants returning home in what has come to be called “diasporic return.” Zimbabwean literature thus becomes international in dimension. Writers also went abroad along with their compatriots. “The diasporic literary community is large and scattered across the globe: Chikwava and Huchu live in Britain, Bulawayo lives in the US and Lang in Australia, Mlalazi is based in Mexico” (9). Pfalzgraf points to the fact that we are beginning to see an internationalization of Zimbabwean literature. It is no longer enough to think of the canon of Zimbabwean literature as that which is only produced within its national geographical borders. And in turn, Zimbabweans do shape their new homes abroad and this can be seen in the “Hararization of London” (208
{"title":"Mobility in Contemporary Zimbabwean Literature in English: Crossing Border, Transcending Boundaries by Magdalena Pfalzgraf (review)","authors":"Nhlanhla Dube","doi":"10.2979/ral.2023.a905369","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/ral.2023.a905369","url":null,"abstract":"Reviewed by: Mobility in Contemporary Zimbabwean Literature in English: Crossing Border, Transcending Boundaries by Magdalena Pfalzgraf Nhlanhla Dube Mobility in Contemporary Zimbabwean Literature in English: Crossing Border, Transcending Boundaries BY MAGDALENA PFALZGRAF Routledge, 2022. 260 pp. ISBN 9780367637811 cloth. Zimbabwean literary criticism is effectively in the doldrums. This is not to say that creative writers are not producing exceptional content. Rather, the Zimbabwean academy is failing to diligently appraise and survey relevant and topical fields in the canon. The many nonplussed scholarly attempts that lack critical insight and bonhomie have only made the situation worse. Magdalena Pfalzgraf’s book Mobility in Contemporary Zimbabwean Literature is a breath of fresh air. Pfalzgraf’s monograph makes an astute contribution to literary scholarship focused on Zimbabwean literature. Pfalzgraf expatiates migration as the number one issue that has beleaguered both the nation and its literature since the early 2000s to date. [End Page 175] Pfalzgraf has characterized this period as being a state of “large scale out-migration” (5). The Zimbabwean crisis of the early 2000s led to a spike in migration as people made their way overseas to attempt to find clean running water, consistent electricity, and food. “Labor migration to South Africa was so pervasive that it became an engrained part of Zimbabwean life, and it also formed a collective imaginary which persists in contemporary representations of migration to South Africa” (25). Pfalzgraf explores how these struggles have been explored in creative fiction, and she honestly deliberates on their effects. Pfalzgraf starts off by pointing to the circuitous nature of migration and movement. “In the primary texts analysed here, we will come across numerous instances where being ‘on the move’ does not mean moving on, where movement is not necessarily mobilizing and where city dynamism is not always indicative of development. This contradictory dynamic is a central concern of this study” (2). Movement is thus anfractuous, and it does not result in liberation. The greener pastures sought by itinerants remain a dream deferred. This sometimes eventually results in migrants returning home in what has come to be called “diasporic return.” Zimbabwean literature thus becomes international in dimension. Writers also went abroad along with their compatriots. “The diasporic literary community is large and scattered across the globe: Chikwava and Huchu live in Britain, Bulawayo lives in the US and Lang in Australia, Mlalazi is based in Mexico” (9). Pfalzgraf points to the fact that we are beginning to see an internationalization of Zimbabwean literature. It is no longer enough to think of the canon of Zimbabwean literature as that which is only produced within its national geographical borders. And in turn, Zimbabweans do shape their new homes abroad and this can be seen in the “Hararization of London” (208","PeriodicalId":21021,"journal":{"name":"Research in African Literatures","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135495369","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.2979/ral.2023.a905367
Hugo Salas
ABSTRACT: On account of her particular reading of surrealism, this essay contends that Suzanne Césaire’s intellectual production is best understood not as heralding later strains of thought (such as Glissant’s or ecocriticism), but as part of the diverse practices of critical theory contemporary to her. To support this thesis, this article studies the coincidences and differences between her ideas on the notion of mimicry and those of Roger Callois, leading to a more complex understanding of her cardinal notion of camouflage.
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Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.2979/ral.2023.a905357
Chris Dunton
ABSTRACT: This paper takes as its starting-point observations made by Lindsey Green-Simms in her paper “The Emergent Queer.” Following an exploration of the term “emergent,” the paper addresses the fact that, as homophobic legislation has become entrenched in the majority of African countries, more and more LGBTQ+-themed writing is emerging from or on the continent. There follows some documentation on the experience of LGBTQ+ writers such as Jude Dibia and Logan February and on the advantages to these writers of expatriation. Turning to the literature itself, coverage of the creative corpus is not comprehensive. The author has not, for example, had a chance to consider the 2013 volume Queer Africa: New and Collected Fiction , edited by Karen Martin and Makhosozana Xaba. But the central task of the paper is not to account for the relevant creative writing, but to focus on the body of critical work that addresses this and on texts that explore the historical and sociological context in which the creative corpus has been produced.
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Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.2979/ral.2023.a905368
Werner Labuschagne
Reviewed by: Finding My Way: Reflections on South African Literature by Duncan Brown Werner Labuschagne Finding My Way: Reflections on South African Literature BY DUNCAN BROWN U of KwaZulu-Natal P, 2020. x + 202 pp. ISBN 9781869144494. Duncan Brown’s Finding My Way surveys and comments on the state and history of South African literary criticism from the vantage point of 2020. It aims to provide more productive in-roads to approaching emerging and established South African literature. This is especially salient regarding one of the book’s main arguments, that whereas South African literature itself has been flourishing, the contemporary criticism thereof has been lagging behind. As the title suggests, Brown employs his own personal experience as a career academic to add credence to his perspective of where he believes the discipline could be more fruitful. This more flexible and individualized tone works as a counterpoint to the rigidness of contemporary criticism. In the book, Brown attempts to untangle some of the limiting aspects of the conventional, institutionalized approach. In the opening chapters, Brown explains that a central issue in studying South African literature is whether a South African literature exists in the first place. Early on, Brown outlines the shortcomings of most major studies and expansiveness of South African literature, especially highlighting their failure to definitively categorize and unify a concise South African literary canon. In terms of post-apartheid criticism, the problem of a unified criticism seems even more apparent. Brown references Leon de Kock to make the point that, during apart-heid, “writers [and critics, I would add] could take on a sense of grave importance by virtue of writing in and about one of the great crisis points in the world” (50). Literary criticism in the country has, arguably, not found another stable unifying point since. While, in contrast, the literature and readership itself has flourished. Regarding the state of current criticism, Brown posits that there is too much focus on utilizing theory, rather than reading into the literariness of the texts themselves. Brown presents a thesis that argues for a literary scholarship that “deploys theory as it is useful, rather than . . . using ‘theory’ to discipline ‘literature’ . . . a scholarship that is less monumental and institutionally proclaimed . . . that is less sure about its own grounds of working and its aims” (46). Brown argues that critics attempt to fit their predetermined frameworks onto texts, rather than reading “with” the text. In the chapters succeeding these establishing points, Brown visits various South African texts that fall somewhat outside of the traditional literary scope [End Page 173] (especially considering the usual emphasis on novels), in readings that emphasize their literariness. That is to say, reading “with” the text, rather than establishing a framework to fit onto the text. For example, Brown analyzes th
《寻找我的路:对南非文学的思考》作者:邓肯·布朗，夸祖鲁-纳塔尔省大学，2020年。x + 202页。ISBN 9781869144494。邓肯·布朗的《寻找我的路》从2020年的有利位置调查和评论了南非文学批评的现状和历史。它的目的是为接近新兴和成熟的南非文学提供更有效的途径。这本书的一个主要论点是，尽管南非文学本身蓬勃发展，但当代对其的批评却落后了，这一点尤其突出。正如书名所示，布朗利用自己作为职业学者的个人经历，为他的观点增加了可信度，他认为这门学科可以在哪里取得更大的成果。这种更加灵活和个性化的语气与当代批评的僵化形成了对比。在书中，布朗试图理清传统的、制度化的方法的一些局限性。在开篇几章中，布朗解释说，研究南非文学的一个中心问题是南非文学是否存在。在书的早期，布朗概述了大多数主要研究和南非文学的广泛性的缺点，特别是强调了它们在明确分类和统一简明的南非文学经典方面的失败。就种族隔离后的批评而言，统一批评的问题似乎更加明显。布朗引用了莱昂·德·科克的观点，认为在分裂时期，“作家(和评论家，我想补充一句)可以通过在世界上最大的危机点之一进行写作而获得一种严肃的重要性”(50)。可以说，从那以后，这个国家的文学批评再也没有找到另一个稳定的统一点。与此相反，文学和读者本身却蓬勃发展。对于目前的批评现状，布朗认为，人们过于关注理论的运用，而不是对文本本身的文学性进行解读。布朗提出了一篇论文，主张文学奖学金“利用有用的理论，而不是……”用‘理论’约束‘文学’……一项不那么具有纪念意义和制度性的奖学金……这就不太确定它自己的工作基础和目标”(46)。布朗认为，评论家试图将他们预先确定的框架应用到文本中，而不是“与”文本一起阅读。在这些建立点之后的章节中，布朗在强调其文学性的阅读中，访问了一些在传统文学范围之外的南非文本(特别是考虑到通常强调小说)。也就是说，“与”文本一起阅读，而不是建立一个框架来适应文本。例如，布朗分析了Nontsizi Mgqwetho的基督教赞美诗(izibongo)，这些诗最初发表于20世纪20年代，但直到2000年代才被重新发现。在他自己的阅读中，布朗把重点放在她的非洲基督教信仰上，以便“通过她诗意和预言性的演讲的质地和音色来解读”(86)。随后，布朗在研究亚当·阿什福斯的非虚构作品《玛德莫:一个被迷惑的人》(2000年)和《南非的巫术、暴力与民主》(2005年)时，同样强调了对信仰的解读。在这里，布朗主张“可信、同情而又批判地书写我们可能不认同的信仰”(89)。如前所述，布朗研究小说之外的地点，以寻找其文学价值。他声称，从某种意义上说，创造性非小说类文学已经成为南非最主要的文学类型。他在对Antjie Krog的采访中讨论了这一类型的意义，Antjie Krog在非小说类作品中创作了里程碑式的作品，如《我的骷髅国》(Country of My Skull, 1998)。布朗和克罗格推测，目前非小说类作品在南非的人气和文学价值激增。克罗格指出，“分离”的历史可能是原因，因为我们“如果不了解产生彼此幻想或虚构的现实，也许就无法开始重视彼此的幻想或虚构”(109)。布朗进一步走到传统文学文本之外，提倡对口头文学的研究。
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Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.2979/reseafrilite.53.4.08
Goabilwe Nnanishie Ramaeba, Wazha Lopang
ABSTRACT: This literary onomastics paper explores character naming in two of Bessie Head’s novels, namely, When Rain Clouds Gather and Maru , both set in villages of Botswana. The purpose is to illustrate how the author uses character names to advance her themes and storylines. The paper relies heavily on the lexical transparency of the names from a structural linguistics perspective and on the sociocultural contexts of the names from a sociolinguistics perspective. The analysis reveals that Head’s choice of character names is intentional and deliberate, meant to achieve a specific purpose, and this is reflective of the process of names and naming in real life scenarios, particularly in the African context. The names mirror the sociocultural contexts of the characters and in the process reveal their personalities, physical attributes, and the types of relationships they have with other characters. The paper concludes that Head employs a lot of symbolism and irony in naming her characters, powerful features that help to effectively communicate her themes.
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