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English Language and Literature Commons

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Social and Behavioral Sciences

English

Series

2012

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in English Language and Literature

"I Enter Into Its Burning": Yvonne Vera's Beautiful Cauldron Of Violence, John C. Hawley May 2012

"I Enter Into Its Burning": Yvonne Vera's Beautiful Cauldron Of Violence, John C. Hawley

English

Commentators inevitably remark upon Yvonne Vera's prose and upon its startling application to the violent episodes she recounts. Some find it inappropriate, self-conscious, more suited to poetry than to prose. Others (and sometimes the same folks) describe it as by far her strongest suit, wherein descriptive powers overtake narration and plot becomes inevitably amorphous - but lovely. In this essay I wish to analyze why this conflicted response would not have concerned the author and why, in fact, she would have sought to discomfort the reader while bringing pleasure. Many writers before Vera have struggled over the applicability of art …


Christianity, John C. Hawley Jan 2012

Christianity, John C. Hawley

English

According to tradition and to the early church historian Eusebius, Christianity was preached in Ethiopia by the apostle Matthew before it reached Europe; Mark the evangelist is said to have established the church in Alexandria in 43 C.E. What is clear is that some of the most important early Christian theologians were from northern Africa: Augustine, from present-day Algeria, and Clement and Origen, from present-day Egypt. The monastic movement in the early church drew its inspiration from these writers. By the 4th century, Christianity was well established in what are today Ethiopia and Eritrea, and was centered in a city …


Colonialism And Mandates, John C. Hawley Jan 2012

Colonialism And Mandates, John C. Hawley

English

Daily life in contemporary African countries must be understood as determined by their status as members of an interlocking network of postcolonies, striving to imagine themselves as related through Pan-Africanism but struggling first to realize themselves as fully functioning nations. Even though Ethiopia and Liberia are generally spoken of as the only countries in Africa that were not colonized, this actually suggests the level of subjugation the rest of the continent did experience. After all, if Italy failed in its attempt to take over Ethiopia in the 1880s, Mussolini succeeded in doing so in 1936; Liberia was, in fact, a …