African Languages and Societies Commons^™

Les Fondements Littéraires De La Réception D’Aimé Césaire Au Bénin, Guy Ossito Midiohouan

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Aime Cesaire is a popular writer in Benin. Evidence lies in the increasing number of writers and scholars who have been supporting his ideas since the 60s. His books are on secondary school as well as university curricula. He has enjoyed more attention in the 1990s with the advent of democracy and the notable influence of then Head of State N. D. Soglo who is a keen admirer of his political career. Cesaire is held in such an esteem in Benin because he is capable of going beyond his natal Caribbean and willingly express the sad destiny of Africa ever …

Hear My Voice: An Examination Of The Views Of Parents Who Are Raising Children Of African American Descent, Chavez Maurice Phelps

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Researchers have demonstrated that children who attend early childhood education programs benefit academically and socially (National Institute for Early Education Research, 2003). However, other researchers have shown that African American students may still lag behind their counterparts when they enter school (National Center for Education Statistics ([NCES], 2004). To explain this phenomenon, scholars and practitioners have relied on deficit theories, such as Ruby Payne’s (2005) culture of poverty theory or John Ogbu’s (1992) oppositional culture identity theory, which shift the blame solely on the child or their parents. However, there are other researchers who have stressed the importance of examining …

Diversity Week 2011 - Rhode Island And The Slave Trade - Bringing History To Life, Multicultural Center

Multicultural Student Services Center

Rhode Island and the Slave Trade: Bringing History to Life. Paul Davis, Reporter, Providence Journal. Prize-winning Providence Journal reporter Paul Davis will talk about his newspaper series on the Rhode Island slave trade. A transplanted Southerner, Davis will explore the myth of the abolitionist north versus the slave-holding south and talk about the half year he spent in New England’s historical societies and libraries exploring the state's dark past. He'll also explain why he was thrown off some of Rhode Island’s best-known historic sites. The talk will reveal the north’s deep ties to slavery and the slave trade, and will …

Censuring The Praise Of Alienation: Interstices Of Ante-Alienation In Things Fall Apart, No Longer At Ease, And Arrow Of God, Kevin Frank

Publications and Research

Interrogating Abiola Irele’s largely unchallenged praise of alienation, this essay is bold and insightful in returning to Chinua Achebe’s African trilogy to examine the subtler, equally dangerous agent of externality: ante-alienation, or social alienation within traditional African culture, which precedes race-based, colonial alienation. This ante-alienation challenges Négritude’s paradisiacal view of Africa and raises questions about Africans always being happiest with themselves within their traditional culture.

African Americans Perceptions Of The “N-Word” In The Context Of Racial Identity Attitudes, Keya Wiggins

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The “N-word” has been a pop-culture topic of interest which has fueled many heated discussions within the African American community. Given the history of the word nigger in America, the use of the word nigga among some African Americans may cause confusion among those who do not understand the phenomenon of African Americans‟ perceptions of the “N-word.” The present research was conducted to explore the phenomenon of African Americans‟ perceptions of both the words nigger and nigga in the context of racial identity attitudes. A primarily qualitative embedded mixed method model was utilized to gather information about feelings of group …

Le Français De Tunisie. Normes Ou Formes Endogènes, Foued Laroussi

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

The article deals with some lexical and morphosyntactic aspects of Tunisian French based on examples taken from literary works and the press. These are for the most part lexemes borrowed from Tunisian Arabic, some of which are accepted as standard French. the debate on Tunisian French takes place in a multilingual sociolinguistic context in which users adopt a variety of sometimes conflicting positions. While some attempt to legitimize an endogenous norm, others cling to the exogenous norm which they take as a reference especially in an educational context.

La Poésie Hors-Normes De Mohamed Hmoudane Ou L’Art De La Provocation, Yamna Abdelkader

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Poetry is often understood as a series of deviations from linguistic norms, but Mohamed Hmoudane’s collections appear to be a systematic subversive strategy against both aesthetic conventions and prevailing assumptions about Eastern and Western identitarian categories. Published between 2003 and 2005, the works entitled Attentat, incandescence and Blanche mécanique avert poetic clichés as they invert cultural stereotypes, taking a most satirical stance toward the state of the world at the dawn of a new millenium. The pervasive sense of detachment resulting from Hmoudane’s satirical tendencies is associated with a poetics of excess, and this paradoxical union serves as a powerful …

Normes Endogènes : Pratiques Culturelles, Traduction Impossible, Rafaël Lucas

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

The words novel, drama and poetry can be translated because they refer to well-known specific concepts. Words referring to endogenous or indigenous forms and norms with cultural codes unknown to us cannot be translated. The translation of these words does not provide much information about them. The word koteba in bambara, a language spoken in Mali, means “a big snail”. The word hainteny (science of speech in Malagasy) refers to a specific type of popular oral poetry. What does the word concert-party (used in Nigeria, Ghana, Togo) or the Swahili word manganja mean? An analysis of these endogenous genres with …

African Catholicism And The Diaspora Phenomenon: A Socio-Political Analysis Of African Priests In The Diaspora, Iheanyi Maurice Enwerem

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

Religious agents, including Catholic priests, are no exception with regards to involvement in the diaspora phenomenon. Among them, especially in the most recent time, are those who, for the purposes of this paper, are identified as "African Catholic priest-diasporas" (African priest diasporas, for short); that is, those Catholic priests from Africa who, for a variety of reasons, relocated from the continent to reside in a foreign country where they exercise their priestly ministry. This new and growing group of diasporas obviously forms part of the "African Diasporas"-a group African Union (AU) considers as Africa's "sixth region" (Auma, 2009). The paper …

Quels Écrivains Francophones Pour Quelles Normes ?, Daniel Delas

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

With the benefit of historical hindsight, the rise of endogenous linguistic norms, justified in literary practices, can be reassessed. The firstg eneration of African writers such as Camara Laye and Léopold Sédar Senghor, because of their normative educational background, favoured exogenous French standards in their writing. Yet, Kourouma’s fiction is a turning point which initiated new literary practices, borrowing much from ordinary ways of speaking. Does it mean that French in Africa now follows endogenous norms? Without vouching for it, one can at least state the importance of recognizing African literature in French as a major form of expression.

De Quelques Normes Esthétiques Endogènes Non Légitimées : Exemples De La Littérature Aja-Fon Du Bénin, Jean-Norbert Vignondé

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Uusing endogenous aesthetic norms as critical tool, we do not purport to evaluate the avatars of the French language outside of the Hexagon. instead, we locate the languages of the “periphery,” and particularly the Aja-Fon language of Benin, at the center of our inquiry to examine the means by which those languages move away from a text initially constructed on the basis of Western endogenous norms. We proceed to show that only “community intellectuals” can create a dialogue between truly endogenous norms and the universal culturesince“intellectuals by qualification” are often only capable of reproducing the exogenous norms of the Western …

Understanding Non-Native English-Speaking Teachers' Identity Construction And Transformation In The English-Speaking Community: A Closer Look At Past, Present, And Future, Shu-Chun Tseng

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Building on Kachru‟s (2005) diagram of World Englishes and Norton‟s (2000) theoretical conception of identity, the researcher acknowledges that each Non-Native English Speaking Teacher (NNEST) comes to the English-speaking community with a different variety of Englishes. Each believes in various cultural values and norms, and his or her identity is an ongoing process that can be impacted when he or she is immersed in different contexts. Using a qualitative approach, this study examined the way NNESTs construct their self-perceptions of English Language Teaching (ELT) professionalism based on social and educational experiences in their countries. In addition, the study examined how …

The Muse Of Nigerian Poetry And The Coming Of Age Of Nigerian Literature, Chukwuma Azuonye

Africana Studies Faculty Publication Series

No abstract provided.

Before The Bell Rings: The Effects Of Negative Neighborhood Characteristics On Educational Achievement In Ohio Public Schools, Na’Tasha Webb-Prather

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Educational inequality is a salient issue plaguing the youth of America and is also jeopardizing the future of this nation. Before the Bell Rings is a two-part examination of the impact of discriminatory housing practices against blacks and subsequently the impact of negative neighborhood characteristics on educational achievement within Ohio public schools.

As blacks migrated from the South to northern cities they were met with discrimination in the form of restrictive covenants, redlining and other societal practices that clustered them together in inner-city locations. The historical analysis component of this study examines the effects of these discriminatory housing practices for …

"Après Dieu, C’Est L’Artisan": A Study Of Bamikéké Woodcarving In Dschang, Cameroon, Rebecca Potts

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Wood sculpture among the Bamilékés is a political, spiritual and economic endeavor. Sculptural artwork is ultimately at the service of the community and is used in the daily and ceremonial life of the chefferie. Though the sculptor must create according to the needs of his society, he is himself responsible for the very formation of his community’s values and ideology.

Over the course of one month in Dschang I worked with wood sculptors in an artisanat, learning the technical aspects of the craft as well as their philosophies behind their profession. I created two wooden chairs and conducted seven interviews. …

Female Genital Mutilation: Policies To Encourage Abandonment, Melissa Arneson

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) also known as Female Genital Cutting (FGC) captured my interest the first time I heard about the practice. I assumed, wrongly, that it was only practiced in remote areas of Africa where educational opportunities were few and outside influences were nil. After researching the topic it is clear that is not the case. FGM is practiced in many countries in Africa, the Middle East, and around the world. It is a barbaric practice that has no religious significance and is incredibly harmful to women and their health, both mentally and physically. I focused my research on …

Endangered Heritage And Emergent Ogogo: A Case Study Of The “Ulwazi Programme”, Emily Kwong

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Kwesukesukela, or “a long time ago,” there was a beautiful woman who lived by the ocean with her husband and two small children. The woman’s name was Mazanendaba. Although she lived a life full of happiness, Mazanendaba came to realize with time that something important was missing: there were no stories. No stories for mothers and grandmothers to tell their children. No stories to inspire joy and ease sorrow. No stories to enrich the mind and nurture the soul. Determined to find stories in a world without any, Mazanendaba left her beloved home in search of a new story to …

Culture, Dissent, And The State: The Example Of Commonwealth African Marriage Law, Johanna E. Bond

Scholarly Articles

This is an explosive time for those seeking to define the meaning and parameters of marriage. The subject has generated heated debate worldwide. In June 2010, the European Court of Human Rights declined to extend marriage rights to a gay Austrian couple, but the Court carefully laid the foundation for the recognition of such rights when a European consensus on the issue emerges. In July 2010, Argentina extended to same-sex couples the right to marry, joining nine other countries that legally recognize same-sex couples' right to marry. In August 2010, a United States district judge struck down a California ban …

At The Edge Of The Modern?: Diplomacy, Public Relations, And Media Practices During Houphouët-Boigny's 1962 Visit To The United States, Abou B. Bamba

History Faculty Publications

Toward the end of the first decade after the decolonization of most African countries, there emerged a scholarly polemic about the weight of bureaucratic politics in the making of foreign policy in the Third World. A mirror of the reigning modernization paradigm that informed most postwar area studies and social sciences, the discussion unintentionally indexed the narcissism of a hegemonic discourse on political development and statecraft. Graham Allison and Morton Halperin—the original proponents of the bureaucratic model—implied in their largely U.S.-centric model that such a paradigm was not applicable to non-industrialized countries since the newly decolonized countries, for the most …

The Bandi Of Northwestern Liberia: A Study Of Change And Continuityin Bandi Society To 1964, Samuel Benedict Ngovo

Dissertations

Relying on oral accounts and archival and published sources, this dissertation employed interdisciplinary methodology to examine change and continuity in traditional Bandi systems to 1964. It focuses on traditional Bandi social, religious, economic and political systems that changed and those that persisted as a result of contacts with neighboring ethnic groups, Islam, Christianity, and the Liberian state.

The Bandi of northwestern Liberia are divided into six subgroups. Nevertheless, the six subgroups of Bandi share common traditional values. The Bandi people belong to the Mande-linguistic group and share common traditional values with neighboring Mande speakers such as the Loma and Mende. …

African Language Publishing For Children In South Africa: Challenges For Translators, Viv Edwards, Jacob Marriote Ngwaru

Institute for Educational Development, East Africa

The commitment to multilingualism embedded in the 1996 South African Constitution has wide ranging implications for many aspects of education. This paper focuses on the dearth of teaching and learning materials in African languages required to deliver effective bilingual education, and on the potential role of translation in offering solutions for this problem. Drawing on an analysis of currently available African language books for children and interviews with educators, writers, publishers, translators and organisations concerned with book promotion, it explores issues which have emerged as critical for both the quality and availability of translation. Attention is drawn to the ways …

Multilingual Education In South Africa: The Role Of Publishers, Viv Edwards, Jacob Marriote Ngwaru

Institute for Educational Development, East Africa

The South African constitution and related legislative tools provide a supportive framework for multilingual education. Successful implementation, however, requires appropriate learning materials and questions remain as to the vision and commitment of publishers to producing them. Based on an analysis of currently available books for children and interviews with publishers and key figures in the book value chain, this paper explores both the educational rationale for African language publishing and the issues that constrain expansion. These issues include the heavy dependence on the schools market in a society where the majority of the population cannot or do not buy books, …

‘Up These Hills To The Mountain Top’: Memories Of 'The Golden Sun' In Michael Echeruo's War Poems (Distanced), Chukwuma Azuonye

Africana Studies Faculty Publication Series

One of the leading voices among the first generation of post-independence African modernist poets of the twentieth-century, Michael J. C. Echeruo's second collection of poetry, Distanced (1975), is, unlike his better-known first collection, Mortality (1968), characterized by direct phrasing and open accessibility—in terms of imagery and other signifiers—to the general reader. Composed within the first four years (1970-74) after the end of the Biafran war of independence of 1967-1970, the nineteen lyrics that make up this collection look back with extraordinary candor and passion into the future of the Biafran experience, especially with regard to the problems of reintegration into …

'Clearing The Forest': Critical Commentary On Gabriel Okara’S Postwar Ode, ‘The Dreamer’, Chukwuma Azuonye

Africana Studies Faculty Publication Series

The present essay is essentially a preliminary exploration of a previously unexplored territory of postcolonial, modernist African poetics—Gabriel Okara’s venture into the appropriation of the signs of the classical and latter-day European ode as a vehicle for both a satirical interrogation of the performance of the postcolonial civilian and military elite the dysfunctional Nigerian federation after its war against Biafra and for an understanding of the possibility of heroic regeneration in the face of the depth of , bordering on existentialist , into which the nation has been reduced by the post-civil war triumph of disorder in the hands of …

Christopher Okigbo’S Intentions: A Critical Edition Of A Previously Unpublished Interview By Ivan Van Sertima, Chukwuma Azuonye

Africana Studies Faculty Publication Series

This is a critical edition with emendations of lacunae from indelible inkblots and termite activity of an interview with Christopher Okigbo conducted in the mid-1960s by Ivan van Sertima, the distinguished Caribbean-American anthropologist, linguist, literary critic, Afrocentric historiographer, and founding-editor of The Journal of African Civilizations (New Brunswick, NJ), who passed away on May 29, 2009, at the age of 74. It was discovered in January 2006 among Okigbo’s unpublished papers, which I catalogued at the invitation of the Christopher Okigbo Foundation, in Brussels, Belgium, now part of the UNESCO Memory of the World Register.

Africa's Economic Resurgence: Is It Possible?, Alka Jauhari

Political Science & Global Affairs Faculty Publications

Economic theory suggests that inequality between nations is caused by a failure to strike an optimal balance between capital, goods, and labor within a framework of appropriate rules and regulations. This leads to misallocation of a nation's resources - both capital and physical - resulting in distorted use and flow of capital and goods. Politics, regulation and policy-making lie at the heart of such "distortions" which come at a huge cost to societies. Due to these distorted flows, Africa was left behind in the race for economic development, as compared to the other regions of the world. Such distortions have …

‘The Mystic Drum’: Critical Commentary On Gabriel Okara’S Love Lyrics, Chukwuma Azuonye

Africana Studies Faculty Publication Series

Structurally, Okara’s love lyric, “The Mystic Drum,” evinces a tripartite ritual pattern of initiation from innocence through intimacy to experience. By comparison to the way of Zen as manifested in the experience of Zen Master, Ch’ing Yuän Wei-hsin, this pattern resolves itself into an emotional and epistemological journey from conventional knowledge (born of innocence) through more intimate knowledge (born of closer apperception of reality) to substantial knowledge (born of experience). The substantial knowledge born of experience empowers the lover to understand that beneath the surface attractiveness of what we know very well (such as the women we love) may lie …

'The White Man Laughs': Commentary On The Satiric Dramatic Monologues Of Gabriel Okara, Chukwuma Azuonye

Africana Studies Faculty Publication Series

Examined in the present article are two early satiric lyrics of Gabriel Okara—“Once Upon a Time” and “He Laughed and Laughed and Laughed”—which are the products of the postcolonial cultural war environment in which the issues of modernity, alterity (otherness or difference) and afro-authenticity implicated in Achebe’s ripostes on the bigotry of the colonialist critic were central. The tone of this discourse amongst leading African intelligentsia was set in the 1930’s and 1940’s by four fellow south-eastern Nigerian writers in their semi-autobiographical blueprints for African cultural emancipation—Renascent Africa ((1937)) by Nnamdi Azikiwe (1904–1996); British and Axis Aims in Africa (1942) …

‘The Monstrous Anger Of The Guns’: Critical Commentary On The War Poems Of Gabriel Okara, Chukwuma Azuonye

Africana Studies Faculty Publication Series

Throughout the Biafran War of Independence from Nigeria (1967-1970), Gabriel Okara remained a committed Biafran. But he was neither an iconoclastic secessionist (determined to wantonly wreck any well-founded order, including the subaltern state of Nigeria) nor a romantic revolutionary (dreaming of a postcolonial African utopia rising like a phoenix from the ashes of the failed postcolonial state of Nigeria), he was a Biafran at a higher level of philosophical and humanist reasoning as eloquently argued throughout his war lyrics discussed in the present paper, whose themes include: commitment, nationalism and pacifism as they pertain to his Biafran experience; modern warfare …

African Language Books For Children: Issues For Authors, Viv Edwards, Jacob Marriote Ngwaru

Institute for Educational Development, East Africa

Growing interest in bilingual education in sub-Saharan Africa has highlighted an urgent need for reading material in African languages. In this paper, we focus on authors, one of several groups of stakeholders with responsibility for meeting this demand. We address three main issues: the nature and extent of African language publishing for children; the challenges for authors; and the available support. Our analysis is based on interviews and focus group discussions with publishers, authors, translators, educationalists, and representatives of book promotion organisations from nine African countries and documentary data on children's books in African languages in South Africa. Although there …