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Fraternity, Martyrdom And Peace In Burundi: The Forty Servants Of God Of Buta, Jodi Mikalachki

Journal of Global Catholicism

During Burundi's 1993-2005 civil war, students at Buta Minor Seminary were ordered at gunpoint to separate by ethnicity—Hutus over here, Tutsis over there! They chose instead to join hands and affirm their common identity as children of God. The forty students killed were quickly proclaimed martyrs of fraternity. Their costly solidarity defused the cry for reprisals and continues to inspire Burundians and others on the path of reconciliation. Drawing on fifty interviews with survivors, parents of martyrs, neighbors, religious leaders and other Burundian intellectuals, this essay examines how Burundian Catholics understand the significance of the Buta martyrdom to their …

Editor's Introduction, Mathew Schmalz

Journal of Global Catholicism

An overview of African Catholicism. Part Two: Retrospect and Prospect, third issue of the Journal of Global Catholicism. A summary of the work of Bradford Hinze, Mary Gloria Njoku, Matthias Scharer, Mary Sylvia Nwachukwu, and Bernhard Udelhoven. Among the topics considered: African ecclesiology, African wellness and quality of life in Africa, interreligious dialogue in Africa, African Biblical scholarship, witchcraft and the Catholic Church.

Writing Africa Today: Research Materials (Library Resources), Holy Cross Libraries

Library Resources for Campus Events

A bibliography of resources available through the Holy Cross Libraries which provide additional information related to "Writing Africa Today," a lecture by Zimbabwean author Petina Gappah held at the College of the Holy Cross February 15, 2018.

Gappah writes critically about the government, social and criminal justice issues, and human rights work in sub-Saharan Africa. Her collection of short stories called "Elegy for Easterly" was shortlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and won the Guardian First Book Award in 2009. Her second book, a novel, "The Book of Memory" is the fictional story of an imprisoned albino …

Du Témoin Et De L’Humain Chez Gilbert Gatore : Le Passé Devant Soi, Jean-Pierre Karegeye

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

This article revisits Gatore’s novel, The past ahead, in analyzing the idea of witnessing. Some critics estimate that the novel does not make a clear distinction between the perpetrator and the victim. While recognizing the danger, the article extends the debate on the notion of the human beyond the categories of “perpetrator” and “victim”. Without excusing acts of the former, the author of this article affirms that the perpetrator and the victim belong to the same humanity. While they remain extreme and inexcusable, crime against humanity and genocides are not a contingent acts, which opens a meditation on the fragility …

Discours Sur L’Environnement Et Stratégies Empathiques De L’Hégémonie Dans Les Écritures Francophones D’Afrique Noire, Jean-Blaise Samou

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

It is a known that discourse developed on Africa in the European imagination between the late nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century had largely contributed to the implementation of colonial ideology. Today, African writings recover and rework those discourses, highlighting the language strategies by which the construction of a tropical otherness, territorial dispossession and colonial domination in Africa were part of a pragmatic discourse. The analysis of those discourses in some novels and movies from French-speaking Black Africa not only reveals the environmental issues that underlay the European colonial adventure in Africa, but also the interest for …

Esquisse D’Un Projet Épistémologique Pour La Science Politique Dans Une Afrique Post-Génocide, Mame-Penda Ba

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

This article attempts to answer two main questions: “What does it mean to teach political science in an African university when oneself is African?” and “what social realities are we documenting (or should we document)?” As a political scientist, I came to ask myself these questions based on my encounter with the genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda, and based on the questions that this major event had kindled in me. My encounter with the subject of “genocide” was in all respects an upheaval because I understood suddenly a large weakness in the way political science was taught at Université …

Matière Grise De Kivu Ruhorahoza : Un Nouveau Discours Filmique Pour Le Rwanda?, Charles J. Sugnet

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Films like Hotel Rwanda, Sometimes in April, and Shooting Dogs have codified certain ways of representing the 1994 Rwandan genocide, with realist aesthetics, epic sweep, and aspirations to historical authenticity. A young Rwandan director, Kivu Ruhorahoza, has won two major prizes at the Tribeca Festival for his 2011 feature Grey Matter, a breakthrough film that is different from its predecessors in almost every respect. Ruhorahoza’s film is intimate, cosmopolitan, metaphorical, and avant-garde; it requires some effort to understand, yet it is extremely moving. On the 20th Anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda, it offers new ways of understanding the consequences …

Chercheurs D’Afrique Et Archive Coloniale, Jean-Pierre Karegeye

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

The main goal of this article is to demonstrate that discourse on the Rwandan genocide has an origin. In other words, the hamitic myth transcends the question of race and is present in its most radical form in the events of 1994 in Rwanda. However, the myth itself is not intrinsically genocidal, but it did clear the path. The danger arose when the myth was demythified, that is to say, perceived as historic reality and scientific knowledge, and entered a new environment of genocide discourse. To proceed based on the notion of archive is to approach the genocide in relation …

Géotropisme De Chamoiseau, Jean-Louis Cornille

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

There seems to be a strange parallel between the vegetable kingdom in which Patrick Chamoiseau sets his Biblique des derniers gestes and the way the narrative is being played out. The mangrove, with its entangled roots and stems, constitutes a perfect image of the novel, whose multiple branches are no longer anchored in any reality or in a centralised system, but seem moved by a principle which we could call “bibliotropic”, since in Biblique one could easily find traces of Perse, García Márquez, Glissant, Césaire and even of Rabelais. But certain “stems” are more difficult to track within this dense …

« Banlieue Noire » : La Question Noire Dans La Littérature Urbaine Contemporaine, Stève Puig

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Just as the “beur” movement started to flourish in France in the 80’s and the 90’s, a new question has emerged in French society in the last decade: the “black question”, which deals with the place of Africans and Antilleans in French society today. At the same time, a new literary genre has emerged: urban literature, which largely tackles themes related to the presence of Afro-caribbean people in metropolitan France. This article seeks to analyze three urban novels which take place in France, and more specifically how characters situate themselves regarding their Frenchness as the French government attempted to redefine …

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 …

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.

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.

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 …

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 …

Beyala Et Le Plagiat : Gary, Buten Et Walker Pourvoyeurs De Textes, Kisito Hona

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

If the name of Calixthe Beyala seems to be linked to controversial issues, it is also because she was repeatedly suspected and accused of plagiarism. One of these accusations led to her condemnation by the tribunal of Paris on May 7th, 1996. The purpose of this article consists not only in recapitulating the facts, but also, in capitalizing on them to study the phenomenon of plagiarism in general and the specifi c aspects which it takes with this writer.

Calixthe Beyala Chez Les Scandinaves, Ylva Lindberg

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

The study focuses on the circulation of literature in the world and it takes as an example the publication of the literary works of Beyala in Scandinavia. The reception of her novels is analyzed on the basis of commentaries by critics in Swedish media. The analysis shows that the Swedes construct their own image of the author. In order to find interpretation tools they link her texts to their own literary patrimony and they take into account the exoticism inherent in her novels. It thus becomes legitimate, apt to serve current ebates in Sweden, for example about feminism and cultural …

Écriture Et Oralité Dans L’Oeuvre De Calixthe Beyala, Gloria Nne Onyeziri

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

A reading of several works of Beyala will help us consider the way orality works for African women and to suggest new forms of the symbolic representation and of narrative framing drawn from the speech of the people. Reference to their African culture, to their consciousness of cultural identity, helps characters such as Édène, Loukoum and Beyala to define themselves and to lay claim to a critical and self-confi dent voice. They learn from orality the ways of saying of the wise, what is to be retained and transmitted through traditional culture and what aspects of collective memory are better …

De Stock À Albin Michel : Beyala Et L’Édition, Bernard De Meyer

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Beyala has remained faithful to the publisher Albin Michel for her fictional work since the publication of Le petit prince de Belleville in 1992, but her four fi rst novels had three different publishers. A study of her relationship with the publishing world during this period shows her desire for recognition on the Parisian literary scene, which was ready to take up the challenge by publishing the novel of an unknown African woman writer. A careful analysis of paratextual elements, in particular the titrology, and of the contents of the novels reveals that Calixthe Beyala enters into a direct conversation …

Calixte Beyala Ou La Réécriture De La Littérature Coloniale Française, Frieda Ekotto

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

This article shows how Calixthe Beyala, in Le petit prince de Belleville (1992) and Maman a un amant (1993), presents the character of the child as producer of sociopolitical and historical discourse. By using the child as narrator, Beyala rewrites the colonial literature of the interwar period extending from Francis Carco to Mac Orlan from a less noble perspective. As producer of certain racist discourses, the child is singled out as the one who represents life and assures the future of the community.

Enjeux Du Message Anticolonialiste En Métropole Dans Les Années 1950 : La Critique Journalistique De Trois Romans De Mongo Beti Et De Ferdinand Oyono, Vivan Steemers

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

This paper examines the effectiveness of the anticolonialist message in three novels published in 1956 by two Cameroonian writers -- Mongo Beti and Ferdinand Oyono-- by analyzing in particular their reception by French metropolitan reviewers. African writers of the 1950s depended exclusively on the metropolitan literary institutions and authorities for their recognition, i.e. the publishing houses and press of the colonial power. Mongo Beti and Ferdinand Oyono were among the first francophone African novelists to criticize the colonial regime. Nevertheless, important differences exist in the Africanist discourse of the critics who reviewed the novels when they were first published. We …

Images De Femmes: Une H/Histoire De La France En Algérie À Travers Les Carnets D’Orient De Jacques Ferrandez, Carla Calargé

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

My article analyses the representation of women in the Carnets d’Orient, a graphic novel series that tells the (hi)story of Algeria since its colonial conquest by the French army until its independence in 1962. I argue that the representation of women in the series varies not only according to the periods represented in the work, but also and more importantly according to the evolution that took place in the author himself while working on the series. the essay is organized in three parts according to three historical periods. The first period is that of the colonial conquest of Algeria (1830-1872) …

Je E(S)T L’Autre, Nadia Duchêne

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Immigration and otherness represent core concerns in contemporary society and, as such, give rise to debate and discussion in many disciplines. the question of otherness also arises as a recurrent and key subject in the field of literature. Tahar Ben Jelloun’s novel Partir is replete with the ambivalence of otherness: attraction/aversion; difference/similarity; lack/exile; native/foreigner; close/distant; normal/deviant and as such provides a laboratory where the expression of otherness in discourse can be dissected. We will examine the perception and the issue of otherness in the novel as well as the strength of its representations.

Le Théâtre Amateur Marocain. Trajectoire D’Un Théâtre Alternatif, Omar Fertat

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Modern Moroccan theatre was born with non-professional artists and has remained intimately linked to this milieu. Unlike professional playwrights, non-professional artists have never bowed to the demands of political authorities, whether it be the French administration or the local Makhzen. They used this artistic medium as a forum for debate and resistance against the oppressor. This freedom of expression operated not just at the political level but also at the aesthetic level. Since non-professionals were not constrained by the need to please an audience fond of social comedies and melodramas, they could explore more risky avant-garde paths. In spite of …

Le Roman Africain : Drame Or Histoire, Bernard Mouralis

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

For a long time, African novelists claimed filiation with realism. But there is in realism a deep contradiction between the will of describing the social world and the will of changing it. From this contradiction, the paper studies : the relation between theatre and novel ; the question of citizenship in the novel ; the place of the novel in front of knowledge and action. The novel shows dynamics and characters living in the time. So, it tends to wander from the principle of knowledge and self-consciousness.

Mutations Politiques Et Processus De Légitimation Culturelle : Considérations Sur Le Théâtre Populaire Camerounais, Pierre Fandio

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

All forms of theatre have never been perceived the same way in contemporary Cameroon. Whereas the written theatre relatively received an acceptable treatment from the official instances of recognition, the non-written one has always been excluded. This communication sets out to show how, from this marginalized position and palpably inspired at the same time from the Italian commedia dell’arte, the French vaudeville and the African traditional dramaturgic shape, a new and popular form of theatre came to existence. Thanks to the exceptional capacity of adaptation and innovation of its discourse and thematic, the offer of this “street dramaturgy” rather matches …

La Dramatisation De L’Écriture Chez Sony Labou Tansi, Georges Ngal

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

As an author always articulates his writing with idioms that reflect a specific time period and a given social group, Sony Labou Tansi talks about “tropicalité”, and gives himself the goal to create multiple “tropicalités”.

L’Écriture De La Perte Chez Assia Djebar, Lila Kermas

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

This study proposes a reflexion on the feeling of “loss” as a source of literary creation. The different tensions generated by an hybrid identity of a character in a quest, especially in La disparition de la langue française (“disappearance of the French language”) by Assia Djebar ; what matters here is to see how the feeling of crisis and the split reveals itself and how it dissolves in and through (the process of) writing.

De La Parole Poétique À La Parole Politique Dans Les Oeuvres Théâtrales D’Aimé Césaire Et De Sony Labou Tansi, Virginie Darriet-Féréol

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Aimé Césaire and Sony Labou Tansi wished for acting and voicing for their people both on the political and literary level. By choosing the drama, they presented the language. By creating a new language, a new literature, a new artistic aesthetics, consequently a new trend of thinking, their writing served policy.