Showing papers in "Journal of Literary Studies in 2018"
TL;DR: The authors apply Bakhtin's concept of the chronotope, in conjunction with a rights-reading approach, to John Eppel's fiction, with particular reference to Eppels depiction of middle-aged and elderly women.
Abstract: This article applies Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope, in conjunction with a rights-reading approach, to John Eppel’s fiction, with particular reference to Eppel’s depiction of middle-aged and e...
6 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors address the following question: what light might Mary Shelley's celebrated 1818 novel, Frankenstein, cast on the pressing ecological crisis faced by humanity in the present er...
Abstract: SummaryThis article addresses the following question: what light might Mary Shelley's celebrated 1818 novel, Frankenstein, cast on the pressing ecological crisis faced by humanity in the present er...
6 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a discussion of the evolution of gender representation in contemporary Nigerian literature is presented, highlighting how time and space have influenced the question of gender and its construction, representation and reinterpretation in contemporary Nigeria literature.
Abstract: SummaryThis article underscores how time and space have influenced the question of gender – its construction, representation and re-interpretation – in contemporary Nigerian literature. It examines various positions of male writers, such as Cyprian Ekwensi and Chinua Achebe, whose works entrenched a conservative, patriarchal perspective of gender that valorises masculinity at the expense of femininity. On the other hand, women writers such as Buchi Emecheta, Flora Nwapa and Zaynab Alkali produced fiction which countered the stereotypical representations of women pervasive in early Nigerian literature. Contemporary Nigerian women writers such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Lola Shoneyin and Chika Unigwe, writing from an unapologetically feminist point of view, have built on the work of the pioneer womanist writers to produce works of art that underline social transformation in Nigeria where gender hierarchy is constantly questioned and challenged. This discussion of the evolution of gender representation in ...
6 citations
TL;DR: Frank Herbert's Dune as mentioned in this paper describes a fantastic universe where noble families, corporate interests and shadowy, cultish organisation are represented by noble families and corporate interests, and a noble family is a member of a powerful family.
Abstract: Frank Herbert’s Dune (1965), a classic of twentieth century American science fiction (sf), describes a fantastic universe where noble families, corporate interests and shadowy, cultish organisation...
6 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that Bulawayo's depiction of 10-year old Darling's life and that of her impoverished community makes extensive use of stereotypes of blackness that are consistent with white constructions of the black other.
Abstract: SummaryThis article focuses on NoViolet Bulawayo’s debut novel We Need New Names, and discusses the ways in which she explores the life of the young protagonist and her friends living in a country in the midst of an economic and political crisis. The article argues that Bulawayo’s depiction of 10-year old Darling’s life and that of her impoverished community makes extensive use of stereotypes of blackness that are consistent with white constructions of the black other. This reinforces Western notions of Africa through the use of a number of tropes that have come to be considered representative of Africa within the Western literary canon. The article further asserts that, because the children continually perform their poverty, there is an underlying equating of poverty with moral laxity, which renders the novel “poverty porn”. Instead of illuminating the suffering of this community, it merely serves to deny it humanity as it engages in a Bakhtnian carnivalesque performance in response to vagaries of the po...
5 citations
TL;DR: In sy resensie van Werfsonde (2012) se Van Coller (2013: 193) as mentioned in this paper, die outobiografiese roman se hooffiguur nie beskou kan word as flaneur niet.
Abstract: In sy resensie van Werfsonde (2012) se Van Coller (2013: 193) dat die outobiografiese roman se hooffiguur nie beskou kan word as ’n flaneur nie. Hy definieer “flaneren” as “doelloos rondswerf” en s...
4 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the depiction of childhood albinism in a Zimbabwean township in the early 1990s and the imprisonment of females during the height of Zimbabwe's political paralysis and economic collapse of the e...
Abstract: In its depiction of childhood albinism in a Zimbabwean township in the early 1990s and the imprisonment of females during the height of Zimbabwe’s political paralysis and economic collapse of the e...
4 citations
TL;DR: The colonial experience in most African states alongside the attendant merger of nation-states based on administrative convenience precipitated the urgency for sustained positive leadership as discussed by the authors, which is the case in most of the countries of the world.
Abstract: The colonial experience in most African states alongside the attendant merger of nation-states based on administrative convenience precipitated the urgency for sustained positive leadership. Howeve...
3 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that desire begins Coleridge's Kubla Khan and moves it forward, and that desire can be traced back to the moment when Colerye projects himself onto Kubla's garden, transcends his pleasure-dome, and wishes to revive the Abyssinian Khan.
Abstract: This article argues that desire begins Coleridge’s Kubla Khan and moves it forward. Coleridge projects himself onto Kubla’s garden, transcends his pleasure-dome, and wishes to revive the Abyssinian...
3 citations
TL;DR: In this article, eco-criticism is defined as "the ecologically informed criticism of literary works, and ecocriticism as an umbrella term generally concerned with humanities-based studies of environmental representation".
Abstract: SummaryThis article demonstrates the criticism of eco-activist literature through rhetoric theory by experimenting with such a method in an analysis of Nganga Mbugua’s Terrorists of the Aberdare (2009). In this work, I take eco-criticism to mean the ecologically informed criticism of literary works, and ecocriticism as an umbrella term generally concerned with humanities-based studies of environmental representation. I argue that since eco-criticism reads eco-activist literature as a tool of influencing audiences concerning human relations with the nonhuman, eco-criticism can incorporate rhetoric theory as a methodological support for textual analysis, and a step towards theorising literary eco-activism. I assert that a theory of persuasion, if employed in literary analysis, can enrich interpretation and eventually enable a set of eco-persuasive literary devices to emerge in line with the political purpose of ecocriticism. The first part of the article discusses eco-literary activism as a point of converg...
3 citations
TL;DR: The Gate to Women's Country (1988) by Sheri S. Tepper as discussed by the authors adapts three plays by Euripides: Iphigenia at Aulis (410BC), Iphigeia in Tauris (412BC), and The Trojan Women (415BC).
Abstract: SummaryThe relevance of the classical canon has been the subject of much heated debate, especially in a contemporary post-colonial and ostensibly post-patriarchal context. The adaptation of classical works is one way in which authors and academics have sought to problematise the perceived value of this canon, and the influence it has on contemporary attitudes. Yet the study and discussion of these contemporary adaptations has often largely ignored work by authors in liminal genres such as science fiction. This reveals yet another way in which canons may be problematised another centre which cannot hold. This article explores the mechanisms of adaptation used by such a liminal author, Sheri S. Tepper, in her science fiction novel The Gate to Women’s Country (1988), which writes back to the past by adapting three plays by Euripides – Iphigenia at Aulis (410BC), Iphigenia in Tauris (412BC), and The Trojan Women (415BC). I argue that, by writing in the genre of science fiction, Tepper is uniquely situated to ...
TL;DR: The authors examines the transgressive gender acts in a rap music video by Tanzanian musician Professor Jay entitled "Zali la Mentali" and argues that on the one hand, this music video subverts e...
Abstract: This article examines the transgressive gender acts in a rap music video by Tanzanian musician Professor Jay entitled “Zali la Mentali”. It argues that, on the one hand, this music video subverts e...
TL;DR: In this paper, Wicomb's Playing in the Light uses as its point of departure her remark that "there must be an ontological crisis [for play-whites] that nobody can talk about, because of...
Abstract: SummaryThis article on Zoe Wicomb’s Playing in the Light uses as its point of departure her remark that “there must be an ontological crisis [for play-whites] that nobody can talk about, because of...
TL;DR: This paper explored the dialectic between self-loathing and pleasure, as well as between engagement and isolation, which he portrayed performatively through his London poetry, in a series of close readings of poems in which Nortje depicts an exploration of queer subjectivities, staged within the city.
Abstract: SummaryIn this article, I aim to expand our understanding of Arthur Nortje as a poet of “exile” by exploring the dialectic between self-loathing and pleasure, as well as between engagement and isolation, which he portrays performatively through his London poetry. While critics have emphasised Nortje’s “marginality” or “liminality”, both as an “exile” and a “coloured” South African, I draw on the critical writing of Zoe Wicomb in order to extend readings of his poetry beyond this tragic paradigm. I furthermore take up Sarah Nuttall’s suggestion that Nortje’s London poetry describes a degree of immersion within the city and that this aspect of his work demands further study. After tracing Nortje’s playful use of literary influences and his reworking of the trope of flânerie, I provide a series of close readings of poems in which Nortje depicts an exploration of queer subjectivities, staged within the city. In his London poetry, Nortje subverts and eludes fixed racial, sexual, national and class identities. ...
TL;DR: Genocide is often used to describe the Igbo experience during the Biafra/Nigeria civil war, particularly within secessionist discourse, and has become a potent tool in gathering support among the...
Abstract: Genocide is often used to describe the Igbo experience during the Biafra/Nigeria civil war, particularly within secessionist discourse. This has become a potent tool in gathering support among the ...
TL;DR: The Standeruppers as mentioned in this paper is predicated on two principal sources: Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction (2014) and Ben Okri's unpublished stoku, "The Standers" (2017).
Abstract: This article is predicated on two principal sources: Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction (2014) and Ben Okri’s unpublished stoku, “The Standeruppers” (2017). It invokes Edward O. Wilson’s 2002...
TL;DR: In this article, Bakhtin's so-called "adventure-time" chro... is used to understand continuities and discontinuities across the various James Bond films.
Abstract: SummaryTwo distinctly Bakhtinian elements are relevant to understanding both continuities and discontinuities across the various James Bond films. Firstly, Bakhtin’s so-called “adventure-time” chro...
TL;DR: The concept of women empowerment cannot be dissociated from that of women disempowerment since the two function as mutually reinforcing processes as discussed by the authors, and the drama of a women's empowerment story cannot be separated from women's dis empowerment story.
Abstract: SummaryThe concept of women’s empowerment cannot be dissociated from that of women’s disempowerment since the two function as mutually reinforcing processes. This article argues that the drama of A...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors look at the temporalities and inevitably the spatialities of a rape incident in the novel This Book Betrays my Brother by Kagiso Lesego Molope and extrapolate three major arguments from the novel: first, male sexual violence is the result of masculine territorialisation of women's bodies; second, the rape of lesbian and bisexual women is the consequence of heterosexual men's failure to accommodate alternative sexualities, hence their action to discipline the deviant bodies of women for transgressing the patriarchal sexual order; and lastly, that intra-racial sexual
Abstract: SummaryIn this article, I seek to understand why male sexual violence happens. I look specifically at the temporalities, and inevitably the spatialities, of a rape incident in the novel This Book Betrays my Brother by Kagiso Lesego Molope. In other words, I seek to answer the question: how does the timing of the rape enhance our understanding of why the rape happens and how the perpetrator conceives it? My feminist analysis combines theories of sexual violence and theories of women’s time to unravel the motive for rape as represented in Molope’s novel. Through the analysis, I extrapolate three major arguments from the novel: first, that male sexual violence is the result of masculine territorialisation of women’s bodies; second, that the rape of lesbian and bisexual women is the result of heterosexual men’s failure to accommodate alternative sexualities, hence their action to “discipline” the deviant bodies of women for transgressing the patriarchal sexual order; and lastly, that intra-racial sexual viole...
TL;DR: This paper argued that post-apartheid literature is a genre that, in its aesthetic and political complexity, still largely eludes neat definition, but the discussions around its development are various.
Abstract: SummaryPost-apartheid literature is a genre that, in its aesthetic and political complexity, still largely eludes neat definition, but the discussions around its development are various. Many have suggested that the change in literary tradition from the apartheid era has not been very substantial at all. At the 2015 Franschoek Literary Festival, Thando Mqgolozana correctly identified that South Africa’s literary sphere, from published writing to literary festivals, was not demographically representative, and still revolved around serving the interests of white South Africans. Literature is not the only part of post-apartheid South African society that ethically demands the decentring of historical whiteness, and white South Africans are grappling with this moral necessity in various ways. Because many white South Africans feel ashamed of the nation’s racial inequalities, Samantha Vice argues, they are critically assessing their own ways of living and how they are part of the problem. This attitude is evid...
TL;DR: In this article, a post-modern concern with randomness is evident when the ostensible self-sufficiency of the individual account is undermined by the arbitrary, often mysterious (re)appearance of one or the other narrator as character in another's story.
Abstract: SummaryBritish author David Mitchell’s debut novel Ghostwritten, published in 1999, has been lauded for its innovative nine-part structure, in which each chapter is presented as a first-person narrative that involves, each time, a different narrator with a different story. Mitchell himself describes this arrangement as a way to “locate meaning in randomness […] Each chapter offers a different reason why its events unfold as they do” (Begley 2010: 5). Such a postmodern concern with randomness is evident when the ostensible self-sufficiency of the individual account is undermined by the arbitrary, often mysterious (re)appearance of one or the other narrator as character in another’s story. Interestingly, these surprise appearances, of what could be called the “experiencing other”, work to undermine the centrality of the narrator’s story – of what could be called the “master narrative”. This destabilisation is compounded in characteristic postmodern fashion by the continual displacement of the narrating “I” ...
TL;DR: The authors explored translations and potential functions of a biography of King Muhlaba I in reshaping memory in local and wider South African history, acknowledging the contributions of the Nkuna people as members of the South African community.
Abstract: SummaryThis article explores translations and potential functions of a biography of King Muhlaba I (ca 1864-1944) in reshaping memory in local and wider South African history, acknowledging the contributions of the Nkuna people as members of the South African community. Muhlaba I led the Nkuna people (a Tsonga group) from the 1880s into modernity, through the South African War and two World Wars. In their 1957 Xitsonga biography, Nkuna authors P.M. Shilubana and H.E. Ntsanwisi describe this leader as a wise ruler, proponent of education and judge who administered indigenous restorative justice, and negotiated the space between his people’s traditional lifestyle and modernity. The article suggests possibilities for transparent and accountable, and thus ethical, translations of the text within the limitations imposed by the local translation context. It considers the question of why more translations of this text, especially in English, need to become available in a post-colonial context, given that it cove...
TL;DR: The authors explored the dynamics of time in literary texts and found that time in literature can be described as a kind of time-varying dynamism in the form of a time continuum.
Abstract: (2018). Exploring the Dynamics of Time in Literary Texts. Journal of Literary Studies: Vol. 34, Exploring the Dynamics of Time in Literary Texts, pp. 26-32.
TL;DR: This paper examined the use of violent language in Boubacar Boris Diop's documentation of the Rwandan genocide in Murambi and Uwem Akpan's Say You're One of Them and how this replicates the genocide experiences in the two contexts.
Abstract: SummarySeveral existing studies have investigated the aesthetics of genocide literature. However, there are few studies on genocide literatures from Nigeria especially as there is still a debate on what constitutes genocide in Nigerian literatures. A comparative study of genocide literature from Rwanda and the arguable genocide narratives from Nigeria will further the discourse of what constitutes genocide in Nigerian literature. This study delves into the examination of the use of violent language in Boubacar Boris Diop’s documentation of the Rwandan genocide in Murambi and Uwem Akpan’s Say You’re One of Them and how this replicates the genocide experiences in the two contexts. The study asserts that the convention of measuring and defining genocide based on the scale of killings subverts the reality of the victims of genocides. It further establishes that Akpan’s recreation of ethno-religious killings in Nigeria is in sync with the deployment of language in other established instances of genocide litera...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the effects of time and historical change on Nigerian feminist literature by focusing on the work of a prolific contemporary Nigerian playwright, Ahmed Yerima.
Abstract: SummaryThis article explores the effects of time and historical change on Nigerian feminist literature by focusing on the work of a prolific contemporary Nigerian playwright, Ahmed Yerima. The history of Yerima’s writing reveals a shift from plays with historical themes to plays which engage explicitly with questions of gender and gender-related oppression. In this way, his writing trajectory provides one example of the growing importance of gender concerns in Nigerian literature. The article goes further to present an exegesis of one of Yerima’s gender-focused plays, namely Aetu, published in 2007. It looks at the play’s engagement with the way in which traditional Yoruba practices fix women in socially subordinate positions. It also considers the play’s handling of time in relation to feminist concerns with time and non-linearity.
TL;DR: In this article, the intertextual and temporal relationship between Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre (1847) and the present day is examined with a reference to the relationship between the two books.
Abstract: If you can remember your future, can you change it? In this article, I examine this question with reference to the intertextual and temporal relationship between Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre (1847)...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on two contemporary novels, Louise Erdrich's Tracks and Zakes Mda's The Heart of Redness, which revolve around the ways in which two indigenous communities, the Chippewa...
Abstract: SummaryThis article focuses on two contemporary novels, Louise Erdrich's Tracks and Zakes Mda’s The Heart of Redness, which revolve around the ways in which two indigenous communities, the Chippewa...
Abstract: The abuse of power and corruption as the bane of the African continent, are major themes in many postcolonial novels. In Nigeria, Achebe’s first, second and last novels, Things Fall Apart, No Longe...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on two short stories that appropriate features of the literary works of Herman Charles Bosman, one of South Africa's most prolific short story writers, and compare them with the Bosman's own short stories.
Abstract: This article focuses on two recent short stories that appropriate features of the literary works of Herman Charles Bosman, one of South Africa’s most prolific short story writers. The two stories t...
TL;DR: In 1839, Russian traveller Nikolai Gretsch published Travel Letters from England, Germany and France («Путевые Письма из Англии, Германии и Франции», a series of letters in three volumes that deta...
Abstract: In 1839, Russian traveller Nikolai Gretsch published Travel Letters from England, Germany and France («Путевые Письма из Англии, Германии и Франции»), a series of letters in three volumes that deta...