To see the other types of publications on this topic, follow the link: West African Literature.
Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'West African Literature'
Create a spot-on reference in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, and other styles
Consult the top 40 dissertations / theses for your research on the topic 'West African Literature.'
Next to every source in the list of references, there is an 'Add to bibliography' button. Press on it, and we will generate automatically the bibliographic reference to the chosen work in the citation style you need: APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago, Vancouver, etc.
You can also download the full text of the academic publication as pdf and read online its abstract whenever available in the metadata.
Browse dissertations / theses on a wide variety of disciplines and organise your bibliography correctly.
1
Adebayo, Adebanke. "West African Feminism| Maneuvering the Reality of Feminism Using Osun." Thesis, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, 2018. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10682016.
Full textAbstract:
West African Women writers are constantly looking for ways to maneuver the patriarchal system within their indigenous cultures. To say maneuvering implies the dilemma in consciously navigating patriarchal epistemology as West African women, which in reality is not exotic to other feminist struggles outside the continent. To deal with the dilemma of constantly maneuvering, this thesis suggest for an indigenous framework. It suggests Osun –a Nigerian goddess– as a response to the theoretical problems and as a methodology to navigating a postcolonial patriarchal worldview in order to express West African feminist discourse. The specificity of Osun is essential, but the fluidity of Osun across borders cannot be undermined as it paves the way for flexibility within feminist and gender discourse and draws upon various gender oppressed experiences. The idea of specificity and fluidity is fundamental to developing Osun as West African feminist discourse because of her ability to transcend space. The combination of specificity and fluidity are necessary within any feminist discourse as it allows for women from different regions to relate and align the tenets to their specific struggles found in the diversity of Osun.
2
Axiotou, Georgia. "Breaking the silence : West African authors and the Transatlantic slave trade." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/3270.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis explores how Syl Cheney Coker’s The Last Harmattan of Alusine Dunbar (1990), Ama Ata Aidoo’s The Dilemma of a Ghost (1964), Ayi Kwei Armah’s Fragments (1970), and Buchi Emecheta’s The Slave Girl (1979) respond to the need to revisit and re-think the history of transatlantic slavery. The texts of these four contemporary West African authors provide symptomatic instantiations of the problematic of writing silence, and narrating a history whose archives are impossible to fully retrieve. By attending to the violence and silencing committed on the history of slavery, as well as the difficulty of writing, and narrating, history from the perspective of silence all the texts considered in this study perform acts of resistance against the forgetting enacted in and among their communities, and the silencing of colonial modernity, which has turned the history of transatlantic trade into a footnote. Although, all four authors come from different historical specificities and localities, and, thus, the ways they stage slavery in their narratives are informed by the local/historical urgencies they encounter in each contemporary political context, each, within their respective domain, provides powerful and influential examples of undoing historical silences and absences, not by imposing voices or presences, but by tracing the voids/gaps in the historical representation of slavery. The silent, but not silenced stories of the slave trade that these authors narrate in their attempts to speak to the history of slavery bring dis/order to the national and communal milieu, by unsettling a number of myths such as this of ethnic purity (Coker); of ideal “homes” for the diaspora (Aidoo); of national revolutions that putatively disrupt the colonial past (Armah); and of communal/national discourses that include the gendered racialised subaltern (Emecheta). These authors reveal the exclusionary practices of these myths, bearing witness to the fact that they proliferate at the expense of what they exclude. By bringing forth the excluded, the marginal, the “the othered” in place of the dominant, the central and “the same” they raise the impossible, and yet imperative, question of justice towards the “others”. The study intends to introduce the work of these authors to the current resurgence of interest on the literary trajectories of the Black Atlantic that tend to focus on the narratives of diasporic writers dwarfing the voices that speak form within the African continent. As I argue, close, symptomatic, readings of their texts through the lens of slavery attest to the fact that its spectral presence is intertwined in the cultural and communal fabric, and is used to comment and rethink issues such as questions of belonging and ethnicity, the quandaries associated with the neo-colonial condition, the role of the intellectual, violence and gender issues. Following the complexities raised by each text, my chapters explore a number of concepts such as “diaspora”, “ethnicity”, “trauma”, “memory”, “violence”, “the city”, “subaltern agency” and “the body” that invite cross-disciplinary links between post-colonial studies and a number of fields such as history, geography, feminism, psychoanalysis, philosophy and political theory. One of the ambitions of this study is that these initial forays into a largely unexplored field will lead to further research in African representations of the history of slavery; at the same time, its larger goal is to provide the stepping stone for trans-Atlantic dialogues between African and diasporic writers, who will re-think the history of the Atlantic from the perspective of its spectres, from the perspective of the footnoted.
3
Carr-West, Jonathan. "Cultures in motion : the negotiation of identity in francophone West African fiction." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.269558.
Full text
4
Carr, Rachel McKenzie. "But What Has Helga Crane to Do with the West Indies? Plantation Afterlives in the Black Atlantic." UKnowledge, 2019. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/english_etds/102.
Full textAbstract:
“But What Has Helga Crane to Do with the West Indies? Plantation Afterlives in the Black Atlantic” situates the emergence of the southern gothic in modernist American and Caribbean works as a response to the shifting cultural narrative of the plantation in the twentieth century. In this project, I argue that the plantation seeps out of its place and time to haunt landscapes it may never have touched and times in which slavery is long over. While the plantation system is broadly recognized as a literary, political, and cultural force in nineteenth-century literary studies, I conceive it is also a driving force of southern literature even after the physical plantations begin to fade.
In this project, I examine how literary portrayals of plantations flourish in the 1920s and 30s, from the writings of the Nashville Agrarians to the popularity of Gone with the Wind, arguing that this period represents a literary re-mythologizing of the plantation’s legacy as a benevolent and positive model for the south. A significant contribution of this dissertation is then in demonstrating how plantations are present in works that are not traditionally understood as plantation fiction, and that these works offer a resistance to this re-mythologizing through turning to the gothic: the transatlantic plantation gothic in Nella Larsen’s Quicksand and Jean Rhys’ Voyage in the Dark, the impact of environmental labor on the plantation gothic in Jean Toomer’s Cane and Eric Walrond’s Tropic Death, and finally, how plantation modernity affects portrayals of natural disasters in plantation territories in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and M. NourbeSe Philip’s Zong!. Ultimately, this project contributes to the discussion of plantation modernity currently occurring in Southern Studies beyond the nineteenth century and into the modernist period, while also demonstrating how movements often construed as disparate in American literary studies, like the Harlem Renaissance and the Nashville Agrarians, were actually in close conversation.
5
Brodnicka, Monika Luiza. "The ancient wor(l)d of knowledge invoking Amadou Hampaté Bâ's living tradition in West African tales of initiation, Sufi practice, and literature /." Diss., Online access via UMI:, 2007.
Find full text
6
Kempen, Laura Charlotte. "Words of deliverance : the (re)constitution of the disenfranchised feminine subject in selected works of West African and Latin American women writers /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/6694.
Full text
7
Addei, Cecilia. "Childhoods dis-ordered: Non-realist narrative modes in selected post-2000 West African war novels." Thesis, University of the Western Cape, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/11394/5447.
Full textAbstract:
Philosophiae Doctor - PhDThis study explores how selected West African war novels employ non-realist narrative modes to portray disruptions in the child’s development into adulthood. The novels considered are Chris Abani’s Song for Night (2007), Ahmadou Kourouma’s Allah is Not Obliged (2006), Uzodinma Iweala’s Beasts of No Nation (2005) and Delia Jarrett-Macauley’s Moses, Citizen and Me (2005). These novels strain at the conventions of realism as a consequence of the attempt to represent the disruptions in child development as a result of the upheavals of war. A core proposition of the study is to present why the authors in question are obliged to employ non-realist modes in representing disrupted childhoods that reflect the social and cultural disorder attendant upon war. The dissertation also asks pertinent questions regarding the ideological effect of these narrative strategies and the effect of the particular stylistic idiosyncrasies of each of the authors in figuring childhood in postcolonial Africa. The novels in question employ surrealism, the absurd, the grotesque and magical realism, in presenting the first person narratives of children in war situations, or the reflections of adult narrators on children affected by war. This study further analyses the ways the aesthetic modes employed by these authors underscore, in particular, children’s experiences of war. Through strategic use of specific literary techniques, these authors highlight questions of vulnerability, powerlessness and violence on children, as a group that has been victimised and co-opted into violence. The study further considers how these narrative transformations in the representations of children in novels, capture transformations in ideas about childhood in postcolonial Africa.
8
Coleman, Arvis R. (Arvis Renette) 1961. "The West African Trickster Tradition and the Fiction of Charles W. Chesnutt." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1995. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc277706/.
Full textAbstract:
Analyzing Chesnutt's fiction from the angle of the West African trickster tradition explains the varying interpretations of his texts and his authorial intentions. The discussion also illustrates the influence that audience and editorial concerns may have had on African-American authors at the turn of the century.
9
Moahi, Refilwe M. "Women's Advancement in Francophone West Africa: A Comparison of Mali and Senegal." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2013. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/256.
Full textAbstract:
This research begins to explore what political tools are necessary to elevate women’s position in society by transforming legislation. Women in Francophone West Africa do not enjoy certain basic rights and there is need to improve their status. The promotion and appointment of women to the position of prime minister, Mame Madior Boyé in Senegal in 2001 and Mariam Kaidama Cissé Sidibé in Mali in 2011, gives us hope that women-friendly agendas will be given priority. I pose the question: Did the appointment of these two women to the heads of their respective governments improve the status of women and their political representation in West Africa? There is existing research that suggests that more women in government increases the visibility of women’s issues. I argue that simply having women in positions of power is not sufficient; participation in informal politics and civil society is imperative. These women have to go into the position with a commitment to women’s issues and a willingness to work with the already existent networks of women’s associations dedicated to furthering women’s rights. I study the successful passage of a new woman-friendly constitution in Senegal. In particular, I look at each participant’s role in making this happen, the associations who pushed for reforms for many years, the reformist president Wade, and Boyé who was a founding member of one of the central women’s associations, the Association of Senegalese Female Legal Practitioners. I compare this with the unsuccessful signing of new family code in Mali. I discuss the disinterest and indecisiveness of the president and Sidibé, as well as the influence of the strong opposition from the conservative High Islamic Council. There are also institutional barriers to change, namely the pluralist legal system of customary law, Islamic law, and state law. Finally, I discuss other possible reasons for the differences in these two countries’ results, such as Senegal’s longer history of democracy and general acceptance of modernity and women’s rights.
10
Baxter, Marion. "An analysis of the structural use of music, song and dance in certain novels by West African writers in relation to concepts of time." Thesis, Rhodes University, 1988. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001825.
Full textAbstract:
The topic of this thesis is time in the West African novel in English and French, and the key approach is that West African time is readily grasped through a study of West African music. Though Western time is not exclusively or only linear, mechanical and exploitative, and African time not exclusively cyclic, synchronic and experiential, yet there is a characteristically African view of time and preferred modes of its employment in West African fiction. The novelists considered here wrote in European languages, yet each was a member of a specific cultural group and concerned to portray the aesthetics of his inheritance, an important aspect of which is the predominance of repetitive formulae, both in music and in oral literature. The Introduction offers an historical survey of some of the main notions of time that have been manifest in the West, and compares them with notions of African time. Chapter One examines the structural use of rhythm and repetition in the novels of Camara Laye. Chapter Two discusses the griot and other traditions of oral literature in the novels of Ayi Kwei Armah and Yambo Ouologuem, novels which are concerned with the griot 's continuing role in the creation and dissemination of historical perspective. Chapter Three analyses Chinua Achebe 's portrayal of the values of pre-colonial life in Igbo society where the role of music is to limit behaviour through the structures of ritual which thus create static/cyclic time. Chapter Four describes the syncretic art-form, 'highlife', as used by novelists such as Wole Soyinka, which, because it is transitory and always changing, underscores the ironies of modern city life. The thesis concludes that the authors discussed above are aware that music, because it is predominantly social in Africa, is a powerful medium for achieving a healing synthesis between the traditional past when communalistic values were binding, and the urban-orientated present with its insistence on individuation and material enrichment.
11
Harper, Alexis V. "Dorothy West's Re-imagining of the Migration Narrative." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/83204.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis explores Dorothy West's interpretation of the migration experience through her novel The Living is Easy. Dorothy West breaks new ground by documenting a Black female migrant's sojourn from South to North in an era in which such narratives were virtually non-existent. West seemingly rejects both a separation between North and South as well any sentiment of condemning the North or South in totality. Instead, West chooses to settle her novel in a gray area. Moreover, in refusing to condemn the South, Dorothy West redeems the South from oversimplified negative assumptions of the region. My interpretation of Dorothy West's The Living is Easy as well as Cleo Judson both highlights West's contributions to the genre by complicating the assumptions of what a migration narrative contains by centering the migrating Black female body.Master of Arts
12
Cyzewski, Julie Hamilton Ludlam. "Broadcasting Friendship: Decolonization, Literature, and the BBC." The Ohio State University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1461169080.
Full text
13
Sachikonye, Tsitsi Shamiso Anne. "Lʹétude des thèmes du deuil et de la marginalité dans Le Royaume Aveugle et Reine Pokou, concerto pour un sacrifice de Véronique Tadjo." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002956.
Full textAbstract:
The field of our study is Francophone African Literature and this thesis explores the themes of marginality and grief both experienced by Princess Akissi in The Blind Kingdom and Princess Pokou in Queen Pokou (2004) during their rise to power in their respective kingdoms. The two novels written by Véronique Tadjo from Ivory Coast, are subjected to thematic analysis because they are both based on similar storylines - that of conflict and rivalry within kingdoms resulting in the exile of the two princesses. One of the novels is set in a pre-colonial period while the other is set in a postcolonial era. Queen Pokou, winner of the 2005 Grand Prix Littéraire d’Afrique Noire (which is the most distinguished prize in Francophone African literature), is a retelling of the founding myths of the Baoulé people of Ivory Coast. In her literary texts, Tadjo transgresses the original legend and her reconstruction of this legend is significant because it challenges the ritual sacrifice made by Princess Pokou in order to free her people and to become queen. In The Blind Kingdom (1990), Tadjo highlights the corruption and injustice of the ruling elite. Space is used to reinforce the King’s domination thus a revolution is necessary to overthrow the exploitative power structures in place. The revolution that takes place relies heavily on the participation of Karim and especially on Princess Akissi who chooses to rebel against her father, King Ato IV in order to stop injustice. This thematic analysis, supported by semiotic theory, aims to establish and demonstrate the relationship between marginality of the two princesses, in particular, and their subsequent grief. It sheds light on the reasons for their exclusion from power as well as the nature of the conflicts that occur as they rise to power. The study postulates that certain myths and images are evoked by the novelist to symbolise the exclusion of the two princesses from power.
14
Antwi-Boasiako, Kingsley. "Reporting Health Emergency Outbreaks: African Journalists on the Frontlines of Ebola Coverage." Ohio University / OhioLINK, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1490939539694056.
Full text
15
Arrah, Moise Oneke. "A Gift of Nature and the Source of Violent Conflict: Land and Boundary Disputes in the North West Region of Cameroon The Case of BaliKumbat and Bafanji." Diss., NSUWorks, 2015. https://nsuworks.nova.edu/shss_dcar_etd/109.
Full textAbstract:
Balikumbat and Bafanji are the names of two villages in the Northwest Region of Cameroon that have been warring against one another over Bangang, a tract of fertile land. The conflict hinges on perceived differences about who should have access to this fertile land. Both villages claim ownership. This conflict has persisted from colonial times to the present with no tangible resolution. Understanding the place of land within the political, social, and economic fabric of the lives of both villages prior to and after the arrival of the colonial administration is the centerpiece of this research endeavor. This study sheds light on why the conflict persists. The land tenure decree of 1973, which was later promulgated into Cameroon law in 1984, is the most recent attempt at resolving disputes over land. It did not resolve this conflict. A clash of cultures between the indigenous population and the European colonizers may have triggered a legacy of land conflict between these two communities. This study unravels and seeks to explain when the Balikumbat and Bafanji villages transitioned from being two loving neighbors, capable of sharing their use of and kinship to the land, to hostile enemies ready to fight and kill one another at the earliest opportunity. In this study, interviews, observations, journal intakes, field notes, as well as document reviews, are pivotal tools used in justifying the claims highlighted in the research.
16
Lambert, Jade Maia. "Ama Ata Aidoo’s Anowa: Performative Practice and the Postcolonial Subject." Miami University / OhioLINK, 2005. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1133810135.
Full text
17
Childs, David J. "The Black Church and African American Education: The African Methodist Episcopal Church Educating for Liberation, 1816-1893." Oxford, Ohio : Miami University, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=miami1250397808.
Full text
18
Rooks, Elinor Victoria. "Vernacular critique, Deleuzo-Guattarian theory and cultural historicism in West African and Southern African literatures." Thesis, University of Leeds, 2014. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/9192/.
Full textAbstract:
In this thesis I use concepts from Deleuzo-Guattarian theory, combined with a vernacular theoretical understanding, to perform cultural historicist readings of texts that lack clear contextual referents, as I demonstrate with an extended close reading of Amos Tutuola’s problematic classic The Palm-Wine Drinkard; I then demonstrate the approach’s versatility by using it to read a very different text, Bessie Head’s A Question of Power. Tutuola’s The Palm-Wine Drinkard draws on vernacular theories of the bush common across West Africa, in which the bush is a discursive space for exploring personal and social traumas. Tutuola’s Bush of Ghosts, I argue, engages with the Yoruba Wars, the slave trade, and colonial capitalist development of Nigeria to the mid-twentieth century. I demonstrate not only how Tutuola uses ghosts as critical historical tools, but how he develops a peculiarly open textual space which serves as an alternative and a challenge to developmental trends. From history enacted across ghostly landscape I move to politics as a highly personal nightmare in Bessie Head’s A Question of Power. From communal vernacular theoretical traditions, I move to Head’s ‘schizophrenic’ vernacular theories. I argue that this text speaks to contexts far beyond Head’s personal experience of Apartheid. I read it as a schizohistory of Botswana’s developmental and political history, and as a lament of authoritarian tendencies across Africa a decade after independence. Head combines politics with mysticism, drawing on Hinduism to forge a politics of interconnectedness. Texts like Tutuola’s and Head’s become far more accessible through historicist readings, and these readings become possible once we are equipped with a theoretical vocabulary flexible enough to translate across a wide variety of discursive spheres. The approach I demonstrate encourages and facilitates a more interdisciplinary and contextually-grounded approach to African literature, clarifying formerly obscure texts.
19
Lambert, Jade Maia. "Ama Ata Aidoo's Anowa performative practice and the postcolonial subject /." Connect to this document online, 2005. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=miami1133810135.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of Theatre, 2005.Title from first page of PDF document. Document formatted into pages; contains [1], iv, 57 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 56-57).
20
Holmgren, Stephanie. "To Be a Woman in a Man's World : Gender and National Identity in Aidoo's Changes: A Love Story." Thesis, Södertörn University College, The School of Culture and Communication, 2007. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-1342.
Full text
21
Gualtieri, Claudia. "The discourse of the exotic in British colonial travel writing in West Africa." Thesis, University of Leeds, 1999. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.274829.
Full text
22
Glenn, Brittany Austin. "(M)otherhood : the mother symbol in postcolonial francophone literature from West Africa and the Caribbean." Honors in the Major Thesis, University of Central Florida, 2008. http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/ref/collection/ETH/id/1083.
Full textAbstract:
This item is only available in print in the UCF Libraries. If this is your Honors Thesis, you can help us make it available online for use by researchers around the world by following the instructions on the distribution consent form at http://library.ucf.edu/Systems/DigitalInitiatives/DigitalCollections/InternetDistributionConsentAgreementForm.pdf You may also contact the project coordinator, Kerri Bottorff, at kerri.bottorff@ucf.edu for more information.Bachelors
Arts and Humanities
French
23
Noyes, John Kenneth. "Space and spatiality in the colonial discourse of German South West Africa 1884-1915." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 1988. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/22490.
Full textAbstract:
Bibliography : pages 312-319.The present study sets out to accomplish two things: first, to demonstrate that space and spatiality is the domain in which discourse partakes of the colonial project, and second, to isolate a number of textual strategies employed in the discursive production of colonial space. The first aim requires a lengthy theoretical discussion which occupies the first part of the study. Here I develop the thesis that spatiality as a philosophical preoccupation has never been divorced from the questions of sigmfication and subjectivity, and that the production of significant and subjective space is always a production of social space. In support of this thesis, it is shown that vision and writing are the two functions in which subjective space becomes meaningful, and that in both cases it becomes meaningful only as social space. It is thus in the context of looking and writing that the production of colonial space may be examined as a social space within which meaning and subjectivity are possible. The second aim requires an analytical study of a number of colorual texts, which I undertake in part II of the study. For simplicity, I have confined myself to the colonial discourse of German South West Africa in the period 1884-1915. The central thesis developed here is that discourse develops strategies for enclosing spaces by demarkating borders, privileging certain passages between spaces and blocking others. This organization of space is presented as the ordering of a chaotic multiplicity and, as such, as a process of civilization. The contradiction between the blocking and privileging of passages results in what I call a "ritual of crossing": an implicit set of rules prescribmg the conditions of possibility for crossing the borders it establishes. As a result, in its production of space, the colonial text assumes a mythical function which allows it to transcend the very spaces it produces. It is here that I attempt to situate colonial discourse's claims to uruversal truth. In conclusion, the detailed analysis of the production of space in colonial discourse may be understood as a strategic intervention. It attempts to use the texts of colonisation to counter colonization's claims to universal truth and a civilizing mission.
24
Fadlu-Deen, Kitty C. S. "Affirmation and innovation in music education for West Africa with special reference to Sierra Leone and Ghana." Thesis, University of York, 1989. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.254615.
Full text
25
Skabelund, Andrew G. "Governing Gorée: France in West Africa Following the Seven Years' War." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2012. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/3655.
Full textAbstract:
In 1763, France had just suffered a devastating loss to the British in the Seven Years' War. In almost an instant, France's claims to West Africa shrank to the tiny island of Gorée off the coast of Senegal and a few trading posts on the mainland. This drastic reversal of fortunes forced France to reevaluate its place in the world and rethink its overall imperial objectives and colonial strategies, and in an effort to regroup, the French Empire sent a new governor, Pierre François Guillaume Poncet de la Rivière, on a mission to regain its foothold in West Africa. From this tiny island, France eventually succeeded in overturning its devastating losses and establishing itself as the dominant force in the region over the next two centuries, so deeply ingraining its influence into the core of West Africa that its imperial influence is still felt today.Despite France's future success, Poncet's tenure as governor was fraught with mismanagement and poor planning. Poncet believed he had the full backing of the Duc de Choiseul, but Poncet's excessive zeal, inability to effectively employ and listen to subordinates, and rash interactions with the British undermined the French presence in the region and ultimately led to his dismissal. Poncet's governorship sheds new light on Choiseul's goals for the Senegambia region and his underestimation of what it took to establish a strong presence.
26
Mok, Olivia Wai Han. "Martial arts fiction translational migrations east and west /." Thesis, Online version, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?did=1&uin=uk.bl.ethos.287060.
Full text
27
Diakité, Hiénin Ali. "Al-Mukhtār b. Yerkoy Talfi et le califat de Hamdallahi au XIXe siècle : Édition critique et traduction de Tabkīt al-Bakkay. Á propos d’une controverse inter-confrérique entre al-Mukhtār b. Yerkoy Talfi (1800-1864) et Aḥmad al-Bakkay (1800-1866)." Thesis, Lyon, École normale supérieure, 2015. http://www.theses.fr/2015ENSL1056.
Full textAbstract:
Le califat de Hamdallahi a été gouverné successivement par trois dirigeants dont tous portaient le prénom « Amadou » pendant un demi-siècle de 1818 à 1862. La capitale du califat se trouvait dans la région du Macina au centre de l’actuel Mali en Afrique de l’Ouest. Cette région a connu de nombreuses mutations au XIXe siècle, particulièrement sur le plan intellectuel, politique et confrérique. Cette étude couvre uniquement la période de 1800 et 1866 dans la région du Macina. Ce travail s’est basé sur un texte polémique entre les Qādiris et les Tījānis ouest africains du XIXe siècle. Ce choix a pour but d’élargir davantage la documentation sur l’histoire du Macina et surtout faire connaître la littérature ouest africaine du XIXe siècle. L’historiographie de la région s’est jusqu’à présent fondée sur des jugements rapides ne reposant pas sur une étude approfondie des textes, l’intérêt de ce choix est justement de faire parler les textes autour de ces problématiques.Cette étude illustre en partie l’histoire intellectuelle et politique de l’Afrique de l’Ouest au XIXe siècle. Le texte a été composé après la victoire militaire d’al-Ḥājj Umar dans la région du Macina en 1862. Cette conquête a mis fin définitivement à l’existence d’un État théocratique connu sous le nom de califat de Hamdallahi, un des États les plus organisés politiquement en Afrique de l’ouest au XIXe siècle. Ce conflit politique s’est transformé en partie en un conflit d’ordre confrérique. Ibn Yerkoy Talfi disciple d’al-Ḥājj Umar et idéologue tījāni était dans le camp des vainqueurs et s’est retourné contre le plus haut responsable de la confrérie Qādiriyya subsaharienne Aḥmad al-Bakkay. Ce dernier était représentant de la confrérie Qādiriyya et se trouvait parmi les vaincus, Aḥmad al-Bakkay avaient longtemps critiqué al-Ḥājj Umar et sa confrérie.Une investigation beaucoup plus large et une analyse critique des textes nous ont permis de revenir sur certains sujets déjà étudiés auparavant par exemple : la surévaluation de la question confrérique en toile de fond, les enjeux des relations Kunta/Peuls dans la période étudiée. La manipulation des textes religieux pour des raisons politiques, historiques et socialesFor half a century from 1818-1862, the Hamdallahi Caliphate was ruled by three successive leaders who each carried the name “Amadou.” The capital of the Caliphate was located in the Macina region which is in the center of modern-day Mali in West Africa. This region witnessed numerous changes over the course of the nineteenth century, especially in its intellectual, political and Sufi configurations. This study is focused exclusively on the period from 1800 to 1866 in the Macina region. The work is based on a polemical text about the differences between West African members of the Qādiriyya and Tījāniyya brotherhoods during the nineteenth century. This choice was made with the goal of expanding the documentary basis for the history of the Macina, and more than this, to make the West African literature of the nineteenth century better known. The historiography of the region has until now been based on quick analyses which are not based on deep study of texts and as such, the choice made here in this thesis is to concentrate on the contents of texts related to these problems. This study illustrates the intellectual and political history of West Africa in the nineteenth century. The text was written after the military victory of al-Ḥājj Umar in the Macina region in 1862. That conquest put a definitive end to the theocratic state known by the name of the Hamdallahi Caliphate, one of the best organized states in West Africa in the nineteenth century. The political conflict was transformed into a conflict between brotherhoods. Ibn Yerkoy Talfi was a disciple of al-Ḥājj Umar and a Tījāni ideologue who was part of the winning side, and it was directed against Aḥmad al-Bakkay, leader of the Qādiriyya brotherhood in sub-Saharan Africa. Aḥmad al-Bakkay was among those defeated in this conflict, and had been a longtime critic of al-Ḥājj Umar and his brotherhood.A much broader investigation and critical analysis of the texts allows us to return to certain topics which have already been studies such as the wider context of these events, the stakes in the relations between the Kunta and Fulɓe in the period studies, and the manipulation of religious texts for political, historical and social reasons
28
Carovani, Anne M. "Uneigentliche Differenz." Doctoral thesis, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.18452/19768.
Full textAbstract:
Die Arbeit untersucht Differenzdiskurse zu zwei historischen sozialen Identitäten im Manden (Westafrika) anhand mündlich und schriftlich tradierter Texte unterschiedlicher Sprachen (Bambara, Französisch, Deutsch, Englisch) und Genres (Reisebericht, Preislied (fasa), Epos (maana), Roman, Märchen (nsiirin), Lied (donkili)), die zwischen dem 14. bis 21. Jahrhundert erschienen sind.
Die Differenz von horon, dem Edlen, Freien und jeli, dem 'Handhaber des Wortes' wird dabei höchst unterschiedlich als komplexer Beziehungsmodus diskursiv und performativ hervorgebracht und gestaltet. Als uneigentliche Differenz bildet sie sich unter der Prämisse des Schamprinzips vor allem entlang der jeweils vorgenommenen Zuschreibungen von freigiebigem Renommee-Suchenden und erbittendem Panegyriker.
Die analysierten Texte, die den Zeitraum von Beginn des mittelalterlichen Mali-Reiches bis Mitte des 20. Jahrhunderts als intradiegetisches Setting haben, verhandeln die Differenz entsprechend spezifischer Wirkungsintentionen von einer Außenseiter-Perspektive, z.T. zur Legitimation kolonialer Absichten oder von einer Insider-Perspektive aus, um, teils politisch motiviert, das eigene kulturelle Erbe zu valorisieren oder auch um (historische) Mißstände anzuprangern. Dabei wird die Differenz von jeli und hↄrↄn unterschiedlich ausgestaltet, mit dem horon als Helden (ŋana, cεfarin), König (mansa, faama), Gastgeber (jatigi) und dem jeli als Meisterredner/sänger (ŋaara), Reputations-Verantwortlichen, Klienten des jatigi.
Literatur wie Differenz wird als rhetorischer Ort kreativer Verhandlungen, strategischer (Neu)schöpfungen betrachtet, durch welche die jeweiligen Akteure spezifische Interessen verfolgen und damit variabel an Diskursen und damit an Wirklichkeiten mitgestalten. Jeli und horon verändern sich als literarische Konstruktion in Abhängigkeit von ästhetischen und ideologischen Strategien.The present work examines discourses of difference about two historical social identities in Manden (West Africa) using oral and written literary texts of different languages (Bambara, French, German, English) and genres (travelogue, praise song (fasa), epic (maana), novel, fairy tale, song (dↄnkili)), published between the 14th to the 21st century. The difference between horon, the noble, the free, and jeli, the 'handler of the word', is produced and shaped in a highly differentiated way as a complex mode of relation(ship) in a discursive and performative manner. As an improper difference it is formed under the premise of the principle of shame, especially along the attributions made between the generous rewards seeker and the panegyrical requester. The analysed texts, which have the period from the beginning of the medieval Mali empire to the middle of the 20th century as an intradiegetic setting, negotiate the difference according to specific intended effects from an outsider perspective, eg. for purposes of legitimacy of colonial intentions or from an insider perspective, partly politically motivated, in order to valorise one's own cultural heritage or to denounce (historical) grievances. The difference between jeli and hↄrↄn appears in varying ways, with the horon as hero (ŋana, cεfarin), king (mansa, faama), host (jatigi) and the jeli as master-singer/-orator (ŋaara), reputational entrepreneur, client of a jatigi. Literature and Difference are considered both as a rhetorical place of creative negotiation, of strategic (re)creation, through which the respective actors pursue specific interests and thereby participate in shaping discourses and thus realities. The jeli, who is at the same time performer, narrator and protagonist of many narratives, and the horon, determined by his status and his ethos, change as a literary construction depending on aesthetic and ideological strategies.
29
Annas, Rolf. "Zur Darstellung Sudafrikas in der uberregionalen presse der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Eine textwissenschaftliche Untersuchung." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 1986. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/49304.
Full text
30
González, Andrés Emil. "Horror Without End: Narratives of Fear Under Modern Capitalism." Oberlin College Honors Theses / OhioLINK, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1525201674240955.
Full text
31
Diabate, Naminata. "Genital power : female sexuality in West African literature and film." 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/2152/22151.
Full textAbstract:
This dissertation calls attention to three important contemporary texts from West Africa that resist the tacit cultural taboo around questions of sexuality to imagine empowering images of female sexuality. Using postcolonial feminist approaches, queer theory, and cultural studies, I analyze two novels and a film by T. Obinkaram Echewa, Frieda Ekotto, and film director Jean Pierre Bekolo to retrieve moments in which women characters turn the tables on denigrating views of their sexuality and marshal its power in the service of resistance. I show how in these texts, women bare their nether parts, wield menstrual cloths, enjoy same-sex erotic acts, sit on men's faces, and engage in many other stigmatized practices in a display of what I call "genital powers." These powers are both traditional to the cultures analyzed here and called into new forms by the pressures of decolonization and globalization. Through more complex representations of female sexuality, these texts chart a tradition in which stale binaries of victims and oppressors, the body as an exclusive site of female subjugation or as a site of eternal female power are blurred, allowing a deeper understanding of women's lived experiences and what it means to be a resisting subject in the postcolonial space. By broadly recovering women's powers and subjectivities, centering on sexuality and the body, I also examine the ways in which this mode of female subjectivity has thus far escaped comprehensive theorization. In this way, my project responds to Gayatri Spivak's call to postcolonial intellectuals to unlearn privileged forms of resistance in the recognition of subjectivity, and to develop tools that would allow us to "listen" to the voices of disenfranchised women - those removed from the channels of knowledge production. However, my study cautions that the recognition of genital powers should not be conflated with the romanticized celebration of female bodies and sexuality, since West African women continue to struggle against cultural, political, existential, and physical assaults.text
32
Burton, Zisca Isabel. "The Orìsàs (Yorùbá deities) and the ancestor in West African and African American literature." 1994. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/oclc/32275566.html.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1994.Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 90-96).
33
Guesmi, Haythem. "The aesthetics and politics of political violence in West African literature." Thèse, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/1866/22636.
Full text
34
Kaschula, Russell H. "Imbongi and griot: toward a comparative analysis of oral poetics in Southern and West Africa." 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/59379.
Full textAbstract:
This article takes up the challenge of comparative research in Africa by analysing and comparing the oral art of West African griots and Southern African iimbongi or oral poets. Similarities and differences between these performers and their respective societies are highlighted through the use of an ethnographic methodology. A distinction is drawn between the more traditional performers such as Thiam Anchou and D.L.P. Yali-Manisi, and the more modern performers such as M’Bana Diop, Bongani Sitole and Zolani Mkiva. The rich use of genealogy and history in the more traditional performances is highlighted. In comparing the work of the more contemporary, urban poets such as M’bana Diop of Senegal and Zolani Mkiva from Southern Africa, similarities are found in their performances on post-independence leaders such as Senghor and Mandela. Political pressures which have been brought to bear on the performer are also discussed. This article explores the continuity between the past and the present in relation to aspects such as the following: how performers gain recognition, their continued survival, their relationship with politics and religion, the orality- literacy debate, and the stylistic techniques used by these performers. Wherever possible, examples of performers and their work are provided.
35
Konate, Sié. "La litterature d'enfance et de jeunesse en Afrique noire francophone les cas du Burkina Faso, de la Cote d'Ivoire et du Senegal : l'impérialisme culturel a travers la production et la distribution du livre pour enfants /." 1993. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/oclc/32338900.html.
Full text
36
Huntington, Julie Anne. "Transcultural rhythms an exploration of rhythm, music and the drum in a selection of francophone novels from West Africa and the Caribbean /." Diss., 2005. http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/ETD-db/available/etd-04142005-161736/.
Full text
37
El-Nagar, Hassan Abdel Razig. "The theme of encounter between East and West a study of six novels from Africa and the Middle East /." 1992. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/oclc/27555321.html.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1992.Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 301-307).
38
Oluwasuji, Olutoba Gboyega. "Re-imagining Ogun in selected Nigerian plays: a decolonial reading." Thesis, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/25490.
Full textAbstract:
Text in EnglishThrough an in-depth analysis of selected texts, this study engages with the ways in which Ogun is reimagined by recent selected Nigerian playwrights. Early writers from this country, influenced by their modernist education, misrepresented Ogun by presenting only his so-called negative attributes. Contemporary writers are reconceptualising him; it is the task of this thesis to demonstrate how they are doing so from a decolonial perspective. These alleged attributes represent Ogun as a wicked, bloodthirsty, arrogant and hot tempered god who only kills and makes no positive contribution to the Yoruba community. The thesis argues that the notion of an African god should be viewed from an Afrocentric perspective, not a Eurocentric one, which might lead to violence or misrepresentation of him. The dialogue in the plays conveys how the playwrights have constructed their main characters as Ogun representatives in their society. For example, Mojagbe and Morontonu present Balogun, the chief warlord of their different community; both characters exhibit Ogun features of defending their community. The chosen plays for this study are selected based on different notions of Ogun, the Yoruba god of iron and war, presented by the playwrights. A closer look at the primary materials this thesis explores suggests Ogun’s strong connection with rituals and cultural festivals. These plays exemplify African ritual theatre. Being a member of the Yoruba ethnic group, I have considerable knowledge of how festivals are performed. The Ogun festival is an annual celebration among the Yoruba, where African idioms of puppetry, masquerading, music, dance, mime, invocation, evocation and several elements of drama are incorporated into the performances. The selected plays critiqued in this thesis are Mojagbe (Ahmed Yerima, 2008), Battles of Pleasure (Peter Omoko, 2009), Hard Choice (Sunnie Ododo, 2011), and Morontonu (Alex Roy-Omoni, 2012). No in-depth exploration has previously been undertaken into the kinds of textual and ideological identities that Ogun adopts, especially in the selected plays. Therefore, using a decolonial epistemic perspective, this study offers a critical examination of how the selected Nigerian playwrights between the years 2008 and 2012 have constructed Ogun, the Yoruba god of iron. Such a perspective assists in delinking interpretations from the modernised notions mentioned above, in which Ogun is sometimes a paradoxical god. Coloniality is responsible for such misinterpretation; the employed theoretical framework is used to interrogate these notions. The research project begins with a general introduction locating Ogun in Yoruba mythology, which forms the background to how the god is being constructed in Yorubaland. Also included iii in this first chapter is a discussion on a decolonial perspective, the principles of coloniality, the aims and objective of the study, and the relevant literature review. Thereafter, chapter two focuses on Battles of Pleasure and argues that the play re-imagines Ogun as a god of peace and harvest as opposed to a god of war and destruction. Chapter three discusses how Ododo’s Hard Choice reconceptualises Ogun as a god of justice, in contrast to him being interpreted as a god who engages in reckless devastation of life. Chapter four explores Ogun’s representation in Yerima’s Mojagbe as a reformer who gives human beings ample time to change from their wayward course to a course that he approves. In chapter five, Ogun’s reconception as a remover of obstacles in Roy-Omoni’s Morontonu is examined. The study concludes with a discussion on how Africans should delink themselves from a modernist Eurocentric perspective and think from an Afrocentric locus of enunciation.
English Studies
D. Litt. et Phil.(English)
39
Butler, Ian. "Integrating language and literature in English studies : a case study of the English 100 course at the University of North West." Thesis, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/1663.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis is a case study, conducted within a paradigm of action research, of the English 100 course at the University of the North West (now the Mafikeng campus of North West University), as taught by the author in the years 2000 - 2001. Its aim is to investigate the effect of the integration of language and literature on the first year of the undergraduate programme.
The case study is placed in context through a consideration of educational change in South Africa. This includes changes taking place in the study of English as a second language at tertiary level, as well as the broader innovations to South African education brought about by government legislation. Two aspects of the latter are singled out for special attention: outcomes-based education and quality assurance.
The case study is also contextualized at an international level through a survey of the theory and practice of an integrated approach to the teaching of language and literature to ESOL students. A survey of the literature, mainly in the last twenty years, reveals a growing interest in this approach. An attempt is then made to encapsulate this research in the form of fourteen statements about the supposed benefits of integrating language and literature. Through a detailed analysis of the performance of the first-year students, the case study subsequently attempts to test the validity of these claims.
The study is presented as a process involving syllabus design, materials development, implementation of the course and an evaluation of its efficacy by the teacher-researcher. In line with the methodology of action research, a variety of methods is used to gather data. These include introspection and reflection (through the use of a teacher's journal and lesson reports), the analysis of written work produced by students, classroom observation by a `critical friend', triangulation (through the use of questionnaires, students' journals and self-reflective tasks) and documentation from the Department of English and university administration. The analysis of these data is both quantitative and qualitative. In keeping with the philosophy of action research and current educational practice, an attempt was made to incorporate and act upon the insights of students and colleagues. Reports on work-in-progress were also published in a number of fora: references are given in the thesis. The assumptions of action research are also apparent in the way in which the study is situated within cycles of action, reflection and improvement of pedagogical practice.
The conclusion of the thesis is partly stated in terms of quality assurance: an attempt is made to assess the suitability of the integrated approach with regard to its fitness of and for purpose. It is concluded that a number of contextual factors, such as the conditions under which the English 100 course was taught and the under-preparedness of many of the students, militated against its success. The case-study is also assessed in terms of its contribution to international research in the field, and the personal development of the researcher. As is commonly found both in action research and in case study research, the findings of the study are context specific: consequently, no claim is made that they are generalizable to all other contexts.English Studies
D.Litt. et Phil.
40
Krueger, Anton Robert. "Experiments in freedom : representations of identity in new South African drama : an investigation into identity formations in some post-apartheid play-texts published in English by South African writers, from 1994 - 2007." Thesis, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/29095.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis examines ways in which identities have been represented in new South African play texts. It begins by exploring various ways in which identity has been described from various philosophical, psychological and anthropological perspectives. In particular, the thesis describes its methodology in terms of Gilles Deleuze's definition of "rhizomatic" structures. The introduction also elaborates ways in which drama is uniquely suited to represent ¨C as well as to effect ¨C transformations of identity. The thesis then moves on to an examination of specific texts in terms of four broad areas of investigation ¨C gender, political affiliation, ethnicity and syncretism. In these chapters a number of play texts are investigated from different points of view. Firstly, in a chapter on gender, the thesis focuses specifically on issues of masculinity and exile in plays by Athol Fugard, Anthony Akerman and Zakes Mda. This chapter explores orientations of the masculine which have become embedded within notions of nationalism and patriotism. In terms of political affiliations, the thesis looks at what Loren Kruger has called "post-anti-apartheid theatre" (2002: 233) and considers the trend away from protest theatre. With reference to the plays of Mike van Graan it also examines new forms of protest theatre. This chapter also explores plays which were inspired by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and looks in more detail at Ubu and the Truth Commission by Jane Taylor. When considering ethnicities, the thesis reflects on how identity in terms of an ethnic collective is most often premised on laws of exclusion, and on the construction of what Benedict Anderson refers to as an "imagined community" (1991: 15). Representations of ethnic identities are then analysed in Happy Natives by Greig Coetzee. Syncretism seems to present a preferable description of how South African identities can be constructed and the thesis then elaborates attempts to forge a new identity in terms of amalgamation and a creative fusion of cultural resources, with particular reference to the plays of Brett Bailey and Reza de Wet. In the conclusion of this thesis, the thorny issue of racial identities is considered, and in particular the trope of the "rainbow nation", which many writers regard as a problematic blanketing description which cancels out difference. Instead, Ashraf Jamal's "radical syncretism", which does not seek to subsume heterogeneous identities, is suggested as a viable means of approaching definitions of identity. The final chapter also briefly touches on the development of physical theatre in South Africa and describes how the body can be used as a tool for transformation, relying principally on the writings of Mark Fleishman and Eugenio Barba in this regard. Finally, again resorting to a Deleuzian vocabulary which describes identity as constructed in terms of lines operating on particular planes, the thesis considers whether it may not be more beneficial in the post-apartheid context to favour paradoxical processes which relinquish identities, instead of those which attempt to consolidate them. @ 2008 Author Please cite as follows: Krueger, AR 2008, Experiments in freedom : representations of identity in new South African drama : an investigation into identity formations in some post-apartheid play-texts published in English by South African writers, from 1994 - 2007, DLitt thesis, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd < http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-10282008-141823/ > D497/gmThesis (DLitt)--University of Pretoria, 2008.
English
unrestricted