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Full-Text Articles in European Languages and Societies

Between God And The Apple: Divinity, Violence And Desire In A.L. Kennedy's 'Original Bliss', Abigail Rine Jan 2011

Between God And The Apple: Divinity, Violence And Desire In A.L. Kennedy's 'Original Bliss', Abigail Rine

Faculty Publications - Department of English

This article investigates how female sexuality and desire can be refigured beyond dynamics of fear and subjugation. By offering a close reading of A.L. Kennedy’s novel Original bliss through the theories of He´le`ne Cixous and Luce Irigaray, this work highlights the relationship between violence and Western religious notions of divinity, sexuality and the female body. Kennedy’s novel portrays, in violent detail, that the way in which the religious dimension has been conceptualised and articulated enforces negative views of female sexuality and justifies violence against the body. Rather than merely confronting the religious denigration of feminine sexuality, however, Kennedy’s novel also …


Colonial Violence And Trauma In The Works Of Michèle Lacrosil And Ken Bugul, Marie-Chantal Kalisa Jan 2000

Colonial Violence And Trauma In The Works Of Michèle Lacrosil And Ken Bugul, Marie-Chantal Kalisa

French Language and Literature Papers

To what extent can we say that both Lacrosil and Bugul rewrite Fanon? Through the study of Cajou and Ken, respectively the Guadeloupean and the Senegalese female protagonists, this article proposes a way to derive a specifically female perspective on colonial violence. The essay focuses on the two novels, Cajou and Le baobab fou, and examines the effect of colonial epistemological violence and its specific impact on the black female’s subjectivity. The protagonists Ken and Cajou revisit their initial trauma in a quest for knowledge of their historical heritage and engage in a dialogue with Frantz Fanon, representative of black …