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1
McClelland, Roderick William. "White discourse in post-independence Zimbabwean literature." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 1994. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/18261.
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Literally hundreds of novels were written by white Rhodesians during the U.D.I. era of the 1960s and 1970s. Since Independence, however, not much more than a handful of literary texts have been produced by whites in Zimbabwe. This dissertation, therefore, involves an interrogation of both white discourse and the (reduced) space for white discourse in postcolonial Zimbabwean society. In addition to the displaced moral space, and the removal of the economic and political power base, there has been an appropriation of control over the material means of production of any discourse and white discourse, which has become accustomed to its position of superiority due to its dominance and dominating tendencies, has struggled to come to terms with its new, non-hegemonic 'space'. In an attempt to come to some understanding of the literary silence and marginalisation of white discourse in post-independence Zimbabwe there has to be some understanding of the voice that was formed during the British South Africa Company's administration and which reached a crescendo of authoritarian self-assertion at the declaration of unilateral independence. Vital to this discussion (in Part I) is an uncovering of the myths that were intrinsic to white discourse in the way that they were created as justification for settlement and to propagandise the aggressive defence of that space that was forged in an alien landscape. These myths have not been easily cast aside and, hence, have made it so difficult for white discourse to adapt to post-colonial society. Most Rhodesian novels were extremely partisan and promulgated these myths. Part II, discusses ex post facto novels about the war (from the white perspective) to investigate whether white discourse is recognising the lies that make up so much of its belief system. This investigation of this particular perspective of the war, then, will help to define at what stage white Zimbabweans are at in the development of a national culture. Part III takes this discussion of acculturation and national unity further. Furthermore, through the discussion of a number of novels in this chapter, it is argued that white discourse is struggling to come to terms with its non-hegemonic position and is continuing to attempt to assert its control. The 'space' available to the early settlers' discourse for appropriation, however, has been removed and, in the reduced space available to white discourse, one continued area of possible control is that of conservation.
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Mancuveni, Melania. "Urbanisation, Shona culture and Zimbabwean literature." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/10782.
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This thesis examines the impact of urbanisation on Zimbabwean culture, particularly the Shona culture as it is represented in Zimbabwean literature. My main argument in this thesis is that Zimbabwean literature suggests that urbanisation is harmful and destructive to the Shona culture and the way of life of the Shona people.
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Mongiat, Timothy. "Confronting heteronormativity in postcolonial Zimbabwean literature." Thesis, University of Kent, 2017. https://kar.kent.ac.uk/66341/.
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This project addresses the settler colonial context of Rhodesia and postcolonial Zimbabwe, and investigates the nature of, and relationship between, gender and sexual norms and colonialism through early postcolonial literary responses. Literature is not merely examined as a source of representation, but as an element of discourse which reflects and shapes norms. I analyse how writers police and reiterate heteronorms, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, and how they resist and contest the realities and logic of heteronormativity. Robert Mugabe's now infamous homophobic outbursts in 1995 dehumanised homosexuals through references to dogs and pigs, and associated same-sex sexuality with American and European contexts. His rhetoric articulated a form of heteronormative nationalism which politicised the memory of colonialism, but also represented a significant discursive change in Zimbabwean society. Homosexuality, previously submerged by a culture of discretion and repression, had moved from the domain of the unspoken to the spoken, and from an invisible to a visible presence. Previously, references to homosexuality had been absent from public discourse in the postcolonial and much of the colonial period, and in Zimbabwean literature until the 1990s. Yet Dambudzo Marechera's controversial and progressive writing provided an exception - he explicitly represented the same-sex sexuality suggested by homoerotic depictions in other writing, but which was not portrayed. This offers an example of the way I approach literature in this thesis - I view writing as a means of representation, but also as an element of discourse which reflects, shapes, and contests ideas and norms. Discourse, following the work of multiple poststructural theorists, is conceived of as a constitutive form which produces and limits subjects and expression, but which is subject to a persistent threat of reconstitution. My project, which explores the articulation of heteronormativity in postcolonial writing until the 1990s, is intersectional, and documents the relation between modes of oppression. Accordingly, gender constructions are examined and related to the articulation of normative heterosexuality, and to other signifiers, especially notions of race and ethnicity integral to the settler colonial context of Rhodesia and to Zimbabwean society. Colonialism is discussed throughout, and I examine and problematise the represented relationship between heteronormativity and the violent material, discursive, and psychological products of colonialism, and postcolonial nationalisms. My project aims to satisfy the need for a composite intersectional study examining heteronormativity in Zimbabwean literature.
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Shaw, Drew Campbell. "Transgression and beyond : Dambudzo Marechera and Zimbabwean literature." Thesis, Queen Mary, University of London, 2003. http://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/28585.
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Recent criticism has claimed Marechera's unconventionality represents an anomaly in Zimbabwean literature. Problematically, this implies a fundamental separation of the author from the concerns, styles and strategies of other writers. In this thesis I argue, on the contrary, that Marechera demonstrates a propensity for dialogue with other Zimbabwean writers. Moreover, such a dialogue is crucial to the development of a critical discourse capable of addressing elements of contradiction. Returning Marechera to the heart of debate in Zimbabwean literature, the thesis focuses on the meaning of his transgressions, alongside selected texts by other Zimbabwean authors. These include Doris Lessing, Charles Mungoshi, Shimmer Chinodya, Yvonne Vera, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nevanji Madanhire, Chenjerai Hove, and Stanley Nyamfukudza. I also consider the relevance of lesser-known women's writing and queer narratives, and Marechera's meaning to anti-racist, feminist, and gay liberation initiatives. As a background to my analysis, I ascertain discursive links in an historical sequence of sexual regulation. I argue that the 'black peril' panics in settler society (fear of interracial sex), the rounding-up of single women deemed to be prostitutes in the 1980s, and the anti-gay campaigns of the mid-1990s are all underpinned by a moral discourse which continuously reproduces an ideology of racial, social and sexual hygiene. Marechera's writing refuses this ideology, I claim, but his transgressions are rarely straightforward and frequently misunderstood. His treatment of interracial sexuality deeply problematises conventional concepts and representations of racial identity: his controversial characterisations of women subvert traditional patriarchalist iconographies of womanhood; and his treatment of queer issues (unprecedented in Zimbabwean literature) destabilises assumptions of heteronormativity. Despite such radicalism, however, Marechera's writing, moving beyond transgression. remains notoriously inconsistent and therefore resistant, I argue, to assimilation by progressive political projects. Although Marechera complicates debates, dialogue with the author is crucial, I nevertheless maintain, precisely for this reason.
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Muchemwa, Kizito Zhiradzago. "Imagining the city in Zimbabwean literature 1949 to 2009." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/85579.
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Thesis (PhD)-- Stellenbosch University, 2013.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: My thesis is on the literary imagining of the city in Zimbabwean literature that emerges as a re-visioning and contestation of its colonial and postcolonial manifestations. Throughout the seven chapters of the thesis I conduct a close reading of literary texts engaged in literary (re)creations of the city. I focus on texts by selected authors from 1949 to 2009 in order to trace the key aspects of this city imagining and their historical situatedness. In the first chapter, I argue the case for the inclusions and exclusions that are evident. In this historical span, I read the Zimbabwean canon and the city that is figured in it as palimpsests in order to analyse (dis)connections. This theoretical frame brings out wider relationships and connections that emerge in the (re)writing of both the canon and city. I adopt approaches that emphasise how spaces and temporalities ‗overlap and interlace‘ to provoke new ways of thinking about the city and the construction of identity. I argue for the country-city connection as an important dynamic in the various (re)imaginings of the city. Space is politicized along lines of race, ethnicity, gender and class in regimes of politics and aesthetics of inclusion and exclusion that are refuted by the focal texts of the thesis. I analyse the fragmentation of rural and urban space in the literary texts and how country and city house politico-aesthetic regimes of domination, exclusion and marginalisation. Using tropes of the house, music and train, I analyse how connections in the city are imagined. These tropes are connected to the travel motif found in all the chapters of the thesis. Travel is in most of the texts offered as a form of escape from the country represented as a site of essentialism or nativism. Both settlers and nationalists, from different ideological positions, invest the land and the city with symbolic political and cultural values. Both figure the city as alien to the colonised, a figuration that is contested in most of the focal texts of the thesis. Travel from the country to the city through halfway houses is presented as a way of negotiating location in new spaces, finding new identities and contending with the multiple connections found in the city. The relentless (un)housing in Marechera‘s writing expresses a refusal to be bounded by aesthetic, nationalist and racial houses as they are constructed in the city. In Vera‘s fiction, travel – in multifarious directions and in a re-racing of the quest narrative in Lessing – becomes a critical search for a re-scripting of gender and woman‘s demand for a right to the city. The nomadism in Vera‘s fiction is re-configured in the portrayal of the marginalised as the parvenus and pariahs of the city in the fiction of Chinodya and Tagwira. In the chapter on Chikwava and Gappah, in the contexts of spatial displacement and expansion, the nationalist nativist construction of self, city and nation comes under stress. I interrogate how ideologies of space shape politico-aesthetic regimes in both the country and the city throughout the different historical phases of the city. In this regard I adopt theoretical approaches that engage with questions of aesthetic equality as they relate to the contestation of spatial partitioning based on categories of race, gender and class. In city re-imaginings this re-claiming of aesthetic power to imagine the city is invoked and in all the texts it emerges as a reclaiming of the right to the city by the colonised, women, immigrants and all the marginalised. I adopt those approaches that lend themselves to the deconstruction of hegemonic figuration, disempowerment and silencing of the marginalised, especially women, in re-imagining the city and their identities in it.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: My tesis se onderwerp is die literêre voorstellings van die stad in Zimbabwiese letterkunde wat ontstaan as ‗n herverbeelding van en teenvoeter vir beide koloniale en postkoloniale manifestasies. Regdeur die sewe hoofstukke van die tesis voer ek deurtastende interpretasies van literêre tekste aan, wat die stad op nuwe maniere uitbeeld. My fokus val op tekste deur geselekteerde skrywers van 1949 tot 2009 ten einde die sleutelelemente van hierdie proses van stadverbeelding en die historiese gesitueerdheid daarvan te ondersoek. In die eerste hoofstuk bied ek die argument aan betreffende die voor-die-hand liggende in- en uitsluitings van tekste. Deur hierdie historiese strekking lees ek die Zimbabwiese kanon en die stad wat daarin figureer as palimpseste, ten einde die (dis-)konneksies te kan analiseer. Hierdie teoretiese beraming belig die wyere verhoudings en verbindings wat na vore kom in die (her-) skrywe van beide die kanon en die stad. Ek gebruik benaderings wat benadruk hoe ruimtes en tydelikhede oormekaarvloei en saamvleg om sodoende nuwe maniere om oor die stad en oor identiteitskonstruksie te besin, aanmoedig. Ek argumenteer vir die stad-platteland konneksie as ‗n belangrike dinamika in die verskillende (her-)voorstellings van die stad. Ruimte word só verpolitiseer met betrekking tot ras, etnisiteit, gender en klas binne politieke regimes asook ‗n estetika van in- en uitsluiting wat deur die kern-tekste verwerp word. Ek analiseer verder die fragmentasie van landelike en stedelike ruimtes in die literêre tekste, en hoe die plattelandse en stedelike ruimtes tuistes bied aan polities-estetiese regimes van dominasie, uitsluiting en marginalisering. Die huis, musiek en die trein word gebruik as beelde om verbindings in die stad te ondersoek. Hierdie beelde sluit aan by die motif van die reis wat in al die hoofstukke manifesteer. Die reis word in die meeste tekste gesien as ‗n vorm van ontsnapping uit die platteland, wat voorgestel word as ‗n plek van essensie-voorskrywing en ingeborenheid. Beide intrekkers en nasionaliste, uit verskillende ideologiese vertrekpunte, bekleed die platteland of die stad met simboliese politieke en kulturele waardes. Beide verbeeld die stad as vreemd aan die gekoloniseerdes; ‗n uitbeelding wat verwerp word in die fokale tekste van die studie. Reis van die platteland na die stad deur halfweg-tuistes word aangebied as metodes van onderhandeling om plek te vind in nuwe ruimtes, nuwe identiteite te bekom en om te leer hoe om met die stedelike verbindings om te gaan. Die onverbiddelikke (ont-)tuisting in die werk van Marechera gee uitdrukking aan ‗n weiering om deur estetiese, nasionalistiese en rassiese behuising soos deur die stad omskryf en voorgeskryf, vasgevang te word. In die fiksie van Vera word reis – in telke rigtings en in die her-rassing van die soektog-motif in Lessing – ‗n kritiese soeke na die herskrywing van gender en van die vrou se op-eis van die reg tot die stad. Die nomadisme in Vera se fiksie word ge-herkonfigureer in uitbeelding van gemarginaliseerdes as die parvenus en die uitgeworpenes van die stad in die fiksie van Chinodya en Tagwira. In die hoofstuk oor Chikwava en Gappah word die nasionalistiese ingeborenes se konstruering van die self, stad en nasie onder stremmimg geplaas in kontekste van ruimtelike verplasing en uitbreiding. Ek ondervra hoe ideologieë van spasie vorm gee aan polities-estetiese regimes in beide die platteland en die stad regdeur die verskillende historiese fases van die stad. In hierdie opsig maak ek gebruik van teoretiese benaderings wat betrokke is met vraagstukke van estetiese gelykheid met verwysing na kontestasies oor ruimtelike verdelings gebaseer op kategorieë van ras, gender en klas. In herverbeeldings van die stad word hierdie reklamering van die estetiese mag om die stad te verbeel, bygehaal in al die tekste as herklamering van die reg tot die stad deur gekoloniseerdes, vroue, immigrante en alle gemarginaliseerdes. Ek maak gebruik van benaderings wat hulself leen tot die dekonstruksie van hegemoniese verbeelding, ontmagtiging en die stilmaak van gemarginaliseerdes, veral vroue, in die herverbeelding van die stad en hul plek binne die stadsruimte.
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Musekiwa, Ivy Shutu. "Representations of post-2000 displacement in Zimbabwean women's literature." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/12064.
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Includes abstract.This study examines literature by Zimbabwean women that explores evictions and migrations of people from 2000 to 2009 when the crisis subsided with the enactment of the Global Political Agreement (GPA).
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Dodgson-Katiyo, Pauline. "Gender, history and trauma in Zimbabwean and other African literatures." Thesis, Anglia Ruskin University, 2015. https://arro.anglia.ac.uk/id/eprint/582336/1/PhDPDodgson-Katiyo.pdf.
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Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this research explores Zimbabwean literary and other cultural texts within the broader context of the construction of identities and the politics of inclusion and exclusion in nationalist and oppositional discourses. It also analyzes two texts by major non-Zimbabwean African writers to examine the thematic links between Zimbabwean and other African writing.
Through combining historical, anthropological and political approaches with postcolonial, postmodern and feminist critical theories, the thesis explores the ways in which African writing and performance represent alternative histories to official versions of the nation. It further investigates questions of gender and their significance in nationalist discourses and shows how writing on war, trauma and healing informs and develops readers’ understanding of the relationship of the past to the present.
Considered together as a coherent body of work, the published items submitted in this thesis explore how Zimbabwean and other African writers, through re-visioning history and writing from oppositional or marginal positions, intervene in political debates and suggest new transformative ways of constructing and negotiating identities in postcolonial societies.
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Dodgson-Katiyo, Pauline. "Gender, history and trauma in Zimbabwean and other African literatures." Thesis, Anglia Ruskin University, 2015. http://arro.anglia.ac.uk/582336/.
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Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this research explores Zimbabwean literary and other cultural texts within the broader context of the construction of identities and the politics of inclusion and exclusion in nationalist and oppositional discourses. It also analyzes two texts by major non-Zimbabwean African writers to examine the thematic links between Zimbabwean and other African writing. Through combining historical, anthropological and political approaches with postcolonial, postmodern and feminist critical theories, the thesis explores the ways in which African writing and performance represent alternative histories to official versions of the nation. It further investigates questions of gender and their significance in nationalist discourses and shows how writing on war, trauma and healing informs and develops readers’ understanding of the relationship of the past to the present. Considered together as a coherent body of work, the published items submitted in this thesis explore how Zimbabwean and other African writers, through re-visioning history and writing from oppositional or marginal positions, intervene in political debates and suggest new transformative ways of constructing and negotiating identities in postcolonial societies.
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Shaw, Drew Campbell. ""X-rays" of self and society : Dambudzo Marechera's avant-gardism and its implications for debates concerning Zimbabwean literature and culture." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/18469.
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This thesis discusses Dambudzo Marechera's avant-gardism and its significance in the context of Zimbabwean literature and culture. I use the term avant-garde to describe Marechera's defiance of hegemonies, traditions, and prescriptions for writing, as well as his innovations with form and style. In the context of Zimbabwe, Marechera's avant-gardism involves a rejection of cultural nationalism, and an eschewal of traditional realist criteria for writing. The thesis locates Marechera in a socio-historical context, and in the framework of black Zimbabwean literature (written in English). It discusses his rejection of the nationalist tradition set by his literary predecessors; and it compares him with his contemporaries, Stanley Nyamfukudza and Charles Mungoshi, who also reject the concept of a 'pure', homogeneous, national culture in their writings. Marechera's writing explores new (and often taboo) subject matter, and it thus illustrates the diverse, complex nature of the Zimbabwean experience. It also abandons the unified, linear narrative; and it has been sharply censured by nationalist critics -- largely on the grounds of its transgression of traditional narrative form. Nationalist critics have tended to privilege traditional realist criteria in their discussions of Zimbabwean literature, and Marechera, as an avant-gardist, has been marginalized and denigrated for his non-conformity. In this thesis, I challenge the privileged status of traditional realism, question the prescriptions of nationalist/realist critics, and attempt to demonstrate the value of Marechera's non-realist writing. While many nationalist critics allege that Marechera's writing is 'unAfrican', I argue that it is a fallacy to assume his work is 'Europeanized' while nationalist/realist writing is not. Moreover, I contend that Marechera's avant-gardism is in direct response to a set of extraordinary socio-historical, political and cultural conditions -- which are specific to Zimbabwe. In analyzing Marechera's alternatives to realism (such as expressionism, stream of consciousness, surrealism, grotesque realism, the carnival, magical realism, and Menippean satire), I maintain that his experiments are not without strategy, but that they address pertinent literary, social, political, and cultural issues. The thesis furthermore attempts to show how the 'individualism' -- for which Marechera has been roundly condemned -- is paradoxically transformed into sharp and poignant social commentary. This is particularly evident in two texts which I focus on: "House of Hunger" -- his irreverent pre-independence vivisection of Zimbabwean society; and Mindblast, his much neglected anti-realist post-independence compilation, which I discuss in some detail.
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Nyambi, Oliver. "Nation in crisis : alternative literary representations of Zimbabwe Post-2000." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/85652.
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Thesis (PhD)-- Stellenbosch University, 2013.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The last decade in Zimbabwe was characterised by an unprecedented economic and political crisis. As the crisis threatened to destabilise the political status quo, it prompted in governmental circles the perceived 'need‘ for political containment. The ensuing attempts to regulate the expressive sphere, censor alternative historiographies of the crisis and promote monolithic and self-serving perceptions of the crisis presented a real danger of the distortion of information about the situation. Representing the crisis therefore occupies a contested and discursive space in debates about the Zimbabwean crisis. It is important to explore the nature of cultural interventions in the urgent process of re-inscribing the crisis and extending what is known about Zimbabwe‘s so-called 'lost decade‘. The study analyses literary responses to state-imposed restrictions on information about the state of Zimbabwean society during the post-2000 economic and political crisis which reached the public sphere, with particular reference to creative literature by Zimbabwean authors published during the period 2000 to 2010. The primary concern of this thesis is to examine the efficacy of post-2000 Zimbabwean literature as constituting a significant archive of the present and also as sites for the articulation of dissenting views – alternative perspectives assessing, questioning and challenging the state‘s grand narrative of the crisis. Like most African literatures, Zimbabwean literature relates (directly and indirectly) to definite historical forces and processes underpinning the social, cultural and political production of space. The study mainly invokes Maria Pia Lara‘s theory about the ―moral texture‖ and disclosive nature of narratives by marginalised groups in order to explore the various ways through which such narratives revise hegemonically distorted representations of themselves and construct more inclusive discourses about the crisis. A key finding in this study is that through particular modes of representation, most of the literary works put a spotlight on some of the major talking points in the political and socio-economic debate about the post-2000 Zimbabwean crisis, while at the same time extending the contours of the debate beyond what is agreeable to the powerful. This potential in literary works to deconstruct and transform dominant elitist narratives of the crisis and offering instead, alternative and more representative narratives of the excluded groups‘ experiences, is made possible by their affective appeal. This affective dimension stems from the intimate and experiential nature of the narratives of these affected groups. However, another important finding in this study has been the advent of a distinct canon of hegemonic texts which covertly (and sometimes overtly) legitimate the state narrative of the crisis. The thesis ends with a suggestion that future scholarly enquiries look set to focus more closely on the contribution of creative literature to discourses on democratisation in contemporary Zimbabwe.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die afgelope dekade in Zimbabwe is gekenmerk deur ‗n ongekende ekonomiese en politiese krisis. Terwyl die krisis gedreig het om die politieke status quo omver te werp, het dit die ‗noodsaak‘ van politieke insluiting aangedui. Die daaropvolgende pogings om die ruimte vir openbaarmaking te reguleer, alternatiewe optekenings van gebeure te sensureer en ook om monolitiese, self-bevredigende waarnemings van die krisis te bevorder, het 'n wesenlike gevaar van distorsie van inligting i.v.m. die krisis meegebring. Voorstellings van die krisis vind sigself dus in 'n gekontesteerde en diskursiewe ruimte in debatte aangaande die Zimbabwiese krisis. Dit is gevolglik belangrik om die aard van kulturele intervensies in die dringende proses om die krisis te hervertolk te ondersoek asook om kennis van Zimbabwe se sogenaamde 'verlore dekade‘ uit te brei. Die studie analiseer literêre reaksies op staats-geïniseerde inkortings van inligting aangaande die sosiale toestand in Zimbabwe gedurende die post-2000 ekonomiese en politiese krisis wat sulke informasie uit die openbare sfeer weerhou het, met spesifieke verwysing na skeppende literatuur deur Zimbabwiese skrywers wat tussen 2000 en 2010 gepubliseer is. Die belangrikste doelwit van hierdie tesis is om die doeltreffendheid van post-2000 Zimbabwiese letterkunde as konstituering van 'n alternatiewe Zimbabwiese 'argief van die huidige‘ en ook as ruimte vir die artikulering van teenstemme – alternatiewe perspektiewe wat die staat se 'groot narratief‘ aangaande die krisis bevraagteken – te ondersoek. Soos met die meeste ander Afrika-letterkundes is daar in hierdie literatuur 'n verband (direk en/of indirek) met herkenbare historiese kragte en prosesse wat die sosiale, kulturele en politiese ruimtes tot stand bring. Die studie maak in die ondersoek veral gebruik van Maria Pia Lara se teorie aangaande die 'morele tekstuur‘ en openbaringsvermoë van narratiewe aangaande gemarginaliseerde groepe ten einde die verskillende maniere waarop sulke narratiewe hegemoniese distorsies in 'offisiële‘ voorstellings van hulself 'oorskryf‘ om meer inklusiewe diskoerse van die krisis daar te stel, na te vors. 'n Kernbevinding van die studie is dat, d.m.v. van spesifieke tipe voorstellings, die meeste van die letterkundige werke wat hier ondersoek word, 'n soeklig plaas op verskeie van die belangrikste kwessies in die politieke en sosio-ekonomiese debatte oor die Zimbabwiese krisis, terwyl dit terselfdertyd die kontoere van die debat uitbrei verby die grense van wat vir die maghebbers gemaklik is. Die potensieel van letterkundige werke om oorheersende, elitistiese narratiewe oor die krisis te dekonstrueer en te omvorm, word moontlik gemaak deur hul affektiewe potensiaal. Hierdie affektiewe dimensie word ontketen deur die intieme en ervaringsgewortelde geaardheid van die narratiewe van die geaffekteerde groepe. Nietemin is 'n ander belangrike bevinding van hierdie studie dat daar 'n onderskeibare kanon van hegemoniese tekste bestaan wat op verskuilde (en soms ook openlike) maniere die staatsnarratief anngaande die krisis legitimeer. Die tesis sluit af met die voorstel dat toekomstige vakkundige studies meer spesifiek sou kon fokus op die bydrae van kreatiewe skryfwerk tot die demokratisering van kontemporêre Zimbabwe.
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Chihota, Clement. "Towards Marxist stylistics: incorporating elements of critical discourse analysis into Althusserian Marxist criticism in the interpretation of selected Zimbabwean fiction." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/13117.
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Includes bibliographical references.The thesis - which locates itself at the interface between linguistic and literary studies - explores the possibility of developing a ‘Marxist- stylistic’ method of text interpretation, which primarily proceeds from Althusserian Marxist Criticism, but which also incorporates salient elements of Critical Discourse Analysis. In construction of the method, the thesis first investigates the need for Althusserian Marxist criticism to be mediated, and more specifically, the areas in which this mediation is required. The thesis then crosses over to the field of Critical Discourse Analysis where it identifies relevant theoretical and methodological resources that are capable of mediating the ‘gaps’ identified in Althusserian Marxist criticism. The construction of the Marxist stylistic method is then effected through the transfer of germane theoretical and methodological resources from Critical Discourse Analysis to Althusserian Marxist criticism. The distinctive properties of the emergent Marxist-stylistic method are delineated before the method is practically applied to the interpretation of at least four fictional texts – all written and set in Zimbabwe. The key outcome of the thesis is that a distinctive method of text interpretation, which meaningfully separates itself from Althusserian Marxist criticism, on the one hand, and Critical Discourse Analysis, on the other, emerges. The thesis concludes with a reflection on the application of the method and makes some suggestions for further research and development in the area herein labelled as ‘Marxist stylistics.’
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Butale, Phenyo. "Discourses of poverty in literature : assessing representations of indigence in post-colonial texts from Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/96749.
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Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2015ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis undertakes a comparative reading of post-colonial literature written in English in Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe to bring into focus the similarities and differences between fictional representations of poverty in these three countries. The thesis explores the unique way in which literature may contribute to the better understanding of poverty, a field that has hitherto been largely dominated by scholarship that relies on quantitative analysis as opposed to qualitative approaches. The thesis seeks to use examples from selected texts to illustrate that (as many social scientists have argued before) literature provides insights into the ‘lived realities’ of the poor and that with its vividly imagined specificities it illuminates the broad generalisations about poverty established in other (data-gathering) disciplines. Selected texts from the three countries destabilise the usual categories of gender, race and class which are often utilised in quantitative studies of poverty and by so doing show that experiences of poverty cut across and intersect all of these spheres and the experiences differ from one person to another regardless of which category they may fall within. The three main chapters focus primarily on local indigence as depicted by texts from the three countries. The selection of texts in the chapters follows a thematic approach and texts are discussed by means of selective focus on the ways in which they address the theme of poverty. Using three main theorists – Maria Pia Lara, Njabulo Ndebele and Amartya Sen – the thesis focuses centrally on how writers use varying literary devices and techniques to provide moving depictions of poverty that show rather than tell the reader of the unique experiences that different characters and different communities have of deprivation and shortage of basic needs.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis onderneem ‘n vergelykende studie van post-koloniale letterkunde in Engels uit Botswana, Namibië en Zimbabwe, om sodoende die ooreenstemmings en verskille tussen letterkundige uitbeeldings van armoede in hierdie drie lande aan die lig te bring. Die tesis ondersoek die unieke manier waarop letterkunde kan bydra tot ‘n beter begrip van armoede, ‘n studieveld wat tot huidiglik grotendeels op kwantitatiewe analises berus, in teenstelling met kwalitatiewe benaderings. Die tesis se werkswyse gebruik voorbeelde uit gelekteerde tekste met die doel om te illustreer (soos verskeie sosiaal-wetenskaplikes reeds aangevoer het) dat letterkunde insig voorsien in die lewenservarings van armoediges en dat dit die breë veralgemenings aangaande armoede in ander (data-gebaseerde) wetenskappe kan illumineer. Geselekteerde tekste uit die drie lande destabiliseer die gewone kategorieë van gender, ras en klas wat normaaalweg gebruik word in kwantitatiewe studies van armoede, om sodoende aan te toon dat die ervaring van armoede dwarsdeur hierdie klassifikasies sny en dat hierdie tipe lewenservaring verskil van persoon tot persoon ongeag in watter kategorie hulle geplaas word. Die drie sentrale hoofstukke fokus primêr op lokale armoede soos uitgebeeld in tekste vanuit die drie lande. Die seleksie van tekste in die hoofstukke volg ‘n tematiese patroon en tekste word geanaliseer na aanleiding van ‘n selektiewe fokus op die maniere waarop hulle armoede uitbeeld. Deur gebruik te maak van ‘ die teorieë van Maria Pia Lara, Njabulo Ndebele en Amartya Sen, fokus hierdie tesis sentraal op hoe skrywers verskeie literêre metodes en tegnieke aanwend ten einde ontroerende uitbeeldings van armoede te skep wat die leser wys liewer as om hom/haar slegs te vertel aangaande die unieke ervarings wat verskillende karakters en gemeenskappe het van ontbering en die tekort aan basiese behoefte-voorsiening.
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Andrade, Nayara Cristina Rodrigues de. "“A casa tornou-se minha mente": a representação da realidade em The House of Hunger, de Dambudzo Marechera." Universidade Federal de Goiás, 2016. http://repositorio.bc.ufg.br/tede/handle/tede/6542.
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The aim of this research and of the dissertation resulting from it is the analysis of the construction of the representation of reality in the book The House of Hunger (1978), by Dambudzo Marechera. Prominent writer from Zimbabwe, inscribed in the African Literature in English, his works do not have yet translations into Portuguese. In his own country, he has suffered several accusations for refusing to write according to the Preand Post-Independence national call to the production of works under the 19th century Realism and the 20th century Socialist Realism. His rejection of these “traditions” has resulted in a critical fortune that sometimes vilifies his works for being antirealist and anti-mimetic. This work focuses primarily on tracing how the concept of mimesis already presented differences in Ancient Greece, through Plato’s and Aristotle’s ideas, and how the contribution of the theorist Erich Auerbach (2013) collaborates for the analysis and understanding of the construction of the representation of reality in the works by Dambudzo Marechera, which re-evaluates the charges against the author afore mentioned. For the development of this thesis, we decided to focus our attention on the novel “The House of Hunger” and the short stories “Burning in the Rain” and “The Transformation of Harry”, through the analysis of how the choice of the narrative point of view used in the works and how their narratives are constructed help for the construction of the representation of reality. In the Third Chapter, we made use of the postcolonial theories by Homi Bhabha (1998) and Frantz Fanon (2005) to help us analyze how mimesis is built in the short story “Black Skin What Mask”, through an identity crisis suffered by the protagonist-character. The short-story, which has in its title an obvious paraphrase of the title of Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks (2008), has the construction of reality emerging through the tension between the fictional entity and the environment, which is a configuration of what Erich Auerbach understands mimesis is.
O objetivo desta pesquisa e da dissertação dela resultante é a análise da construção da representação da realidade no livro The House of Hunger (1978), de Dambudzo Marechera. Proeminente escritor do Zimbábue, inscrito na literatura africana de língua inglesa, suas obras ainda não têm traduções para a língua portuguesa. Dentro do seu país, o autor foi alvo de diversas acusações por se negar a escrever segundo a chamada nacional pré e pós-independência, que objetivava produzir obras que obedecessem à estética do realismo do século XIX ou do realismo socialista do século XX. Sua rejeição a essa “tradição” resultou em uma fortuna crítica que, por vezes, vilipendia suas obras por serem antirrealistas e antimiméticas. Esta dissertação tem como foco principal traçar o modo como o conceito de mímesis já apresentava divergências desde a Grécia antiga, com Platão e Aristóteles, e como as contribuições do teórico Erich Auerbach (2013) colaboram para a análise e entendimento do modo da construção da representação da realidade na obra de Dambudzo Marechera, o que reavalia a acusação mencionada anteriormente. Para o desenvolvimento desta dissertação, decidimos focar nossa atenção na novela “The House of Hunger” e os contos “Burning in the Rain” e “The Transformation of Harry”, para analisamos como a escolha do foco narrativo usado nas obras e o modo como suas narrativas são construídas ajudam na construção da representação da realidade. No capítulo terceiro, fizemos uso das teorias pós-coloniais de Homi Bhabha (1998) e de Frantz Fanon (2005) para analisarmos o modo como a mímesis é construída no conto “Black Skin What Mask”, através de uma crise identitária vivenciada pelo personagem-protagonista. O conto, que tem em seu título uma paráfrase evidente da obra Pele negra, máscaras brancas (2008), de Frantz Fanon, tem sua realidade construída em meio à tensão entre a entidade ficcional e o ambiente, o que é a configuração daquilo que Erich Auerbach considera seja a mímesis.
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Berndt, Katrin. "Female identity in contemporary Zimbabwean fiction /." Bayreuth : Thielmann & Breitinger, 2005. http://bvbr.bib-bvb.de:8991/F?func=service&doc_library=BVB01&doc_number=013041976&line_number=0001&func_code=DB_RECORDS&service_type=MEDIA.
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Cumpsty, Rebekah Lindiwe Levitt. "'Lean[ing] into transcendence' : transformations of the sacred in South African, Zimbabwean and Nigerian literatures." Thesis, University of York, 2016. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/13953/.
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Enchantment is a defining feature our postcolonial, globalised world and the literary is where much of this wonder is registered and celebrated. Thus this thesis attends to the postcolonial dynamic of sacred and secular experience as it is represented in contemporary African literatures. Debates around the secular and postsecular are long standing in the fields of religious studies, anthropology and philosophy, but as yet underappreciated in literary studies. I develop a hermeneutic of the imminent sacred as a way to read the constitutive and recuperative gestures subjects make as they assert a sense of belonging in spaces of globalised modernity. The texts are grouped thematically. In response to Chris Abani and Yvonne Vera’s work I articulate how the ritual dimensions of lyrical prose and ritual attention to the corporeal form sacralises the body. Phaswane Mpe and Teju Cole incorporate African epistemologies into the resignification of their cities and with Ivan Vladislavić, the streets are sacralised. Marlene van Niekerk and J. M. Coetzee convey the anxieties of settler colonialism and a love of land reinscribed as sublime. Collectively, the novels I discuss reflect patterns of existential anxiety that emerge from difficulties of belonging, and I trace the ritualised and sacralising strategies of incorporation that seek to locate the subject. These novels radically disrupt the epistemological and ontological modalities of globalised ‘secular’ literary production and intervene in the recuperation of the sacred as a mode of incorporation and resistance. Recent scholarship in African literatures has overlooked these distinctly postsecular negotiations and the ways in which the sacred is reinvested in contemporary African fiction in order to instantiate intimate, local alternatives to the teleology of secular modernity. Thus I use the imminent sacred as a reading strategy that foregrounds these postsecular negotiations and the interrelations of care and vulnerability that motivate sacralisation.
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Bamiro, Edmund Olushina. "The English language and the construction of cultural and social identity in Zimbabwean and Trinbagonian literatures." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk3/ftp04/nq23975.pdf.
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Tagwirei, Cuthbeth. "Should I stay or should I go : Zimbabwes white writing, 1980 to 2011." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/95815.
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Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2014.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis finds its epistemological basis in two related motives: the re-conceptualisation of white writing in Zimbabwe as a sub-category of Zimbabwean literature, and the recognition of white narratives as necessarily dialogic. The first motive follows the realization that writing by Zimbabwean whites is systematically marginalized from “mainstream” Zimbabwean literature owing to its perceived irrelevance to the postcolonial Zimbabwean nation. Through an application of Even-Zohar’s polysystem theory, this thesis argues for a recognition of white writing as a literary sub-system existing in relation to other literary and non-literary systems in Zimbabwe’s polysystem of culture. As its second motive, the thesis also calls for a critical approach to white Zimbabwean narratives built on the understanding that the study of literature can no longer be left to monologic approaches alone. Rather, white narratives should be considered as multiple and hence amenable to a multiplicity of approaches that recognize dialogue as an essential aspect of all narratives. The thesis attempts, by closely reading nine white-authored narratives in Zimbabwe, to demonstrate that white Zimbabwean literature is characterized by multiplicity, simultaneity and instability; these are tropes developed from Bakhtin’s understanding of utterances as characterized by a minimum of two voices. To consider white writing in Zimbabwe as a multiplicity is to call forth its numerous dimensions and breadth of perceptions. Simultaneity posits the need to understand opposites/conflicts as capable of existing side by side without necessarily dissolving into unity. Instability captures the several movements and destabilizations that affect writers, characters and the literary system. These three tropes enable a re-reading of white Zimbabwean narratives as complex and multi-nuanced. Such characteristics of the literary system are seen to reflect on the experiences of “whiteness” in postcolonial Zimbabwe. The white narratives selected for examination in this thesis therefore exhibit crises of belonging that reflect the dialogic nature of existence. In sum, this thesis is meant as a dialogue, culminating in the proposition that calls for a decentred and redemptive literary experience.
AFRIKKANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis vestig sy epistemologiese basis in twee verwante motiewe: die herkonseptualisering van skryfwerk deur wit skrywers in Zimbabwe as ’n sub-kategorie van Zimbabwiese letterkunde, en die erkenning van wit narratiewe as onontkombaar dialogies in aard en wese. Die eerste motief volg die argument dat die skryfwerke van wit Zimbabwieërs stelselmatig gemarginaliseer is uit “hoofstroom” Zimbabwiese literatuur, as gevolg van dié skryfwerke se beweerde irrelevansie tot die koloniale Zimbabwiese nasie-staat. Deur Even-Zohar se polisisteem teorie toe te pas, pleit hierdie tesis vir die erkenning van letterkunde deur wit skrywers as ’n literêre sub-stelsel wat bestaan in verhouding tot ander literêre en nie-literêre sisteme in Zimbabwe se polisisteem van kultuur. As sy tweede motief, vra die tesis ook vir ’n kritiese benadering tot wit Zimbabwiese narratiewe, gebou op die verstandhouding dat die studie van letterkunde nie meer suiwer aan monologies benaderings oorgelewer behoort te word nie. Inteendeel, wit narratiewe moet as veelsydig beskou word, en dus vatbaar vir ’n verskeidenheid benaderings wat dialoog as ’n noodsaaklike aspek van alle verhale erken en verken. Deur nege wit outeurs se verhale in Zimbabwe noukeurig te lees, dui hierdie tesis aan dat wit Zimbabwiese literatuur gekenmerk word deur veelvuldigheid, gelyktydigheid en onstabiliteit; hieride is teoretiese konsepte wat ontleen is aan Bakhtin se begrip van uitsprake (“utterances”) as bestaande uit ’n minimum van twee stemme. Om wit lettere in Zimbabwe as veelvuldig te verklaar is om die talle dimensies en breedtes van persepsie in letterkundige korpus te erken. Gelyktydig postuleer die tesis die moontlikheid dat teenoorgesteldes/konflikte langs mekaar kan en móét bestaan, sonder om noodwendig in ’n eenheid te ontaard. Onstabiliteit, soos dit hier verstaan word, omvat die verskillende bewegings en ontstuimige roeringe wat skrywers, karakters en die literêre sisteem beïnvloed. Hierdie drie konsepte laat ’n herlees van wit Zimbabwiese verhale toe wat as kompleks en multi-genuanseerd bestempel kan word. Sulke kenmerke van die literêre sisteem moet in ag geneem word om die ervaring van “witheid” in post-koloniale Zimbabwe effektief uit te beeld. Die wit verhale wat gekies is vir herlees in hierdie tesis beeld dus krisisse van bestaan uit wat die dialogiese aard van die menslike bestaan omvat. Ter afsluiting is hierdie tesis bedoel as ’n dialoog wat kulmineer in ’n oproep vir gedensentraliseerde en verlossende ervarings van die letterkunde in sy geheel.
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Mabweazara, Hayes. "New technologies and print journalism practice in Zimbabwe : an ethnographic study." Thesis, Edinburgh Napier University, 2010. http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/5884.
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This study uses an ethnographic approach (participant observation in conjunction with indepth group and individual interviews) to closely examine how Zimbabwean print journalists in the state-controlled and private press deploy new K'Ts (the Internet; email; and the mobile phone) in their everyday professional practices. It explores how immediate conditions of practice and broader social circumstances set conditions for distinctive forms of new technology use, as well as how the technologies are impacting on traditional journalistic standards, values, and practices. The study rejects deterministic approaches to technology and argues that to understand the impact of new technologies on journalism practice in Africa, we must put journalists into a critical analytical context that takes into account contextual factors that coalesce to structure and constrain the uses of the technologies. To conceptualise the structuring impact of context and the degree of agency available to journalists in their deployment of new technologies, the study reinvigorates the sociology of journalism and social constructivist approaches to technology. The findings of the study offer insider perspectives of the practices and cultures around new technology use in the newsrooms and point to complex individual and socially patterned explanations of the appropriations of the technologies. While newsroom practices and cultures examined here broadly affirm early studies by showing: how new technologies impact on journalists' work routines; the news content they produce; the structure of their work environment; and their relationships with sources and readers, a closer analysis points to a number of contextual factors that collectively shape and constrain the uses of the technologies. These factors result in 'local context' appropriations that move beyond a simple substantiation of early studies. Thus, while the technologies offer journalists a wide range of resources and technological possibilities to work with, they also pose ethical and professional challenges. These and other findings highlight the deficiencies of deterministic or 'technicist' approaches to technology and their claims for a straightforward causal connection between technology and society. The study should thus be read as a challenge to the popular and utopian assumptions about the impact of new technologies on African journalism and as a dialogue with constructivist approaches that see technologies as inherently open to interpretive flexibility.
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Gambahaya, Zifikile. "An analysis of the social vision of post-independence Zimbabwean writers with special reference to Shona and Ndebele poetry." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/9678.
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Includes bibliographical references.This dissertation analyses creative trends in Shona and Ndebele poetry published after the attainment of political independence in 1980. The research tries to establish the close link between poems in the two national languages and post-independence Zimbabwean history in order to examine the link between creative writing and nationalism, which is the context in which creativity takes place, an attempt is made to outline major trends in nationalist history vis-a-vis colonialism. Having set the background for analysis, the research focuses on texts that are published in the context of the apparent cultural renaissance that is ushered by the apparent victory of African nationalism over colonialism. The texts are analysed in the context of the dialectic of nationalism and colonialism.
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Graham, James John George. "Writing the land : representations of 'the land' and nationalism in Anglophone literature from South Africa and Zimbabwe 1969-2002." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2006. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/54215/.
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As a material possession and as an imagined space of belonging, land was the principle draw for European settlers in southern Africa from the 17th century onwards. The legacy of racial dispossession and conflict that ensued still resonates in the 21 st century, as post-colonial nation-states face up to the daunting task of redistributing land between newly enfranchised peasants, commercial farmers and displaced communities. Representations of 'the land' in literature signal not only geographical entities but also a variety of social and cultural landscapes. In literature written in English from southern Africa the semantic terrain of 'the land' is thus constituted by a diverse range of experiences, encounters and ideologies, testifying to the manifold contradictions that settler colonialism produced. The primary concern of this thesis is to examine how writers from Zimbabwe and South Africa have engaged with these experiences and articulated them as historical 'structures of feeling' (Williams 1978) in their work. In particular, it explores the relationship between representations of 'the land' and the articulation of nationhood and nationalism in selected novels. It argues that certain structures of feeling rival official nationalist discourses in varied and subversive ways. As a comparative project, it focuses on literature produced at important historical moments both before and after the transition to majority rule in South Africa (1994) and Zimbabwe (1980). A transition between two major structures of feeling is identified within this comparative horizon. This thesis explores how representations of 'the land' both propagate and question an ideology of (revolutionary) repossession in the 1970s, but also of (reconciliatory) reform in the 1990s.
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Bolzt, Kerstin. "Women as artists in contemporary Zimbabwe /." Eckersdorf, Germany : Breitinger, 2007. http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/fy0804/2008400471.html.
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Brito, Gustavo Santana Miranda. "Grandes casas de pedra: o corpo, a terra e a memória na ficção de Chenjerai Hove." Universidade Federal de Goiás, 2013. http://repositorio.bc.ufg.br/tede/handle/tede/7708.
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Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES
The present dissertation will analyze the relations established between the Body, the Land and the Memory in three novels of the Zimbabwean poet and novelist Chenjerai Hove: Bones (1988), Shadows (1991) e Ancestors (1996). The study of the novels revealed the deep relation that the natives of Rhodesia, nowadays called Zimbabwe, had with their lands and their ancestors. The objective of this paper is to present the profound changes that happened in the culture of the Shona ethnicity after the arrival of the colonizers and the missionaries in the end of the XIX Century. The perspective adopted to this criticism observes in each of the novels the characters’ native bodies in a intense struggle between two misbalanced forces that used to be the fundaments of the ancient Zimbabwean reality. In one side there is the Land, considered holy because of its mystical aspect. The Land carries the umbilical cords of every newborn and the bones of all deceased, and it is the home of the ancestors, called Pasí. On the other side rest the Ancestors, responsible for the accumulation of knowledge. The Ancestors represent the collective memory of the Shona people; they connect the individuals to nature due to their transcendence. With the Ancestors each Shona can talk to the land and be heard through the religious ears of their ancient forefathers. However, when the colonizers arrived, called those without knees because of their pants, they imposed, with violence, a whole new culture to that ancient model of existence. This work will evaluate the consequences of the imposition of the colonizer’s culture, present in every page of each novel; what caused the loss of local religious traditions, deeply rooted moral behaviors, farming techniques and so many other aspects of the colonized culture. For the Body, the physical violence, the imposition of the English language and the prohibition of the local dialects; for the Land, the new and imported profit-driven farming cultures; for the Memory, the imposition of Christianity. Because of those material and immaterial wounds the new generations are forced to recover their ancestors’ memory by recreating an updated version of their past. Following this track, this study also dedicates its pages to the observation of the subaltern and peripheral position of the black Zimbabwean woman, being sexually and intellectually discriminated by the patrilinear system in a society that must evolve to solve their own cultural problems of discrimination as well as those created by the colonization.
A presente dissertação irá analisar as relações estabelecidas entre o Corpo, a Terra e a Memória em três romances do poeta e romancista Zimbabuense, Chenjerai Hove: Bones (1988), Shadows (1991) e Ancestors (1996). O estudo dos romances revelou a profunda relação que os habitantes da antiga Rodésia, hoje Zimbábue, tinham com suas terras e com seus ancestrais. O objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar as profundas mudanças que ocorreram na cultura da etnia Shona, depois da chegada dos colonizadores e missionários, no final do século XIX. A perspectiva adotada por esta crítica observa em cada um dos corpos dos personagens nativos uma intensa luta entre duas forças desequilibradas, que costumavam ser o fundamento da realidade ancestral do Zimbábue. De um lado tem-se a Terra, considerada sagrada por seu aspecto místico. A Terra carrega os cordões umbilicais de todos os recém-nascidos e os ossos de todos os que já se foram, ela é a casa dos ancestrais, chamada por eles de Pasí. Do outro lado estão os ancestrais, responsáveis pelo acúmulo de conhecimento. Os ancestrais representam a memória coletiva do povo Shona; eles conectam os indivíduos à natureza através de sua transcendência. Com os Ancestrais, cada Shona pode conversar com a terra e ser escutado através dos ouvidos místicos de seus pais espirituais. No entanto, quando chegam os colonizadores, chamados de aqueles sem joelhos, por causa de suas calças, eles impuseram, através da violência, uma cultura totalmente nova para aquele modelo ancestral de existência. Esta dissertação avalia as consequências da imposição da cultura do colonizador, presente em cada página de todos os romances, o que causa a perda das tradições religiosas locais, comportamentos morais profundamente enraizados, técnicas de manejo da terra, e tantos outros aspectos da cultura colonizada. Para o Corpo, a violência física, a imposição da língua inglesa e a proibição dos dialetos locais. Para a Terra, nova técnicas de cultivo do solo e de manejo de animais, direcionadas para o lucro. Para a Memória, a imposição do Cristianismo. Por causa dessas feridas materiais e imateriais, as novas gerações são forçadas a recuperar sua memória ancestral através de uma recriação atualizada de seu passado. Seguindo essa trilha, este estudo também se dedica a observação da mulher negra zimbabuense, sendo discriminada sexual e intelectualmente por um sistema patrilinear em uma sociedade que deve resolver seus próprios problemas culturais de discriminação, assim como aqueles legados pela colonização.
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Rathke, Annemarie. "Doris Lessing, Yvonne Vera: comparative views of Zimbabwe /." Heidelberg : Winter, 2008. http://d-nb.info/99103273X/04.
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Pattison, David. "From Rhodesia to Zimbabwe via Oxford and London : a study of the career of Dambudzo Marechera." Thesis, University of Hull, 1998. http://hydra.hull.ac.uk/resources/hull:3859.
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[From the introduction] : In my first chapter I will offer a review of Marechera's reputation and the critical reception given to his work, both during his life and since his death. In Chapter Two I Will outline the major theoretical issues raised by Marechera's work: Art versus psychological catharsis; the artist-as-communal-spokesman versus the artist-as-Romantic-individualist; nationalism versus literary universalism. Chapters Three, Four, Five and Six will then consider in sequence, the work produced in Oxford, in London and in Harare, tracing the writer's physical and psychological deterioration through his evolving prose style. Each of these chapters will also focus on a major relevant critical issue. Thus Chapter Three will examine The House of Hunger, written following Marechera's arrival in Oxford, in the context of 'culture clash', 'the African heritage' and Postcolonialism which so preoccupied its original reviewers. Chapter Four will examine Black Sunlight and The Black Insider, written while the author was destitute in London, in terms of Jung's 'neurosis or art' debate. Chapter Five will examine Mindblast and Chapter Six will examine Scrapiron Blues, both containing material written after Marecheras' return to Harare, making reference to the historical and socio-political context of post-colonial Zimbabwe and to the writer's unsuccessful attempts to establish a role with the nation builders. I will conclude in Chapter Seven by discussing Marechera's place within the Zimbabwean literary canon, the current relevance and influence of his work and the implications this holds for the future of Zimbabwean writing.
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ARAÚJO, Cibele de Guadalupe Sousa. "Uma leitura da representação do feminino na ficção de Yvonne Vera." Universidade Federal de Goiás, 2010. http://repositorio.bc.ufg.br/tede/handle/tde/2381.
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Previous issue date: 2010-12-15The aim of this research and of the dissertation from it is the analysis of the fictional work of Yvone Vera, a prominent writer from Zimbabwe. Incribed in the African literature written in English, her works are well known and studied internationally, and they have been translated into many idioms such as Spanish, French, Italian and German. However, this work is not very known in Brazil. Therefore, this study observe the author´s treatment of cultural, social, political and gender questions, in a period that comprehend almost a century of the Zimbabwean history, since the intensification of the colonizer occupation and the First Chimurenga (the liberation movement) until the period after the Second Chimurenga (the war for indepence), after 1980. The main focus of the dissertation is the study of the feminine representation in Vera s work, as it appear in her short-story collection Why Don t You Carve Other Animals? (1993), and in her novels Nehanda (1993), Without a Name (1994), Under the Tongue (1996), Butterfly Burning (1998), The Stone Virgins (2002): the construction of the feminine identity, the struggle for women´s emancipation, the position of women in the colonial society and in the fight for the liberation of the country from the colonial Power, as well as the difference introduced by the independence of the country in the lives of Zimbawean women.
O objetivo desta pesquisa e da dissertação dela resultante é a análise da obra ficcional de Yvone Vera, proeminente escritora do Zimbábue. Inscritos na literatura africana de língua inglesa, seus trabalhos são bem divulgados e estudados internacionalmente, contando com traduções em diversos idiomas como o espanhol, o francês, o italiano e o alemão. Todavia, essa obra é ainda pouco difundida no Brasil. Assim, este estudo observa o tratamento dado pela autora às questões culturais, sócio-políticas e de gênero, num período que cobre praticamente um século da história do Zimbábue, desde a intensificação da ocupação colonizadora e a Primeira Chimurenga (movimento de libertação) até o período posterior à Segunda Chimurenga (guerra pela independência), depois de 1980. O foco principal da dissertação é o estudo da representação do feminino na obra de Vera, tal como aparece na coletânea de contos Why Don t You Carve Other Animals? (1992) e nos romances Nehanda (1993), Without a Name (1994), Under the Tongue (1996), Butterfly Burning (1998), The Stone Virgins (2002): a construção da identidade feminina, a luta pela emancipação da mulher na sociedade colonial e na luta pela libertação do país do poder colonial, assim como a diferença introduzida pela independência na vida das mulheres do Zimbábue.
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Nyoni, Triyono Johan. ""The Buttocks of a Snake" : Oral tradition in NoViolet Bulawayo's We Need New Names." Thesis, Karlstads universitet, 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-70824.
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Neumann, Stephanie. "Gebrochenes Schweigen." Doctoral thesis, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Philosophische Fakultät III, 2003. http://dx.doi.org/10.18452/14973.
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In der zimbawischen Literatur sind die Themen Nation, Körper, Gewalt, Sprache und Erinnerung aufs engste miteinander verbunden. Durch den Einfluß von Yvonne Vera hat sich in den 90er Jahren das Bild des weiblichen Körpers und insbesondere die Diskussion um koloniale und postkoloniale Gewalt deutlich verändert. Im ersten Teil der Arbeit geht es um die Frage nach Nation. Unterschiedliche Darstellungen von Nehanda und den Kämpferinnen des 2. Chimurenga werden näher beleuchtet. Außerdem geht es um Veras "pastoral novel" in der sie von einer weißen Farmersfrau erzählt. Im zweiten Teil geht es um die Körperkonzepte in der zimbabwischen Literatur. Gewalt in der Familie und vor allem der weibliche Körper als Schlachtfeld steht hier im Mittelpunkt. Die Vergewaltigte und die Prostituierte sind auch weiterhin Symbole für den kolonisierten afrikanischen Kontinent. Vera versucht diese Frauen aus einer anderen Perspektive zu betrachten. Bei ihr geht es um die Erfahrung der Frauen selbst. Der dritte Teil der Arbeit befasst sich schließlich mit der Frage nach der Darstellbarkeit von Gewalt. Wie ist es möglich von Gewalt zu erzählen, ohne die Gewalt zu reproduzieren? Vera beantwortet diese Frage mit der Reflexion über des Erzählen. Bei ihr wirkt Sprache heilend.In Zimbabwean literature, the themes of nation, body, violence, language, and memory are closely connected. The dissertation analyses, how the treatment of these themes changed significantly during the 1990s. The focus lies on Yvonne Vera's work and its influence on the image of the female body and the debate about colonial as well as postcolonial violence. The first part deals with the question of nation at the example of various narratives about Nehanda and other female freedom fighters in the Second Chimurenga. Further material is drawn from Vera's "pastural novel", in which she tells about a white settler woman. The second part looks at body concepts in Zimbabwean literature. Special attention is paid to domestic violence and the image of the female body as battlefield. The raped woman and the prostitute are still widely used as symbols for the colonized African continent. Vera tries to break with this tradition by looking at such female characters from the perspective of their own experiences. The third part, finally, raises the issue of the representation of violence. How is possible to write about violence without reproducing it? Vera answers this question by reflecting about narration. Language thus works as a healing power in her texts.
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Gonye, Jairos. "Representations of dance in Zimbabwean literature, post - 1960." Thesis, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/11602/350.
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Taitz, Laurice. "Where once our heroes danced there is nothing but a hideous stain: nationalism and contemporary Zimbabwean literature." Thesis, 1996. https://hdl.handle.net/10539/26755.
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A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg,
in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Art.This study demonstrates the relationship between nationalism and identity formation by exploring the ways in which Zimbabwean writers have constructed identities within the context of a nationalist struggle for independence. By focusing on the predominant themes of disease, alienation and disintegration, it explores how these identities emphasise difference and heterogeneity in response to the homogenising discourses of colonialism and nationalism. The disparity between the ways in which nationalism articulates itself and is apprehended, and the ways in which nationalism allows for the foregrounding of particular identities is illustrated by reference to the idea of a pact or alliance - an agreement reached on the basis of the necessity of defeating colonialism. WhiIe motivations are often disparate, this common goal allows for a show of unity, often mistaken as homogeneity. The achievement of independence entails a shift in priorities, where those differing identities that previously seemed homogenous, come to the fore precisely to emphasise their difference.
Andrew Chakane 2019
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Chigwedere, Yuleth. "Head of darkness : representations of "madness" in postcolonial Zimbabwean literature." Thesis, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/20981.
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This study critically explores the numerous strains of “madness” that Zimbabwean authors represent in their postcolonial literature. My focus is on their reflection of “madness” as either an individual state of being, or as symptomatic of the socio-political and economic condition in the country. I have adopted insights from an existential psychoanalytic framework in my literary analysis in order to bring in an innovative dimension to this investigation of the phenomenon. I consider this an appropriate stance for this study as it has enriched my reading of the literary texts under study, as well as played a crucial role in providing me with effective conceptual tools for understanding the manifestations of “madness” in the texts. The literary works that I critique are Shimmer Chinodya’s Chairman of Fools (2009), Mashingaidze Gomo’s A Fine Madness (2010), Brian Chikwava’s Harare North, Petina Gappah’s An Elegy for Easterly (2009), Tsitsi Dangarembga’s The Book of Not (2006) and Yvonne Vera’s Without a Name (1994) and Butterfly Burning (1998). These selected texts offer me an opportunity to analyse the gender dynamics and discourses of “madness”, which I do from a peculiarly indigenous and feminist perspective. My study reveals that these authors’ representations are located in and shaped by very specific temporal and spatial contexts, which, in turn, shed light on the characters’ existential reality, revealing aspects of their relationship with the world around them. It demonstrates that their notions of “madness” denote different markers of identity, such as race, class, gender, and religion, amongst others. Significantly, my literary analysis illustrates the varied permutations of “madness” by exposing how these authors characterise the phenomenon as trauma, as alienation, as depression, as insanity, as subversion, as freedom, and even as a sign of the
state of affairs in Zimbabwe. This investigation also reveals that because “madness” in these authors’ fiction is intricately linked to the question of identity, it manifests in situations where the characters’ sense of ontological security is compromised in some way. What emerges is that “madness” can either signify a grapple with identity, a loss of it, or a struggle for its redefinitionEnglish Studies
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Musanga, Terrence. "The depiction of migration and identity in Zimbabwean Literature from 1980-2010." Thesis, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/11602/317.
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Muwati, Itai. "Interface of history and fiction : the Zimbabwean liberation war novel." Thesis, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/18686.
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The research examines the interface of history and fiction. It predominantly focuses on historical fiction on the Zimbabwean liberation war written in Shona, Ndebele and English and published after the attainment of political independence in 1980. Historical fiction on the liberation war is both biographical and autobiographical. Consequently, the study comes to the conclusion that historical fiction is a veritable stakeholder in the history issue in Zimbabwe. It becomes another type or source of history that cannot be papered over when dealing with the nation’s history. In a nation where liberation war history is not only taken seriously, but is also a vigorously contested terrain, historical fiction becomes part of those discursive contestations, particularly on nation and nationalism. It is in this regard that the study problematises the interface of history and fiction by reasoning that historical fiction published in the early 1980s largely advances a state-centered perspective which views history, nation and nationalism in positive terms. This discourse uses history in order to argue for a single nation that derives its identity from the heroic and symbolic guerrilla characters. Nationalism is exclusively presented as humanising and as being the sole legitimate political brand capable of leading the nation. On the other hand, historical fiction written in English and published in the late 1980s onwards represents alternative historical truths that contest nationalism and debunk official definitions of nation. This discourse leads to the pluralisation of perspectives on nation and nationalism. The focus on historical fiction published in three languages used in Zimbabwe is a conscious attempt to transcend ethnicity in critical scholarship. Discussing novels in Shona, Ndebele and English, which are the three main languages in Zimbabwe, makes it possible for the study to draw reasoned conclusions on the bearing of time, language, region and background among others on historical representation. This undertaking brings to the fore how literature responding to similar historical processes appears moderately conjunctive and principally disjunctive. Correspondingly, it also shows various trends in the development of liberation war fiction in Zimbabwe.African Languages
D. Litt. et Phil. (African Languages)
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Saneliso, Thambo. "Mobilities, Migration and Identities in Selected Zimbabwean Fictional Narratives." Diss., 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/11602/1156.
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MA (English)Department of English
This study examines the representation of the Zimbabwean migrant experiences in both regional and international migrations. It utilizes narratives that highlight the experiences of the Zimbabweans who migrate thereby exploring issues of mobility and identity. These narratives are Harare North (2010), An Elegy for Easterly (2010), Zebra Crossing (2013), We Need New Names (2014) and The Maestro, The Magistrate and The Mathematician (2014). These narratives have been utilized in the study to argue that migrants encounter traumatic experiences as they cross either the regional or international spaces they move to in search of better economic prospects. It further explores the kinds of trauma that they are subjected to, ranging from racism, the threat and reality of xenophobic attacks, the intricacy of negotiating an existence and a livelihood in these new spaces, searching for employment, to mention a few. The study argues that the migration experience has a catastrophic effect on the migrants’ psychological state, represented as partially being caused by the realization that the host country presents its own set of challenges and is also hostile, a different reality from the preconceived romanticized view of the countries they migrate to. The study argues that the selected novels foreground the inhospitable nature of the Zimbabwean post-2000 political instabilities and the socio-economic meltdown as fostering the forced trans-migrations of Zimbabweans in an effort to escape poverty and political challenges.
NRF
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Gudhlanga, Enna Sukutai. "Gender and land ownership in Zimbabwean literature : a critical appraisal in selected Shona fiction." Thesis, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/24806.
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The study has been prompted by the gap that exists regarding gender and land in Zimbabwean fiction. The study therefore seeks to interrogate the gender and land ownership discourse in Shona fiction in relation to the current conflict of access to land by race, class and gender. The study therefore examines the following fictional works; Feso (1956), Dzasukwa-Mwana-Asina-Hembe (1967), Pafunge (1972), Kuridza Ngoma Nedemo (1985), Vavariro (1990) and Sekai Minda Tave Nayo (2005). Of significance is the fact that the selected fictional works traverse the different historical periods that Zimbabwe as a nation has evolved through. Apart from analysing the selected fictional works, the study also collected data through open-ended interviews and questionnaires to triangulate findings from the fictional works. The selected fictional writers present the different experiences of black Zimbabweans through land loss and the strategies taken by the indigenous people in trying to regain their lost heritage, the land. The exegesis of the selected fictional works is guided by Afro-centred perspectives of Africana Womanism and Afrocentricity. Findings from most of the selected fictional works reveals the selective exclusion of blacks, both male and female, from accessing land and other vital resources from the colonial right up to post-independence periods in Zimbabwe. The study observes that Shona traditional culture accorded both genders the requisite space in terms of land ownership in the pre-colonial period. The study also establishes that colonialism through its numerous legislations stripped black men and women of the fertile land which they formerly collectively owned. The study also establishes that disillusioned black men and women worked extremely hard to regain their lost land as reflected in the unsanctioned land grabs as well as the government sanctioned Fast Track Land Reform Programme. Recommendations for future research include the expansion of such research to include works of fiction in other languages as well as different genres. Future land policies stand to benefit from the inclusion of women in decision making since women the world over have been confirmed as workers of the land. This is likely to deal with the gender divide regarding land ownership patterns both within and outside Zimbabwe.African Languages
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Gwekwerere, Tavengwa. "Space, voice and authority : white critical thought on the Black Zimbabwean novel." Thesis, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/13848.
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All bodies of critical discourse on any given literary canon seek visibility through self- celebration, subversion of competing critical ideas and identification with supposedly popular, scientific and incisive critical theories. Thus, the literary-critical quest for significance and visibility is, in essence, a quest for „space‟, „voice‟ and „authority‟ in the discussion of aspects of a given literary corpus. This research explores the politics of „space‟, „voice‟ and „authority‟ in „white critical thought‟ on „the black Zimbabwean novel‟. It unfolds in the context of the realisation that as a body of critical discourse on „the black Zimbabwean novel‟, „white critical thought‟ does not only emerge in an intellectual matrix in which it shares and competes for „space‟, „voice‟ and „authority‟ with other bodies of critical thought on the literary episteme in question; it also develops in the ambit of Euro-African cultural politics of hegemony and resistance. Thus, the
research sets out to identify the ways in which „white critical thought‟ affirms and perpetuates or questions and negates European critical benchmarks and cultural models in
the discussion of selected aspects of „the black Zimbabwean novel‟. The investigation considers the fissures at the heart of „white critical thought‟ as a critical discourse and the
myriad of ways in which it interacts with competing critical discourses on the „the black
Zimbabwean novel‟. It derives impetus from the fact that while other versions of critical
thought on „the black Zimbabwean novel‟ have received extensive metacritical discussion elsewhere, „white critical thought‟ remains largely under-discussed. This phenomenon enables it to solidify into a settled body of critical thought. The metacritical discussion of
„white critical thought‟ in this research constitutes part of the repertoire of efforts that
will help check the solidification of critical discourses into hegemonic bodies of thought. The research makes use of Afrocentric and Postcolonial critical tenets to advance the contention that while „white critical thought‟ on „the black Zimbabwean novel‟ is fraught with fissures and contradictions that speak directly to its complexity and resistance to neat categorisation, it is largely vulnerable to identification as part of the paraphernalia of European cultural and intellectual hegemony in African literature and its criticism, given its tendency to discuss the literature outside the context of critical theories that emerge from the same culture and history with the literary corpus in question.African Languages
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Mbwera, Shereck. "Short stories for life : implications of the Canonisation of the Zimbabwe story-telling tradition, with special reference to selected Zimbabwean short stories." Thesis, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/22592.
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This study examines the myth of the surrogate power of canonicity by exposing the condition of liminality of the Zimbabwean short story genre within African literary canon. Building on the hypothesis that canonisation distorts literature the study postulates that literary canon produce predictable biases in construing the position of the short story. It fossilises and condenses the marginal genres to the extent that the existing canon repertoire hardly recognises them. The peripheral but de facto canon of the short story genre entertains a strong relationship of heteronomy to the mainstream/central canon. This thesis studies this relationship which determines canon formation within the African literary systems. It challenges the prevailing status quo in which the short story is polarised against other literary modes. The polarity creates a charged diametric force between the presumed canonical genres and the supposedly non-canonical short story mess. What lacks in this equation of conflicts is a sense of revival, reformation and continuity of the short story canon. The marginality of the short story canon is predicated on factors external to the genre itself, such as the influence of colonial institutions, collegiate institutions and publishers on writers. These factors pervade the dialectics of canonical marginality of the genre. The study, which argues that there is no unanimity on theory of canon, proposes Africulture, as both a theory and praxis of Afrocentricity, to function as an arbiter of short story literary reputation and consecration. The research reveres the autonomous value of African story-telling tradition which withstood the test and movement of time, in the process, surviving not only the historical-cum-cultural threat of colonial loss and canonical displacement, but also the throes and will power of new media and digital technologies. The ascendancy of the electronic short story genre to canonical status remains questionable. Critical controversies abound about the canonicity of electronic literature. The study employs Technauriture as a theoretical model for rethinking the transcendence of the electronic short story canon. The study concludes that, by virtue of its resilience, the short story ought to be treated as a wholesale and independent genre, worth of full scale appreciation.African Languages
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Muganiwa, Josephine. "Shifting identities: representations of Shona women in selected Zimbabwean fiction." Thesis, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/26875.
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Bibliography: leaves 215-230This thesis uses a postcolonial framework to analyse the construction and representation of identities of Shona women in selected black and white Zimbabwean-authored fiction in English published between 1890 and 2015. The study traces meanings associated with Shona women’s identities as ascribed by dominant powers in every epoch to create narratives that reflect the power dynamics. The thesis argues that identities are complex, characterized by various intersections such as race, gender, class and ethnicity. Shona women have to negotiate their identities in various circumstances resulting in shifting multiple identities. The thesis focuses on how such identities are represented in the selected texts. Findings reveal that the colonial project sought to write the Shona women out of existence, and when they appeared negative images of dirt, slothfulness and immorality were ascribed to them. These images continued after independence to justify male dominance of women. However, the lived experience of women shows they have agency and tend to shift identities in relation to specific circumstances. Shona women’s identities are dynamic and multifarious as they aim at relevance in their socioeconomic and political circumstances. Representations of Shona women’s identities are therefore influenced by the aim of the one representing them. All representations are therefore arbitrary and must be interrogated in order to deconstruct meaning and understand the power dynamics at play. The works analysed are Olive Schreiner’s Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland (1897), Doris Lessing’s The Grass is Singing (1950), Yvonne Vera’s Nehanda (1993), Cythia Marangwanda’s Shards (2014), Valerie Tagwira’s The Uncertainty of Hope (2006), Violet Masilo’s The African Tea Cosy (2010), Eric Harrison’s Jambanja (2006), Dangarembgwa’s The Book of Not (2006), Christopher Mlalazi’s Running with Mother (2012) and Brian Chikwava’s Harare North (2009).
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Mhandu, Edwin. "The nation thing? ‘Enjoyment and well-being’ in the production of cultural spaces in Zimbabwean literature." Thesis, 2018. https://hdl.handle.net/10539/26489.
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A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in English Studies
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2018My thesis develops a frame of understanding of the aesthetic, cultural well-being and enjoyment spaces in Zimbabwean literature through a close reading of selected texts (both fiction and autobiographical narratives). I argue that Zimbabwean literature demonstrates the expanse of ‘enjoyment’ beyond the material. Findings from my analysis establish the position that people create and flourish in enjoyable identity conferring spaces of their own choice, and generate an intercultural mosaic in the process. Unlike the standard criticism of Zimbabwean literature which focuses on wars, trauma, memory, interminable gender struggles, binaries of the city and country, dispossessions and repossessions, the “Zimbabwean crisis” and the diaspora, I explore enjoyment and well-being. I establish that the intercultural nature of “enjoyment and well-being” spaces designates a fractured cosmopolitanism in which classificatory variables like gender, race and ethnicity are problematised. I interrogate enjoyment and well-being that is predicated on the pain and suffering of a scripted and choked “Other”, whichever name that individual may be called: stranger, alien, refugee, migrant and settler among some “Othering” concepts. The subject that Zimbabwean literature establishes has the capacity to enjoy in multifarious ways that which fosters intersubjectivity. People from diverse backgrounds, sexes, and ethnicities find joy, happiness and pleasure in various spaces of interaction or “contact zones” which are identity conferring. The research foregrounds cultural sites in four parts: the land, the body, city spaces and diaspora spaces. Part one considers land as the locus of analysis in the explication of Zimbabwean subjectivities, since land is often deployed as the “discursive threshold” after the Post-2000 land invasions/reforms. I establish the paucity and inadequacy of a conceptualisation of land that derives identities from binaries that designate the Self and Other. I proceed to explore rhythms and textures in nature to demonstrate the richness and inter-subjectivity in the way land, animals, the cosmos and human life are intertwined. Part two demonstrates that the individual body is at the centre of generating its own data and negotiating meanings as physical sensations are expanded to inter-human sensation, contrary to the nation-state’s concept of fashioning subjects. Part three considers city spaces as rendering the atmosphere and environment for subject enjoyment, well-being and authenticity. Beyond and above the sites that are bound by territorial borders, I argue that Zimbabwean subjects enjoy transcendental and diaspora spaces. Part four explores transcendental spaces of enjoyment and well-being at the level of both the individual human mind and nation-spaces. The rise of cellphones, the Ipad, computers and the semiotics of the big and small screens introduce a mind that is able to transcend the exigencies of place through memorialisation, imagi(ni)ng, pictures, ritual and religion. Texts explored in part four demonstrate that people are able to negotiate spaces and places through remediation and travel, both physically and metaphorically, thus breaching the territorial borders of the nation-state. The study suggests the creation and sustenance of climates for various orders of joy, enjoyment and pleasure by nation-states which should desist from dictating the way people enjoy for them to maintain legitimacy. The research underscores the importance of enjoyment and well-being in the configuration of nation-spaces at any given time. This research foregrounds an African response to the global scholarship on the constitution of nation-spaces through the tropes of enjoyment and well-being.
XL2019
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Chigidi, Willie L. "The emergence and development of the Shona detective story as a fictional genre in Zimbabwean literature." Diss., 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/16468.
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This study b·aces the development of the Shona clctective story as a genre different from rhe mainstream
Shona novel. The Shona detective story emerges from the non-detective traditional folktale and
develops into rhree types, namely, the rudimentary form. the pure 'whoduniC, and the detectivethriller.
An attempt is made to show that when the Shona detective story first appeared it was quite elementary
and showed signs of me influence of Shona traditional folklore. But later on authors developed the
detective narrative into pure 'whodunits' and detective-mrillers which showed influence of Western
ftlms and English detective stories.
The study ends with the argument that although at its highest level of development the Shona detective
story manifests characteristics that make it a unique genre different from other Shona novels its
treatment of female characters is not very different from their treatment in the mainstream Shona
novel.African Languages
M.A. (African Languages)
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Naidoo, Salachi. "Gender violence and resistance : representation of women's agency in selected literary works by Zimbabwean female writers." Thesis, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/22609.
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The aim of this study is to offer a critical analysis of representations of gender violence and resistance to such violence in selected novels by Zimbabwean women writers. A great deal of scholarship on Zimbabwean women writers focuses on well-known authors such as Yvonne Vera and Tsitsi Dangarembga. Even here, the critical emphasis tends to be on the representation of women’s suffering under patriarchy and their status as victims. Although the exposure of gendered suffering is important, these studies often fail to take into consideration the female characters’ agency and survival strategies, including how they go about rebuilding lives and identities in the aftermath of violence. This thesis argues that the fictional texts of other, lesser known Zimbabwean authors are similarly worthy of critical scrutiny, yielding as they can important insights into female characters’ resistance to gender violence. The current study analyses Zimbabwean women writers’ literary contributions to discourses on gender-based violence and explores how female characters have embraced the concept of agency to recreate their identities and to introduce a new gender ethos into the contexts of lives that are often shaped by severe restrictions and oppression. Violence is a phenomenon that is always shaped by specific cultural, ideological and socio-economic forces. As the study shows, characters’ identities are constituted by the complex intersections of a number of markers of difference, including their gender, race and class. This study thus regards identity as intersectional and takes all these factors into consideration in its analysis of the representations of violence and resistance in the selected texts. The study also aims to determine whether these literary representations offer any solutions to the difficulties of characters affected by or living with violence. The works critiqued are Lillian Masitera’s The Trail (2000), Valerie Tagwira’s The Uncertainty of Hope (2006), Virginia Phiri’s Highway Queen (2010) and Violet Masilo’s The African Tea Cosy (2010).English Studies
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Donga, Jabulani. "Zimbabwean women's writing: a study of the fiction of Barbara Makhalisa, Yvonne Vera and Tsitsi Dangarembga." Thesis, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/10386/2012.
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Rugwiji, Temba. "Reading the exodus tradition from a Zimbabwean perspective." Diss., 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/3325.
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The exodus tradition was passed on for posterity among the Jewish descendants about God who
delivered their ancestors from bondage in Egypt, who divided the Red Sea waters and provided
them with manna in the desert. The exodus tradition motivated them in many problematic
situations about "God of their fathers" who delivered them. The modern post-biblical world has
drawn some motivation from the exodus liberation motif, namely: Latin America, USA, South
Africa, Rhodesia and Zimbabwe, amongst others.
The topic: Reading the Exodus Tradition from a Zimbabwean Perspective is necessitated by the
Zimbabwean experience of oppression. The function of the exodus tradition during colonialism
in Rhodesia is discussed because it forms the nucleus from which Zimbabwe was born. Recently,
the Zimbabwean people have been subjected to unjust treatments by the Zimbabwean regime.
The function of the exodus tradition in the Zimbabwean situation is explored in chapters five and
six, respectively.Biblical and Ancient studies
M.A. (Biblical Studies)
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Mangwanda, Khombe M. "The Zimbabwean nation as cultural construct in the works of John Eppel, Dambudzo Marechera and Yvonne Vera." Thesis, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/27635.
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Muponde, Robert. "Childhood, history and resistance: a critical study of the images of children and childhood in Zimbabwean literature in English." Thesis, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10539/13294.
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Manase, Irikidzayi. "The mapping of urban spaces and identities in current Zimbabwean and South African fiction." Thesis, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/10413/3428.
Full textAbstract:
The dissertation focuses on the mapping of the southern African urban spaces and how it is linked to the urban dwellers' constitution of their identities, agency and subversion of the obtaining bleak and hegemonic conditions as represented in current fiction set in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Chapter 1 of the dissertation gives an overview of the social and historical developments characterising the construction of the southern African city from the colonial up to the current global city. The subordinate and marginal identities inscribed upon the Southern Africans as well as early forms of agency and subversion of the Western social, political and economic hegemony that has defined the city through out history will be looked at. Michael de Certeau's (1993) ideas showing the hegemonic
Western socio-economic agenda's creation of ordinary urban dwellers' invisibility and fragmentation, which they later subvert by renaming and remapping the alienating urban spaces of New York to improve their own lives, will be taken into consideration in this chapter's definition of the construction of the city and urban identities. In Chapter 2, the representation of the southern African urban spaces' cartography in the fiction is discussed. The characteristic spaces ranging from the socially and morally decayed inner-city, the well-built postmodern and elite Central
Business District, the affluent low-density suburbs and the far-away impoverished highdensity suburbs will be explored. The discussion attempts a complex unpacking of linkages between the mapping of Harare and Johannesburg with the hegemonic western social and economic agenda as well as the current urban dwellers' state of individual and
psychological fragmentation. Chapter 3 examines the way in which the current southern African urban social dislocation is represented in the fiction. The complexity of the urban dislocation signified by the prevalence of violence, xenophobia and HIV/AIDS is discussed. There is also a dialectical analysis ofhow the depicted urban dislocation is located within the legacy of colonialism and apartheid, the western global cultural and economic influence as well as individual effort and decision-making in the chapter. Chapter 4 explores the ways in which gendered urban spaces are portrayed in the fiction. The subordination of primarily women, as well as the weak and dependent irrespective of gender is discussed. The resultant anxieties, alienation, marginalisation of women and the subservient are viewed from the traditional and colonial patriarchy's construction of the city as a predominantly masculine space excluding women. The western global cultural and economic hegemony's creation of a new gendered ideology
characterised by the exclusion and feminisation of the poor, invisible and dependent is also discussed in this chapter. Nevertheless, the chapter ends with a discussion of the existing possibilities of female empowerment notably inscribed in the city's open education system, informal trade space as well as the provision of a social space encouraging pragmatic female decision-making especially in relation to HIV and AIDS. Finally the dissertation's concluding note is based on an evaluation of the postcolonial condition of southern Africa in relation to the mapping of the urban spaces
and various identities represented in the fiction. An attempt is also made to place the research within the problematic of whether the mapping is based on postcolonialism or postmodernism. The objective here is to offer the importance of a cross-reading between the two as enabling a more meaningful conception of the region's current urban space.Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2003.
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Mbatha, P. "A feminist analysis of Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous conditions (1988)." Thesis, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10413/477.
Full text
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Viriri, Eunitah. "The promotion of unhu in Zimbabwean secondary schools through the teaching of Shona literature : Masvingo urban district, a case study." Thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/23737.
Full textAbstract:
This study examines the extent to which the teaching of Shona novels can be used to
promote unhu (humanness) in Zimbabwean secondary schools where there has been a
call for the teaching of cultural values. The school syllabi for Shona make this position
abundantly clear. For that reason, anchoring the discussion on the role of literature in
Africa as expounded by African scholars such as Ngugi wa Thiong’o (1981), p’Bitek
(1986) and Achebe (1989) among others, the study observes that literature plays an
important role in moulding character through advancing unhu. For instance, as Achebe
(1989) argues that the novelist is a teacher, the study therefore locates literature as a
life-affirming and life-extending affair. The discussion of the role of literature as a
potential conduit for expressing unhu takes place within the theoretical confines of
Afrocentricity, an African-centred theory that places the interests of Africa at the centre
of any analysis involving African people. The selected novels namely Pfumo Reropa
(1961), Kunyarara Hakusi Kutaura? (1983) and Ndafa Here? (2007) are therefore
interrogated from an Afrocentric point of view. The three novels are representative of
different historical epochs in Zimbabwe’s cultural trajectory. In addition, they have
featured quite prominently on the school syllabi for Shona. Through a combination of
interviews and critical analysis of the novels, the study crucially observes that the proper
teaching of literature can effectively transform the thinking of learners thereby locating
them in their own cultural platforms. However, for this to happen, teachers must be
properly trained in order that they develop an appreciation of the value of literature in
imparting unhu among learners. As a result, the study thus proposes sufficient
conscientisation of teachers and learners on the concept and practice of unhu be
systematically carried out. At the same, there is need for greater planning in
constructing a more informing syllabus, as well as the deliberate inclusion of texts that
canonise unhu.African Languages
D. Litt. et Phil. (African Languages)
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Kostelac, Sofia Lucy. "Poetic language and subalternity in Yvonne Vera's butterfly burning and the stone virgins." Thesis, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10539/2155.
Full textAbstract:
Student Number : 9803321X -
MA Dissertation -
School of Literature and Language Studies -
Faculty of HumanitiesThe primary aim of this dissertation is to trace the ways in which Yvonne Vera’s final two novels, Butterfly Burning and The Stone Virgins, provide a discursive space for the enunciation of subaltern histories, which have been silenced in dominant socio-political discourse. I argue that it is through the deployment of ‘poetic language’ that Vera’s prose is able to negotiate the voicing of these suppressed narratives. In exploring these questions, I endeavour to locate Vera’s texts within the theoretical debates in postcolonial scholarship which question the ethical limitations of representing oppressed subjects in the Third World, as articulated by Gayatri Spivak, in particular. Following Spivak’s claim that subalternity is effaced in hegemonic discourse, I focus on the ways in which Vera’s inventive prose works to bring the figure of the subaltern back into signification. In order to elucidate how this dynamic operates in both novels, I employ Julia Kristeva’s psycholinguistic theory of ‘poetic language’. I argue that Kristeva’s understanding of literary practice as a transgressive modality, which is able to unsettle the silencing mechanisms of dominant monologic discourse, critically illuminates the subversive value of Vera’s fictional style for marginalised subaltern narratives.
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Javangwe, Tasiyana Dzikai. "Contesting narratives : constructions of the self and the nation in Zimbabwe polical auto/ Biography." Thesis, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/4838.
Full textAbstract:
This study is an interpretive analysis of Zimbabwean political auto/biographical narratives in contexts of changing culture, race, ethnicity and gender identity images of the self and nation. I used eclectic theories of postcolonialism to explore the fractured nature of both the processes of identity construction and narration, and the contradictions inherent in identity categories of nation and self. The problem of using autobiographical memory to recall the momentous events that formed the contradictory identities of self and nation in the creative imagination of the lives of Ian Smith, Maurice Nyagumbo, Abel Muzorewa, Joshua Nkomo, Doris Lessing, Fay Chung, Judith Garfield Todd, Tendai Westerhof and Lutanga Shaba have been highlighted. The study concluded that there are narrative and ideological disjunctures between experiencing life and narrating those experiences to create approximations of coherent identities of individual selves and those of the nation. The study argued that each of the stories analyzed in this study contributed a version of the multiple Zimbabwean narratives that no one story could ever tell without being contested by others. Thus the study explores how white Rhodesian auto/biographies depend on the imperial repertoire to construct varying, even contradicting, images of white identities and the Rhodesian nation, which are also contested by black nationalist life narratives. The narratives by women writers, both white and black, introduced further instabilities to the male authored narratives by moving beyond the conventional understanding of what is ‘political’ in political auto/biographies. The HIV and AIDS narratives by black women thrust into the public sphere personalized versions of self so that the political consequence of their inclusion was not only to image Zimbabwe as a diseased society, but one desperately in need of political solutions to confront the different pathologies inherited from colonialism and which also have continued in the post-independence period.English Studies
(D. Litt. et Phil. (English))
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Sisimayi, Weston. "The representation of marginalized voices and trauma in selected novels of Tsitsi Dangarembga and Yvonne Vera." Diss., 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10500/25133.
Full textAbstract:
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 84-91)My thesis focuses on the representation of marginalized voices and trauma in the selected fiction of Tsitsi Dangarembga and Yvonne Vera. I analyze three novels written by the Yvonne Vera—Without a Name (1994), Under the Tongue(1996) and The Stone Virgins(2002) set during the Zimbabwe liberation struggle period and postcolonial Zimbabwe dissident era respectively and Nervous Conditions(1988) and its sequel, The Book of Not (1996), by Dangarembga set during the 1960s to 1970s colonial Rhodesia period (the colonial name for Zimbabwe) and during the period of white‐minority rule in Rhodesia to the attainment of independence in 1980. I analyze these novels from the feminist/womanist, gender and postcolonial literary models. The rational for grouping these theoretical models in the analysis in this thesis is that they commonly highlight from a gender perspective the complex factors which oppress and marginalize women in the colonial and postcolonial contexts in which the two authors set their writings. These literary paradigms highlight the oppression of women from an African perspective and all acknowledge the need to address all factors which oppress and subordinate women (gender, race, class) if total emancipation for them is to be achieved. I also posit that Vera and Dangarembga offer discourses that challenge the silencing of narratives of oppression and violation in their novels selected for analysis in this thesis. The thesis has five chapters. In Chapter 1, I set out the argument of the thesis and give a brief history of gendered colonialism and the historical period which provides a setting for the fiction of the two authors. Next, I describe the conceptual framework I will use in analyzing the works of the two postcolonial Zimbabwe female writers. Then I will outline the research questions and hypothesis and expose the research methodology and approach that will serve as my vehicle for data collection, analysis and interpretation. In Chapter 2, I will focus on gender, class and race and discuss the ways Dangarembga explores these factors in Nervous Conditions and The Book of Not. I will also discuss innovate ways women explore to champion their freedom and voice in the fiction of Dangarembga. Chapter 3 focuses on the novels of Yvonne Vera— Without a Name, Under the Tongue and The stone Virgins —which articulate narratives of violated subjects and silenced voices. I will discuss the ways Vera explores to show how narratives of violated subjects are silenced by patriarchy, colonialism and masculine narratives of nationalism in these novels. Chapter 4 focuses on narratives of trauma. Using theories of trauma, I will analyze Without a Name, Under the Tongue and The Stone Virgins by Vera and show how these narratives articulate colonial and postcolonial trauma and female child trauma. I will also discuss The Book of Not by Dangarembga and show how the novel articulates colonial and racial trauma. My discussion of the novels of Vera and Dangarembga in this chapter will show that these novels work out traumatic experiences in the colonial and postcolonial eras and will also reveal the challenges of representing tra
English Studies
M.A. (English)