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Journal articles on the topic 'African mythology'
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1
Berezkin, Yuri. "African Heritage in Mythology." Antropologicheskij forum 17, no. 48 (2021): 91–114. http://dx.doi.org/10.31250/1815-8870-2021-17-48-91-114.
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Our analytical catalogue contains information on many thousands of folklore and mythological texts. The systemic approach to this material argues in favor of an African origin of episodes and images that were recorded in sub-Saharan Africa, the Indo-Pacific border of Asia and in America but are absent in continental Eurasia. Such a pattern corresponds to genetic and archaeological data concerning the early spread of the modern human from Africa in two directions, i.e. to the East along the coast of the Indian Ocean to Southeast Asia and Australia, and to the North into Europe, Central Asia and Siberia. The natural conditions of humankind in the Indo-Pacific Tropics and in the African homeland are essentially similar; conversely, in the Eurasian North, deep cultural changes and a loss of the African heritage are to be expected. Though there are no cultures in Asia that could be considered to be related to the ancestors of the earliest migrants into the New World still being identified by archaeologists, similar sets of motifs in South America and in the Indo-Pacific part of the Old World provide evidence in favor of the East Asian homeland of the first Americans. Later groups of migrants brought those motifs typical for continental Eurasia to North America. Though we take into account conclusions reached by specialists in other historical disciplines, big data on mythology and folklore is argued to be an independent source of information on the human past.
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Berezkin, Yuri. "Sky-Maiden and World Mythology." IRIS, no. 31 (July 15, 2010): 27–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.35562/iris.2020.
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Traditions that share the least number of motifs are located in continental Eurasia and Melanesia. African mythologies are poor and stand nearer to the Indo‑Pacific than to the Continental Eurasian pole. The Indo‑Pacific mythology preserved its African core. In Continental Eurasia a new set of motifs began to spread after the Late Glacial Maximum. Both sets of motifs were brought to the New World. The Indo-Pacific complex predominates in Latin, the Continental Eurasian one in North America. Sky‑maiden tales, largely unknown in Africa and Australia, emerged in the Indo-Pacific borderlands of Asia. Both in Southeast Asia and in Latin America different images of the magic wife coexist (different birds, sky-nymphs, etc.), stories are often integrated into the anthropogenic myths. More specialized Swan-maiden stories spread across Northern Eurasia after the Late Glacial Maximum. Only Khori‑Buryat versions are related to actual mythology. Swan‑maiden was brought to America late by the Eskimo.
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Bukuluki, Paul, and Christine Mbabazi Mpyangu. "The African Conception of Sacrifice and its Relationship with Child Sacrifice." International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences 41 (September 2014): 12–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.18052/www.scipress.com/ilshs.41.12.
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Although the practice of human sacrifice is not new in the mythology around sacrifice in Africa, the practice of child mutilation and sacrifice at least in Uganda was just spoken about as fairytale. However events that have unraveled since the late 1990s have shocked the country with real cases of children being mutilated and killed in the context of what is commonly referred to as child sacrifice in Uganda. This paper presents the “African” meaning of the concept sacrifice and how demonstrates how the in African religious theology disassociates itself from murder and mutilation of children‟s body parts as part of the rituals for healing, dealing misfortunes or even prevention of unfortunate events. There was consensus from our study participants that although historically, there has been human and child sacrifice in the African and Uganda cultural mythology, the actual practice of these vices is a new phenomenon, not recognized and accepted in indigenous/traditional religious theology and practice of African religion and culture.
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Michaelis, K. "A critical analysis of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s African Oresteia." Literator 17, no. 2 (April 30, 1996): 79–90. http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/lit.v17i2.604.
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Pasolini's Appunti per un’Orestiade africana (1970) is a metaphorical film, inspired by the Greek legend of Orestes, in which Pasolini views postcolonial African history through the lens of mythology. His portrait of the birth of “modern” Africa is an attempt to narrate the passage from past to present and to salvage "prehistory" through his dream of the unification of the rational, democratic state and the irrational, primal slate of being. It is, however, a dream punctuated by contradictions and paradoxes, a dream which Pasolini will later abandon. Yet it is significant in the overall development of Pasolini's genre.
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Temple, Christel N. "Africana Cultural Memory in the Afroeuropean Context." Journal of Black Studies 52, no. 4 (March 14, 2021): 418–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0021934721999296.
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With the publication of Black Cultural Mythology (2020), the discipline of Africology and African American Studies has a better resource that answers the call for methodological and theoretical tools to institutionalize Africana cultural memory studies as a robust subfield. This content analysis tests the applicability of the critical framework of Black cultural mythology—which emerges from a study of the African American Diaspora of the United States—with the Afroeuropean Diaspora, namely the Black British experience. A feature of this study’s methodology is evaluating the efficacy of the genre of anthology—in this case Kwesi Owusu’s Black British Culture and Society: A Text Reader (2000)—as a comprehensive source suitable for content analysis and from which to infer a sense of the region’s approaches to cultural memory and memory-adjacent worldviews.
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Kaunda, Chammah J., and Mutale Mulenga Kaunda. "Gender and Sexual Desire Justice in African Christianity." Feminist Theology 30, no. 1 (September 2021): 21–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/09667350211030874.
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This article explores the nexus of themes of sexual desire, gender and prayer in the Bemba mythology of creation. Approached from Sarah Coakley’s theology of participation in the divine desire, the article utilizes email technique to collect data from African scholars both women and men with an intention to find out their perspectives on the nexus of the entangled themes above as embodied within the widespread Bemba mythology. The second objective was to understand the ways in which these three themes are intersected in the mythology and demonstrate how the contemporary African Christian search for gender and sexual desire justice might be linked to a gendered prayer. The findings show that gendered prayer could be a place of sexual desire and gender healing and justice for women.
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Gohar, Saddik M. "The dialectics of homeland and identity: Reconstructing Africa in the poetry of Langston Hughes and Mohamed Al-Fayturi." Tydskrif vir Letterkunde 45, no. 1 (February 15, 2018): 42–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2309-9070/tvl.v.45i1.4460.
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The article investigates the dialectics between homeland and identity in the poetry of the Sudanese poet, Mohamed Al-Fayturi and his literary master, Langston Hughes in order to underline their attitudes toward crucial issues integral to the African and African-American experience such as identity, racism, enslavement and colonisation. The article argues that – in Hughes’s early poetry –Africa is depicted as the land of ancient civilisations in order to strengthen African-American feelings of ethnic pride during the Harlem Renaissance. This idealistic image of a pre-slavery, a pre-colonial Africa, argues the paper, disappears from the poetry of Hughes, after the Harlem Renaissance, to be replaced with a more realistic image of Africa under colonisation. The article also demonstrates that unlike Hughes, who attempts to romanticize Africa, Al-Fayturi rejects a romantic confrontation with the roots. Interrogating western colonial narratives about Africa, Al-Fayturi reconstructs pre-colonial African history in order to reveal the tragic consequences of colonisation and slavery upon the psyche of the African people. The article also points out that in their attempts to confront the oppressive powers which aim to erase the identity of their peoples, Hughes and Al-Fayturi explore areas of overlap drama between the turbulent experience of African-Americans and the catastrophic history of black Africans dismantling colonial narratives and erecting their own cultural mythology.
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Witzel, Michael. "Water in Mythology." Daedalus 144, no. 3 (July 2015): 18–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/daed_a_00338.
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Water in its various forms–as salty ocean water, as sweet river water, or as rain–has played a major role in human myths, from the hypothetical, reconstructed stories of our ancestral “African Eve” to those recorded some five thousand years ago by the early civilizations to the myriad myths told by major and smaller religions today. With the advent of agriculture, the importance of access to water was incorporated into the preexisting myths of hunter-gatherers. This is evident in myths of the ancient riverine civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, and China, as well as those of desert civilizations of the Pueblo or Arab populations.
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Merolla, Daniela. "Filming African Creation Myths." Religion and the Arts 13, no. 4 (2009): 521–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/107992609x12524941450082.
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AbstractAfrican film directors have made use of mythology and oral storytelling in countless circumstances. These filmmakers have explored the core role that orality plays in ideas of African identity and used mythological themes as allegorical forms in order to address present-day issues while working under dictatorial regimes. They have turned to mythology and oral storytelling because of their determination to convey an African philosophical approach to the world, often to counter the colonial and neo-colonial oversimplification of African cultures seen as bereft of grand narratives on the self and the world. Identity construction, critical allegorical messages, and philosophical approaches are discussed in this paper by looking at the interplay between verbal narrative and images in two “epic” films: Keïta, l'héritage du Griot (1995) directed by Dani Kouyaté, and Yeelen (1987) directed by Souleymane Cissé.
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Shinners, Keely. "Natural mythology and cultural imagination: Three portraits of Bessie Head." English in Africa 50, no. 3 (May 8, 2024): 11–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/eia.v50i3.2.
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Hallett, a painting by Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi, and a sculpture by Claudette Schreuders. It argues that these portraits each symbolise Head to a certain degree: Hallett wanted to capture the Artist in Exile; Nkosi wanted to capture a Struggle Hero; and Schreuders wanted to capture a Fellow South African. This paper is interested in how all three of these artists – although to different ends and effects – each mythologise Bessie Head, and how this relates to a broader project of national mythology. In this way, this analysis hopes to contribute to a greater understanding of Bessie Head in the cultural imagination of South Africa.
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Sylvester, Christine. "Zimbabwe's 1985 Elections: a Search for National Mythology." Journal of Modern African Studies 24, no. 2 (June 1986): 229–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0022278x00006868.
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When Zimbabweans went to the polls in June and July of 1985, they decisively returned the Zimbabwe African National Union (Patriotic Front) to formal power, provided regional support for the Patriotic Front–Zimbabwe African People's Union and, in the case of the white roll, endorsed Ian Smith's Conservative Alliance of Zimbabwe. Questions raised in the wake of the elections tended to focus on the changes that the Z.A.N.U.(P.F.) Government could institute in the next three to five years – a one-party system, a complete abrogation of the Lancaster House privileges for whites, a vigorous turn towards Marxism.
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Villalba-Lázaro, Marta. "Guy Butler's Demea." Grove - Working Papers on English Studies 29 (December 23, 2022): 131–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.17561/grove.v29.6658.
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While the relation between classical mythology and postcolonialism may appear as an inconsistency, many postcolonial writers identify postcolonial issues in the literary reception of the classics, and look back to classical mythology and their own precolonial myths to gain a better understanding of their present. In the intersection of myth criticism and postcolonialism, this article discusses Guy Butler’s Demea, a postcolonial drama written in the 1960s but, due to political reasons, not published or performed until 1990. Butler’s play blends the classical myth of Medea with South African precolonial mythology, to raise awareness of the apartheid political situation, along with gender and racial issues.
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Villalba-Lázaro, Marta. "Guy Butler's Demea." Grove - Working Papers on English Studies 29 (December 23, 2022): 131–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.17561/grove.29.6658.
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While the relation between classical mythology and postcolonialism may appear as an inconsistency, many postcolonial writers identify postcolonial issues in the literary reception of the classics, and look back to classical mythology and their own precolonial myths to gain a better understanding of their present. In the intersection of myth criticism and postcolonialism, this article discusses Guy Butler’s Demea, a postcolonial drama written in the 1960s but, due to political reasons, not published or performed until 1990. Butler’s play blends the classical myth of Medea with South African precolonial mythology, to raise awareness of the apartheid political situation, along with gender and racial issues.
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McDaniel, Lorna. "The flying Africans: extent and strength of the myth in the Americas." New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids 64, no. 1-2 (January 1, 1990): 28–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/13822373-90002024.
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[First paragraph]The theme of human aerial flight permeates the mythology of Black America. Examples of the metaphor are found in major musical genres, myths and poetry in Black cultures that span the Caribbean and southern North America, embracing generations to testify to the depth of the cosmological and conscious projection of systems of flight escape and homeland return. While the theme of human flight does not occur in any significant proportion in West African mythology related themes of transformation and pursuit do appear. However, in African thought, witches and spirits possess the power of flight; a flight that can be blocked by the use of salt. The belief in spirit flight, ubiquitous in the Black diaspor of the New World, parallels that in African thought, but in the New World it is enlarged to include humans as possessors of the capability of flight.
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Forth, Gregory. "Animal Mockery in Southeast Asian and African Origin Mythology." Anthropos 118, no. 2 (2023): 493–506. http://dx.doi.org/10.5771/0257-9774-2023-2-493.
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Found in many parts of insular Southeast Asia and the adjacent mainland, a widespread complex of taboos concerns actions that are believed to result in a disastrous storm and, sometimes, petrification of offenders. The most typical offenses involve somehow mocking non-human animals, or in a few cases plants or trees. One aim of the paper is to isolate, as a distinct component of this complex, a series of myths that describe how acts of animal mockery resulted in the formation of lakes or other permanent features of local landscapes. There follows a detailed discussion of resemblances between these origin stories and several African origin of death myths that feature people mocking non-humans by giving them human funerals. The variety of societies that express disapproval of animal mockery then facilitates assessment of recent ontological pluralist theory, according to which cultures differ radically in how they conceive of human-animal relations.
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Lepelley, Claude. "THE USE OF SECULARISED LATIN PAGAN CULTURE BY CHRISTIANS." Late Antique Archaeology 6, no. 1 (2010): 475–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/22134522-90000142.
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The attitudes of educated Christians to the pagan literary culture of Late Antiquity have long attracted scholarly debate. Jerome and Augustine express the unease that many Christian men of letters felt, and Christian apologists repeatedly attacked the absurdity and immorality of pagan mythology. Yet both Jerome and Augustine nevertheless believed that classical culture could contribute to the Christian life, and mythology remained a source of inspiration for certain Christian authors. This is demonstrated vividly by the writings of two important late antique figures, Sidonius Apollinaris in 5th c. Gaul and the 6th c. African poet Corippus. In their works we can trace an evolving acceptance of classical mythology as a cultural rather than religious inheritance, moving towards the later Christian Humanism of the Renaissance.
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Ufuoma, Davies. "Alternative Realities, Transformation and the Goddess Myth in African Women’s Fiction: A Sociological Perspective of Flora Nwapa’s Efuru." International Journal of Research and Review 10, no. 7 (July 10, 2023): 253–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.52403/ijrr.20230732.
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African women writers have engaged in rhetorics and performative strategies, designed to project a sense of self redefinition for women in Africa. This is because in many African societies, women are largely invisible. However, over the past few decades, the narrative seems to be encouraging. Women writers have started contesting gendered roles, institutionalized structures and power relations that define their realities. Thus the paper examines Flora Nwapa’s utilization of the goddess mythology, to create alternative realities for self-recreation of the African woman. The author demonstrates that Nwapa weaves the goddess myth in the plotline to assert a revisionist order in the trado-cultural space. The goddess imagery is invested to construct a woman-centered ideology that supports women to attain psychological, economic spiritual and emotional succuor away from the realms of tradition. A sociological theoretical perspective is deployed for elucidation. Keywords: goddess myth, sociology, alternative realities, fiction.
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Schellnack-Kelly, Isabel. "The Role of Storytelling in Preserving Africa’s Spirit by Conserving the Continent’s Fauna and Flora." Mousaion: South African Journal of Information Studies 35, no. 2 (February 7, 2018): 17–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.25159/2520-5293/1544.
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The importance of oral tradition, indigenous stories and the knowledge and wisdom contained therein are fundamental to undertake as many initiatives as possible to protect the continent’s fauna and flora from extinction. This article is a phenomenological qualitative study. It is based on an extensive content analysis of literature, oral histories, photographs and audiovisual footage concerning narratives and folklore relating to Africa’s fauna and flora. For the purposes of this article, the content sample focuses specifically on narratives related to the African elephant, black rhinoceros and the lion. The article also relates to experiences of individuals in Kenya and South Africa involved in conservation efforts to protect Africa’s wildlife. The geographical proximity of the collected narratives stretches from the Timbavati, in South Africa, through to Northern Kenya. This article illustrates how indigenous knowledge and oral histories have influenced Western mythology and thinking. The article also explores the significance attached by scholars to the continent’s oral histories and indigenous knowledge and links knowledge to Jung, astrology and ancient symbolism. The discussion emphasises the importance of good conservation strategies for all areas of Africa to protect the fauna and flora as well as Africa’s oral histories and indigenous knowledge.
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Enslin, Penny. "THE POLITICAL MYTHOLOGY OF CHILDHOOD IN SOUTH AFRICAN TEACHER EDUCATION∗." Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 13, no. 1 (October 1992): 36–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0159630920130103.
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Mjaika, Ndifon Elias. "A Systematic Review Biodiversity and Conservation of Indigenous Mushrooms (Basidiomycotina, Ascomycotina) of Central Africa Countryside: Uses, Distribution and Checklists." Research in Ecology 4, no. 2 (June 30, 2022): 56. http://dx.doi.org/10.30564/re.v4i2.4746.
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Significant socio-economic, spiritual, nutritional and medicinal needs of the countrysides in Central Africa region are obtainable from macrofungi. Conversely, anthropogenic activities and climate change have led to a reduction in the habitats of mushrooms which has led to some mushrooms becoming endangered. A dearth of information on the ecology, management and composition of mushrooms in Central Africa exists. Hence a review was systematically carried out on published mycological research outcomes from Central African countryside, to delineate the way forward. It was observed that the level of indigenous mycological knowledge was very high (> 60%) in all the tribes. The highest number of edible mushrooms was from DRC (377 species), followed by Cameroon (50 species). The dataset showed that 448 edible mushrooms have been identified based on citable publications and 27 tribes/localities evaluated. Additionally the dataset showed 75 author-identified mushrooms that inhabitants did not identify and use. The most popular edible mushrooms from 79 key edible mushrooms were Russula (9 spp.), Termitomyces (8), Cantharellus (8), Plerotus (5), Amanita (5), Marasmius, Lactarius and Lactifluus (4 spp. each). The topmost consumed species were Pleurotus tuberregium (14 out of 27 localities), Auricularia cornea (13), Cantharellus congolensis (12), Marasmius bekolacongoli (12), Schizophyllum commune (11) and Cantharellus floridulus (11). Mushrooms for mythology uses: (Phallus indusiatus and Dictyophora sp.), Mythology+food: (Termitomyces robustus), Medicinal: (Daldinia concentrica, Ganoderma applanatum and Ganoderma lucidum), Medicinal+food: (Polyporus dictyopus, Schizophyllum commune and Termitomyces clypeatus) and Food+mythology+medicinal: (Termitomyces microcarpus and Termitomyces titanicus). Irrefutably, these previous ethnomycological and ecological studies have scarcely made a significant impact on fungi biodiversity.
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Yoder, John. "The Quest for Kintu and the Search for Peace: Mythology and Morality in Nineteenth-Century Buganda." History in Africa 15 (1988): 363–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3171868.
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While Africa has produced ruthless and aggressive individuals, Africa has also provided thinkers and public officials with deep moral sensitivity and vision. The following essay discusses a perceptive and powerful African plea for peace and justice in nineteenth-century Buganda. In a country torn by strife, certain Ganda leaders expressed their deep distress about the growing incidence of state violence by reformulating the Kintu myth, the theological, constitutional, and social cornerstone of their kingdom. These concerned individuals boldly reshaped the Kintu story, the Ganda people's most sacred symbol, to describe the tension between peace and violence as the most important issue in Ganda politics.
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Vahakangas, M. "Ghambageu Encounters Jesus in Sonjo Mythology: Syncretism as African Rational Action." Journal of the American Academy of Religion 76, no. 1 (February 5, 2008): 111–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfm117.
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Krylova, N. L. "An African Woman in the Fight against Terrorism and Violence." Asia and Africa today, no. 5 (December 15, 2024): 66–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.31857/s032150750030835-0.
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In November 2023, the Institute for African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences hosted the AllRussian scientific conference with international participation “Gender-based violence in Africa: origins, motives, types. Methods and ways of struggle”. The attendees discussed such topical issues as the specifics of the formation and development of gender relations in traditional African societies as some of the causes of gender inequality and violence; prohibition systems and aggression in mythology and folklore; domestic violence; belittling of social status based on gender and age in the ethno-linguistic environment. A separate block of issues were female aggression in war and peace; gender discrimination among the population of refugee camps and victims of the slave trade; the gender aspect of violence and terrorism in the Sahel countries. Some reports were devoted to religion and discrimination of adherents on gender, ethnic and racial grounds; sexual violence and combating it in modern African states as well as gender violence and inequality in Muslim societies; civil and professional destinies of foreign women in Africa. The reports noted that states and society should create the conditions for the protection and self-realization of this part of the continent’s population, its active inclusion in socio-political processes.
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knutson, chris. "Fishing with Ulysses and Bacchus: Two Roman Mosaics from Tunisia." Gastronomica 7, no. 4 (2007): 7–9. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2007.7.4.7.
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The mosaics of Roman Africa drew upon themes from mythology as well as daily life. Even "mythological" scenes can lend insight into real-life activities like food production. One such activity, fishing, is especially prominent in Roman African mosaics. Two mosaics from the so-called "House of Ulysses" in Dougga combine mythological themes with fishing scenes. One mosaic depicts Ulysses' encounter with the Sirens, while the second represents the god Bacchus transforming his would-be kidnappers into dolphins. The fishing scenes are incorporated into the mythological scenes and show fishermen harvesting the adjacent waters. The details of these fishing scenes are striking considering the inland location of Dougga, some 60 miles (100 km) from the sea, in the middle of Roman Africa's agricultural heartland. The inclusion of these fishing scenes in the "House of Ulysses" mosaics suggests that the house's owner had a close connection with the sea, and perhaps alludes to the Roman infrastructure that would have brought marine products to the interior.
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Nartey, Mark. "“We must unite now or perish!”." Journal of Language and Politics 18, no. 2 (April 18, 2019): 252–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/jlp.17051.nar.
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Abstract This paper presents a discourse-mythological analysis of the rhetoric of a pioneering Pan-African and Ghana’s independence leader, Kwame Nkrumah, drawing on Ruth Wodak’s discourse-historical approach to critical discourse analysis. The thesis of the paper is that Nkrumah’s discourse, in its focus on the emancipation and unification of Africa, can be characterized as mythic, a discursive exhortation of Africa to demonstrate to the world that it can better govern itself than the colonizers. In this vein, the paper analyzes four discursive strategies employed by Nkrumah in the creation and projection of his mythology: the introduction or creation of new discourse events, presupposition and implication, involvement (the use of indexicals) and lexical structuring and reiteration. This study is, therefore, presented as a case study of mythic discourse within the domain of politics.
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Aboelazm, Ingy. "Africanizing Greek Mythology: Femi Osofisan’s Retelling of Euripides’the Trojan Women." European Journal of Language and Literature 4, no. 1 (April 30, 2016): 87. http://dx.doi.org/10.26417/ejls.v4i1.p87-103.
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Nigerian writer Femi Osofisan’s new version of Euripides' The Trojan Women, is an African retelling of the Greek tragedy. In Women of Owu (2004), Osofisan relocates the action of Euripides' classical drama outside the walls of the defeated Kingdom of Owu in nineteenth century Yorubaland, what is now known as Nigeria. In a “Note on the Play’s Genesis”, Osofisan refers to the correspondences between the stories of Owu and Troy. He explains that Women of Owu deals with the Owu War, which started when the allied forces of the southern Yoruba kingdoms Ijebu and Ife, together with recruited mercenaries from Oyo, attacked Owu with the pretext of liberating the flourishing market of Apomu from Owu’s control. When asked to write an adaptation of Euripides’ tragedy, in the season of the Iraqi War, Osofisan thought of the tragic Owu War. The Owu War similarly started over a woman, when Iyunloye, the favourite wife of Ife’s leader Okunade, was captured and given as a wife to one of Owu’s princes. Like Troy, Owu did not surrender easily, for it lasted out a seven-year siege until its defeat. Moreover, the fate of the people of Owu at the hands of the allied forces is similar to that of the people of Troy at the hands of the Greeks: the males were slaughtered and the women enslaved. The play sheds light on the aftermath experiences of war, the defeat and the accompanied agony of the survivors, namely the women of Owu. The aim of this study is to emphasize the play’s similarities to as well as shed light on its differences from the classical Greek text, since the understanding of Osofisan’s African play ought to be informed by the Euripidean source text.
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Kozieł, Patrycja. "From Afrofuturism to Africanfuturism: Contemporary Expressions within Popular Culture." Hemispheres.Studies on Cultures and Societies 36 (2021): 69–83. http://dx.doi.org/10.60018/hemi.ldvc3494.
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The futuristic representation of the world is an important aspect of understanding contemporary cultural processes, literary and musical trends, and artistic activities, both in Africa and in the African Diaspora. In order to examine effectively the development of the futurist path, I will briefly trace two categories: ‘Afrofuturism’ and ‘Africanfuturism’ (as proposed by Nnedi Okorafor), containing elements of science-fiction, speculative fiction, non-Western history, technology, and fantasy. In this article I will discuss how the concept of Afrofuturism has evolved, how techno-utopian visions of the future are created, illustrating terrestrial and cosmic existence, while extracting knowledge about ancestors, mythology and cosmology. Is it a kind of cultural script – based on ephemerality, temporality and imagination – that has been adapted to the conditions of modern popular culture in Sub-Saharan Africa? Or is it an accurate form of crossing time-space boundaries and discourses?
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Adeniyi, Emmanuel. "Dispersion of the Yorùbá to the Americas: A Fatalist Hermeneutics of Orí in the Yorùbá Cosmos – Reading from Tutuoba: Salem’s Black Shango Slave Queen." Yoruba Studies Review 5, no. 1.2 (December 21, 2021): 1–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.32473/ysr.v5i1.2.130081.
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Studies in African Diaspora ofen privilege the transatlantic slavery, Columbus’ discovery of the New World, and African cultural codes in the Americas. To expand the scope of the studies, this article examines the metaphysical and ontological questions on the enslavement of the Yorùbá – an African ethno-nation whose members were condemned to slavery and servitude in the Americas during the inglorious transatlantic slave trade. I used metaphysical fatalism as a theoretical model to interrogate prognostications about dispersion of the Yorùbá from their matrix as expressed in their mythology. Being a predestining agent, I examined the role of orí (destiny) within the context of rigid fatalism and its textualisation in Prince Justice’s Tutuoba: Salem’s Black Shango Slave Queen. The article argues that the transatlantic enslavement of the Yorùbá is a fait accompli willed by their Supreme Deity. Tough traumatic, transatlantic slavery reworlded Yorùbá cultural codes, birthed the Atlantic sub-group of the ethno-nation, and aided the emergence of Yorùbá-centric religions in the New World.
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Campbell, Kermit. "Just in Time: Calling, Responding, and Making Music from the Soul." Philosophy & Rhetoric 56, no. 3-4 (December 2023): 320–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.5325/philrhet.56.3-4.0320.
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ABSTRACT Although Kairos in Greek mythology is often depicted as the winged son of Zeus who grants to those who lay hold of his single lock of hair their once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, in traditional African American culture, particularly when it comes to speech, Kairos is essentially family. Given how much African American speakers depend on seizing the moment to invoke spiritual connections, emit laughter, and profess the truth, Kairos, or what we might call CPT (“Colored People’s Time”), can be summoned almost at will. One of the African American discourses this article will use to illustrate this point is Call and Response, a verbal exchange in which speakers and listeners attune to one another and to the timeliness of an event. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech was such an event, but it wouldn’t have been so were it not for the timely responding of his favorite gospel singer, Mahalia Jackson.
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Byrne, Deirdre. "NEW MYTHS, NEW SCRIPTS: REVISIONIST MYTHOPOESIS IN CONTEMPORARY SOUTH AFRICAN WOMEN’S POETRY." Gender Questions 2, no. 1 (September 21, 2016): 52–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.25159/2412-8457/1564.
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Considerable theoretical and critical work has been done on the way British and American women poets re-vision (Rich 1976) male-centred myth. Some South African women poets have also used similar strategies. My article identifies a gap in the academy’s reading of a significant, but somewhat neglected, body of poetry and begins to address this lack of scholarship. I argue that South African women poets use their art to re-vision some of the central constructs of patriarchal mythology, including the association of women with the body and the irrational, and men with the mind and logic. These poems function on two levels: They demonstrate that the constructs they subvert are artificial; and they create new and empowering narratives for women in order to contribute to the reimagining of gender relations.
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Blaser Mapitsa, Caitlin. "Cycad Regulation and Community Creation: South African Stakeholder Perspectives on Conservation." Journal of Ethnobiology 43, no. 4 (December 2023): 308–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/02780771231209606.
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Cycads play a central role in Lobedu cultural mythology, with widespread acknowledgment of their cultural and spiritual values, as well as their instrumental use in rainmaking and coronation ceremonies. They are also widely prized as collectors’ items, both nationally and internationally, commanding high prices and placing them in the unenviable position of being among the world's most frequently trafficked plants. South African cycad species, most of which are endangered and all of which are protected, are heavily regulated, with the ownership, trade, and use of cycads requiring a permit. This article explores how regulations are understood by different stakeholders in cycad conservation. Traditional authorities, state institutions, and communities may collaborate in conservation, but also interpret and enact policies divergently. Processes of regulating cycad trade and propagation both reinforce and challenge certain aspects of community identity.
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David, Janice Sandra, and V. Bhuvaneswari. "Interconnection of Nature and Yoruba Traditions in Okri’s Trilogies." Theory and Practice in Language Studies 12, no. 6 (June 1, 2022): 1220–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1206.23.
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Africa's history and ecology were shaped by colonization. The European invasion of eastern nations had a significant influence on the environment. The technical advancements due to colonization have been both beneficial and detrimental to the colonized countries. The harmful consequences have prompted several researchers and African writers to conduct a critical examination of the interaction between humans and their environment in terms of race, culture, economy, power, and belonging. Ben Okri is an internationally acclaimed poet, writer, artist, and public speaker. In his trilogies The Famished Road, Songs of Enchantment, and Infinite Riches Okri has depicted the repercussions of colonization and the process of decolonization on the individual and the environment in order to understand the African reality. This paper highlights the interconnection of nature and culture which is considered as one of the main tenets of African culture and tradition. Okri employs magical realism as a literary method to emphasize the interplay between the human and natural worlds. Okri has included vivid imagery of verdant forest that has been deforested and wounded. According to the Yoruba mythology, the forest is frequently associated with magic and the supernatural world, in keeping with West African customs. Therefore, the exploitation of the natural world has led to the abandonment of traditional values which is well depicted. Further, the paper attempts to examine the effect of colonialism in eroding the spirit world and the physical world in terms of social structure and the degrading culture and its relationship with the environment.
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Mpandzou, Anselme Mbemba. "Place of Women in Traditional African Societies: Case of Koongo Woman." Saudi Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences 9, no. 01 (January 3, 2024): 8–13. http://dx.doi.org/10.36348/sjhss.2024.v09i01.002.
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At the root of the social construction of nations, there are almost always founding mythologies supposed to explain the advent of this or that fact and/or phenomenon. The Koongo nation is no exception. It has a mythology that relates how the muuntu, the primordial being, in its primitive uniqueness, split into two individual entities, each retaining its specificity, and, at the same time, the trace of this ontological split. From this ontological split in primordial being came man and woman. The aim of this paper is to show how, from this ontological split, the symbolism of the woman, who has become the most prominent social figure in Koongo civilization, has imposed itself to the point of structuring the entire Koongo imaginary, so that the man is reduced to the role of stooge, charged with magnifying and dignifying the image of the woman.
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Kinge, Tonjock Rosemary, Joyce Mnyazi Jefwa, Roël D. Houdanon, Héritier Milenge Kamalebo, Ahmed M. Abdel-Azeem, Marieka Gryzenhout, Dagmar Triebel, Tanja Weibulat, and Gerhard Rambold. "Management and publication of scientific data on traditional mycological and lichenological knowledge in Africa." Lichenologist 55, no. 5 (September 2023): 169–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0024282923000294.
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AbstractAfrica is an important global reservoir for biological, cultural and traditional knowledge about fungi and lichens, which are used as food, medicine and in mythology, among other things. African human populations are undergoing highly significant changes and adaptation processes, which are accompanied by rapid urbanization, meeting with western civilization, high rural migration and the loss of natural ecosystems. Indigenous knowledge is being lost, including that concerning fungi and lichens. Ethnomycology and ethnolichenology provide a diversity of knowledge about beneficial and poisonous fungi and lichens, and give insights into their sociological impact on human behaviour and use. Here we present a working and publishing environment established with the Diversity Workbench software in line with national and international initiatives for FAIR guided provision of research data. The database application called ‘EthnoMycAfrica’ contains published ethnomycological and ethnolichenological information from Africa. The content is created and curated by team partners from Central, East, West, North and Southern Africa. Data entry is performed both online and offline, optionally via a mobile device. Currently, the system with the tools DiversityDescriptions and DiversityNaviKey contains a total of 1350 well-structured and freely and openly accessible data records. EthnoMycAfrica is the first database with a data schema, standard descriptors and data content created mainly by African scholars. The data can be useful for researchers, students, conservationists, policy makers, and others. It will also provide a basis for facilitating hypothesis generation and meta-analysis.
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Santos, Maglandyo da Silva, and Otávio José Lemos Costa. "Symbolic territorialities in a terreiro de candomblé: the morphology of a sacred space." Terr Plural 16 (2022): 1–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.5212/terraplural.v.16.2217265.002.
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This work highlights the symbolic territorialities of a ‘terreiro de candomblé’ with fluid spatial dimensions, located in the city of Cajazeiras, Paraíba. The experiences are based on the ethnographic field research conducted between January and April. We outline the morphology of the sacred space represented by geosymbols and their meanings, which refer to the mythology of the African òrìṣà, rescued in the ‘terreiro’. We also describe, from the perspective of Costa’s micro-territoriality (2017), geosymbols outside the ‘terreiro’, eventually accessed by ritual occasion, revealing a symbolic extension of the territory that transgresses previously constructed determinations and constructs new identity spaces
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Cross, C. R. "Mythology and mystery tours in land reform: Getting some focus on the South African debate." Development Southern Africa 7, sup1 (October 1990): 535–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03768359008439561.
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Eyong, Joseph Ebot. "Indigenous African Leadership: Key differences from Anglo-centric thinking and writings." Leadership 13, no. 2 (August 25, 2016): 133–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1742715016663050.
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This article draws on historical explorers’ accounts, ethnography and organisational approaches to examine practices, discourses and perceptions of leadership in 12 prototypical indigenous communities in West and Central Africa. By so doing, it highlights how leadership meanings from this context differ from Anglo-centric thinking and writings. Key to this contribution is an unravelling of ways in which historical cultural hegemonies impose particular discursive formations, constructed practices and mind-programming in a non-Anglo-Saxon socio-cultural context. Dramaturgical power arrangement, lucid role substitution and the notion of leadership as non-human emerge as dominant themes in the analysis. Also, featuring significantly are representations of leadership in symbols, mythology and as transcendental and metaphysical. These conceptualisations are different from predominant Anglo-Saxon writings that frequently present leadership as linear hierarchies, dyadic (leader-follower) relationship, acts and behaviours of heroic figures and as an essentially human action. An Afro-centric indigenous concept of leadership reflecting the context is proposed which challenges heroism, linearity, individualism and objectivism.
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Charchalis, Wojciech. "Lusofonia – entre mito, história e futuro." Studia Romanica Posnaniensia 46, no. 3 (December 9, 2019): 95–104. http://dx.doi.org/10.14746/strop.2019.463.006.
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The paper discuss the problem of lusophony as a poscolonial neoimperial Portuguese ideology. The author claims that the lusophonic mythology, that is currently being created, is ingrained in the tradition of salazarist propaganda. Also the frequent mentions of lusotropicalism in the context of the modern lusophony is observed especially in the case of enunciations of the Portuguese dignitaries of whom Mario Soares is the most proeminent. The conclusion is that the idea of lusophony may resemble lusotropicalism in many aspects, especially if we take into account the Portuguese point of view. Also the approach towards the idea of lusophony of the Portuguese speaking African countries and Brasil is shortly discussed.
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Sharifian, Hesam. "Ugly Past/Insensitive Present: Blackface in Persian Popular Entertainment." Asian Theatre Journal 41, no. 1 (March 2024): 161–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/atj.2024.a927717.
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Abstract: This article is a scholarly expansion of my previous public writing in HowlRound entitled “Iranian Blackface Clowns are Racist, No Matter How You Sugarcoat Them in Obscure Archaic Mythology.” In the essay, I argue siāh-bāzi, an Iranian form of popular entertainment that features a main character in blackface, is indeed a racialized mockery of the African slaves who were brought to Iran from the sixteenth to early twentieth centuries. In the present article, I delve deeper into the history of slavery in Iran as a context for sāh-bāzi . I also analyze the embodiment techniques in siāh-bāzi to demonstrate its racial connotations .
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Bondarenko, D. "Global Governance and Diasporas: the Case of African Migrants in the USA." World Economy and International Relations, no. 4 (2015): 37–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.20542/0131-2227-2015-4-37-48.
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In 2013, the Institute for African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences began a study of black communities in the USA. By now, the research was conducted in six states (Alabama, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York and Pennsylvania); in a number of towns as well as in the cities of Boston, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia and Chicago. The study shows that diasporas as network communities have already formed among recent migrants from many African countries in the U.S. These are diasporas of immigrants from individual countries, not a single “African diaspora”. On one hand, diasporas as an important phenomenon of globalization should become objects of global governance by means of regulation at the transnational level of both migration streams and foreign-born communities norms of existence. On the other hand, diasporas can be agents of social and political global governance, of essentially transnational impact on particular societies and states sending and accepting migrants, as evidenced by the African diasporas in the USA. Most American Africans believe that diasporas must and can take an active part in the home countries’ public life. However, the majority of them concentrates on targeted assistance to certain people – their loved ones back home. The forms of this assistance are diverse, but the main of them is sending remittances. At the same time, the money received from migrants by specific people makes an impact on the whole society and state. For many African states these remittances form a significant part of national income. The migrants’ remittances allow the states to lower the level of social tension. Simultaneously, they have to be especially thorough while building relationships with the migrant accepting countries and with diasporas themselves. Africans constitute an absolute minority among recent migrants in the USA. Nevertheless, directly or indirectly, they exert a certain influence on the establishment of the social life principles and state politics (home and foreign), not only of native countries but also of the accepting one, the U.S. This props up the argument that elaboration of norms and setting the rules of global governance is a business of not only political actors, but of the globalizing civil society, its institutions and organizations either. The most recent example are public debates in the American establishment, including President Obama, on the problem of immigration policy and relationships with migrant sending states, provoked by the 2014 U.S.–Africa Leaders Summit. Remarkably, the African diasporas represented by their leaders actively joined the discussion and openly declared that the state pays insufficiently little attention to the migrants’ needs and insisted on taking their position into account while planning immigration reform. However, Africans are becoming less and less “invisible” in the American society not only in connection with loud, but infrequent specific events. Many educated Africans who have managed to achieve a decent social status and financial position for themselves, have a desire not just to promote the adaptation of migrants from Africa, but to make their collective voice heard in American society and the state at the local and national levels. Their efforts take different forms, but most often they result in establishing and running of various diaspora organizations. These associations become new cells of the American civil society, and in this capacity affect the society itself and the government institutions best they can. Thus, the evidence on Africans in the USA shows that diasporas are both objects (to date, mainly potential) and real subjects of global governance. They influence public life, home and foreign policy of the migrant sending African countries and of migrant accepting United States, make a modest but undeniable contribution to the global phenomena and processes management principles and mechanisms. Acknowledgements. The research was supported by the grants of the Russian Foundation for Humanities: no. 14-01-00070 “African Americans and Recent African Migrants in the USA: Cultural Mythology and Reality of Intercommunity Relations”, no. 13-01-18036 “The Relations between African-Americans and Recent African Migrants: Socio-Cultural Aspects of Intercommunity Perception”, and by the grant of the Russian Academy of Sciences as a part of its Fundamental Research Program for 2014. The author is sincerely grateful to Veronika V. Usacheva and Alexandr E. Zhukov who participated in collecting and processing of the evidence, to Martha Aleo, Ken Baskin, Allison Blakely, Igho Natufe, Bella and Kirk Sorbo, Harold Weaver whose assistance in organization and conduction of the research was inestimable, as well as to all the informants who were so kind as to spend their time for frank communication.
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Guindo, Bocary, and Petr A. Kutsenkov. "THE “FEEDBACK EFFECT” IN MODERN DOGON CULTURE (MALI)." Journal of the Institute of Oriental Studies RAS, no. 1 (19) (2022): 158–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.31696/2618-7302-2022-1-158-170.
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The ‘Feedback effect’ is a phenomenon of a ‘feedback’, repeatedly described for discussing the oral tradition: Back in 1982, German ethnologist David Henige noted that researchers of African traditional cultures more and more often encounter the practice when they are recounted the results of the field materials of their predecessors. In all such cases, informants reproduce the works of anthropologists, but the authenticity of recorded traditions in general is beyond doubt. That is not the case with Dogon. The example of this people shows that the phenomenon of ‘feedback’ can not only complicate the work of anthropologists, but also contribute to the growth of ethnic and national identity. Myths borrowed from anthropological literature began to penetrate rural folklore with the development of tourism in the 1990s– 2000s. But the purposeful imposition of a united mythology ‘according to Griaule’ began to play a very important role in the development of ethnic and national identity. The most important role belongs here to the festivals of Ogobagnia. Thus, using the example of the Dogon, one can see a kind of a ‘secondary’ mythology version based on the phenomenon of feedback. The imposition of this ideology is still opposed by local traditions and local folklore, which are very different from the “Dogon mirage” introduced by intellectuals, as well as local customs and rituals, sometimes having little in common with each other; so far, the linguistic and cultural diversity of the ethno-social organism of the Dogon has resisted the pressure of these myths, but perhaps the day is not far off when not only in the Sangha, but also in Semari and Tintan, visitors will be told about Nommo and Sirius names which do not exist (sigu tolo or pô tolo), and the mythology of the Dogon will really turn into a harmonious, but artificial system.
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Knoblauch, William M. "Misremembering Reagan: A Decade of Cultural Dissent." American Studies in Scandinavia 52, no. 2 (November 1, 2020): 63–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.22439/asca.v52i2.6499.
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Presidential legacies are constructed, and for the Republican Party perhaps no figure has benefitted from mythology, hagiography, and misremembrances than Ronald Wilson Reagan. Popularly, America’s 40th President is frequently remembered as residing over a massive economic upswing, restoring faith in the American military, and ushering in the end of the Cold War—combining to construct an image of a beloved, even visionary leader. Looking back at popular culture from the 1980s, however, paints a very different picture. From Reagan’s relationship with the press, his shortcomings acknowledging struggles in the African American community, to his near-legacy shattering handling of the Iran Contra crisis, 1980s popular culture helps to remind us that Reagan was not so nearly beloved as today’s pundits would have us believe.
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Kurbak, Maria. "Madness of the Society and Madness of the Writer: Wopko Jensma and the Politics of Apartheid." ISTORIYA 13, no. 3 (113) (2022): 0. http://dx.doi.org/10.18254/s207987840020554-8.
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This article focuses on the biography and works of South-African poet, writer and artist Wopko Jensma. He was often referred to as “the first South-African”, implying that he, like no other, was able to merge his own culture — that of Afrikaaners — with mythology, music and languages of black and coloured population of the SAR. His works had been exhibited in the USA and Europe and had been forbidden in his homeland as the consequence of his criticism of Apartheid. Jensma, like no other South-African poet, exploited the theme of loneliness, alienation and restlessness. He was not able to close his eyes on the crimes committed by his nation and unable to demonstrate ignorance towards the suppressed groups of people. This feeling of frustration had been growing and, combined with anxiety and helplessness, at the end brought him to schizophrenia. This article concentrates on the analysis of the challenging creative track pursued by Jensma against the background of historical events of Apartheid period. It demonstrates the way how aggressive politics of the State leads to the development of “sick” society, increasing aggression, disintegration, emergence of “double-thinking”, a maddening feeling of being involved in crime. It clearly gives birth to the trauma, which is extremely difficult to overcome, even for the entire generation — and sometimes even impossible to overcome.
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Charlton, Ryan. "Elizabeth Robins's Alaskan Fiction and the Global New South." Global South 16, no. 2 (March 2023): 31–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.2979/gbs.2023.a908601.
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ABSTRACT: In the summer of 1900, at the height of the Nome gold rush, actress and soon-to-be suffragist Elizabeth Robins traveled to Alaska. Following her return, Robins published two novels and several stories set in the region. Yet even as she capitalized on the popularity of gold rush settings and tropes, Robins's Alaskan fiction consistently undermines the romantic mythology that typically characterizes gold rush narratives, highlighting instead the environmental and human degradation that gold mining entailed. Focusing primarily on her novel The Magnetic North (1904) and the connected story "Monica's Village" (1905), this essay explores how Robins's Alaskan fiction recycles US Southern plantation mythology in order to imagine an alternative form of Alaskan development, one that would transform Alaska's Indigenous population into a racialized labor force to be exploited in ways comparable to African Americans under Jim Crow. Though the environmental conditions of Alaska foreclosed the possibility of traditional plantation agriculture, Robins's fiction maps plantation dynamics onto the forms of mineral extraction transforming the region. In doing so, these texts reveal the pliability of the plantation imaginary as well as the global scope of plantation modernity. This essay argues that the Plantationocene offers a useful framework for reconsidering the intertwined histories of plantation agriculture and mineral extraction. Robins's vision of Alaska as a New South ultimately highlights the ways in which mineral extraction in the Far North follows a pattern established by plantation agriculture throughout the Global South.
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Charlton, Ryan. "Elizabeth Robins's Alaskan Fiction and the Global New South." Global South 16, no. 2 (March 2023): 31–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.2979/globalsouth.16.2.03.
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ABSTRACT: In the summer of 1900, at the height of the Nome gold rush, actress and soon-to-be suffragist Elizabeth Robins traveled to Alaska. Following her return, Robins published two novels and several stories set in the region. Yet even as she capitalized on the popularity of gold rush settings and tropes, Robins's Alaskan fiction consistently undermines the romantic mythology that typically characterizes gold rush narratives, highlighting instead the environmental and human degradation that gold mining entailed. Focusing primarily on her novel The Magnetic North (1904) and the connected story "Monica's Village" (1905), this essay explores how Robins's Alaskan fiction recycles US Southern plantation mythology in order to imagine an alternative form of Alaskan development, one that would transform Alaska's Indigenous population into a racialized labor force to be exploited in ways comparable to African Americans under Jim Crow. Though the environmental conditions of Alaska foreclosed the possibility of traditional plantation agriculture, Robins's fiction maps plantation dynamics onto the forms of mineral extraction transforming the region. In doing so, these texts reveal the pliability of the plantation imaginary as well as the global scope of plantation modernity. This essay argues that the Plantationocene offers a useful framework for reconsidering the intertwined histories of plantation agriculture and mineral extraction. Robins's vision of Alaska as a New South ultimately highlights the ways in which mineral extraction in the Far North follows a pattern established by plantation agriculture throughout the Global South.
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Goldstein-Shirley, David. "Black Cowboys In the American West: A Historiographical Review." Ethnic Studies Review 20, no. 1 (January 1, 1997): 79–89. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/esr.1997.20.1.79.
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Few subjects in the ethnic experience of the United States are as fraught with mythology and misinformation as black cowboys. Although absent from most classic history texts of the American West, black cowboys probably constituted about a quarter of the working cowboys in the nineteenth century, although q uantitative data to establish a number are lacking. This essay reviews the historiography of black cowboys published during the last half-century, noting how much of it is marred either by glossing over the presence of black cowboys or by credulously repeating estimates of their numbers established by earlier work. The essay speculates whether such problematic scholarship stems from unacknowledged prejudice among mainstream historians or from carelessness and calls for more and improved scholarly attention to the role of African American cowboys in the American West.
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Leppard, William, Rahul Loungani, Bradley Saylors, and Kevin Delaney. "Mythology to reality: Case report on a giant cutaneous horn of the scalp in an African American female." Journal of Plastic, Reconstructive & Aesthetic Surgery 67, no. 1 (January 2014): e22-e24. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bjps.2013.08.013.
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Feracho, Lesley. "Arrivals and Farewells: The Dynamics of Cuban Homespace through African Mythology in Two Eleggua Poems by Nancy Morejón." Hispania 83, no. 1 (March 2000): 51. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/346113.
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Panda, Asit. "Transcending Boundaries: Wole Soyinka’s Fusion of African and Western Dramatic Traditions in A Dance of the Forests." International Journal of English Language, Education and Literature Studies (IJEEL) 3, no. 1 (2024): 37–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.22161/ijeel.3.1.5.
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The objective of this research article is to investigate the innovative fusion of Western and indigenous performance traditions that Wole Soyinka employs in his celebrated tragedy, A Dance of the Forests. This study identifies specific indigenous and European forms and performance idioms that contribute to Soyinka's tragedy through an in-depth analysis of the play's structure, themes, and performance techniques. This article emphasises Soyinka's incorporation of Western theatrical devices and traditions, as well as Yoruba mythology and traditional performance elements such as percussion, dance, music, and song. The reclamation and affirmation of precolonial indigenous theatrical forms and performance idioms make a substantial contribution to the assertion of indigenous identity. Soyinka's use of dramaturgy in A Dance of the Forests exemplifies the theatre's capacity to transcend artistic and cultural limitations. This article positions Soyinka's dramatic work as a response to the asserted dominance of Western modernity, reflecting a post-colonial society's endeavour to establish a legacy of alternative modernity in the artistic sphere.
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Glaser, Jennifer. "The Jew in the Canon: Reading Race and Literary History in Philip Roth's The Human Stain." PMLA/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 123, no. 5 (October 2008): 1465–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2008.123.5.1465.
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The evolving political landscape of a multicultural America grown disenchanted with the mythology of the melting pot had vast repercussions for the Jewish American literary imagination. Nonetheless, critical race theory has yet to take full stock of the role of Jewish writers in the debates over canonicity, representation, and multicultural literary genealogies occurring in the United States during the 1980s and 1990s. Philip Roth's The Human Stain, published in 2000, directly engages questions of literary history, race, and the position of the Jewish writer and intellectual in the canon wars. By depicting the tragedy of an African American man who passes into whiteness by passing for a Jewish professor, Roth uses the trope of passing to simultaneously critique the puritan impulse he perceives at the heart of the multicultural academy and write himself into the multicultural canon taking shape at the time.