History Commons^™

The Hegemony Of English In South African Education, Kelsey E. Figone

Scripps Senior Theses

The South African Constitution recognizes 11 official languages and protects an individual’s right to use their mother-tongue freely. Despite this recognition, the majority of South African schools use English as the language of learning and teaching (LOLT). Learning in English is a struggle for many students who speak indigenous African languages, rather than English, as a mother-tongue, and the educational system is failing its students. This perpetuates inequality between different South African communities in a way that has roots in the divisions of South Africa’s past. An examination of the power of language and South Africa’s experience with colonialism and …

New Orleans Unveiled: Fanon And A Reconceptualization Of The Performative, Lynnell Thomas

Lynnell Thomas

This article examines Frantz Fanon's "Algeria Unveiled" as a reconceptualization of J. L. Austin's theory of the performative. Austin, whose examples of the performative all assume an equal, if not harmonious, relationship, overlooks instances of incompatibility and inequality. Fanon's post-colonial framework, in contrast, illustrates the markedly different types of intentions, uptake, and conventions which inform the speech act in cases of extreme inequality. In these cases, the powerless and seemingly voiceless use tacitly agreed upon conventions inappropriately to attain what they would not be able to have otherwise. Fanon's notion of the performative is used to explore the performative resistance …

The Danish-Born American Newly Arrived In The Cities, Carl Antonsen

The Bridge

To begin this little essay, which can only amount to a few scattered remarks because of its place and its general nature, I want to repeat some of what I was able to say in a speech in Aarhus on Danish-American Day on July 4, 1909:

“Speaking as I undoubtedly am on this occasion to those whose longing to travel has been or soon will be focused on America; I cannot emphasize strongly enough that the United States is not a paradise, not the utopia about which C.H. Winther and H.C. Andersen sang. America is the Promised Land only for …