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2004

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Articles 1 - 30 of 39

Full-Text Articles in African History

Les Pouvoirs Du Récit : Un Remède Au Chaos Du Monde? En Attentant Le Vote Des Bêtes Sauvages, Madeleine Borgomano Dec 2004

Les Pouvoirs Du Récit : Un Remède Au Chaos Du Monde? En Attentant Le Vote Des Bêtes Sauvages, Madeleine Borgomano

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Right from his first novel, Les Soleils des Indépendances (1970), Kourouma introduced the theme of the reversed world, a baroque metaphor for the state of Africa after Independence. In Monnè (1990), telling the history of this reversal, he insisted on its linguistic roots. Consequently, En attendant le vote des bêtes sauvages (1998) shows how this reversal in the context of Cold War, favoured the genesis and development of dictatorial powers leading to an actual apocalypse. This victory of Chaos is told as a donsomana, traditional song of expiation among the Malinke hunters. The forms and magic virtues of this song …


La Vie Et Demie Ou Les Corps Chaotiques Des Mots Et Des Êtres, Caroline Giguère Dec 2004

La Vie Et Demie Ou Les Corps Chaotiques Des Mots Et Des Êtres, Caroline Giguère

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Due to its polysemy, corporality has several functions in the works of Sony Labou Tansi. More than descriptive or thematic elements, the novelistic bodies in La vie et demie are at the same time meeting points for multiple meanings, objects and producers of discourse. This study aims to demonstrate how the writing of the body is symbolic of a disorder that characterizes the forms and contents of Sony Labou Tansi’s novels and invites the reader to reflect on language and its power.


Trop De Soleil Tue L'Amour : Une Expression De L'Écriture Du Mal-Être De Mongo Beti, Rodolphine Sylvie Wamba Dec 2004

Trop De Soleil Tue L'Amour : Une Expression De L'Écriture Du Mal-Être De Mongo Beti, Rodolphine Sylvie Wamba

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

The classical and dissident African writer Mongo Beti perpetually uses the theme of man’s quest for freedom in everything he does. In fact, the philosophy of “Rubénism” is found in each of his works. Given that man must survive in the “ocean of shit” he lives in, the writer, using a popular language, freely chooses to add some humour to everyday life. Thus, the text we studied appeared as a genuine thriller, complete with comedy and tragedy, which presents a deviation from more formal writing. This is the main idea of this analysis, which consists of showing Trop de soleil …


Chaos Temporel Et Chaos Romanesque Dans Allah N'Est Pas Obligé D'Ahmadou Kourouma, Nathalie Roy Dec 2004

Chaos Temporel Et Chaos Romanesque Dans Allah N'Est Pas Obligé D'Ahmadou Kourouma, Nathalie Roy

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

This paper proposes an analysis of time representation in Allah n’est pas obligé with concepts taken from Temps et récit. It aims to show that in relation to Kourouma’s novel, one of Ricoeur’s hypothesis is revealingly insufficient. This hypothesis actually questions representation modes occuring in the text, exposing one of the sources of fictional chaos.


Transcrire L'Horreur Sur L'Espace De La Page, Bernadette Ginestet-Levine Dec 2004

Transcrire L'Horreur Sur L'Espace De La Page, Bernadette Ginestet-Levine

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Rachid Boudjedra’s Timimoun uses the theatrical convention of a minibus taking tourists to the desert. In this mini-bus, news from the outside world is brought through the radio, which plays the part of a messenger. The narration moves forward by a progression of press releases that report bombings committed by terrorists. The barbarian nature of the acts is transcribed on the page by means of typography. The spatial/visual convention itself is set in concentric lexical fields – liquid, then desertic – erected as fences in an attempt to confine the unbearable.


Folie Et Écriture Dans Calomnies De Linda Lê, Ching Selao Dec 2004

Folie Et Écriture Dans Calomnies De Linda Lê, Ching Selao

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

This article proposes to explore the many faces of madness through a reading of Linda Lê’s Calomnies, in which two narrative voices are presented. The following shall demonstrate how this novel reproduces a “romantic” perception of madness as encountered in Michel Foucault’s work. Although this narrative text introduces a mad narrator speaking in the “I” persona, it nonetheless points out the difficulties of letting madness speak for itself. These difficulties are also examined in this study.


Face À La Meute – Narration Et Folie Dans Les Romans De Boubacar Boris Diop, Susanne Gehrmann Dec 2004

Face À La Meute – Narration Et Folie Dans Les Romans De Boubacar Boris Diop, Susanne Gehrmann

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

The article analyses the narrative techniques and the theme of madness in three novels by the Senegalese writer Boubacar Boris Diop, caracterised by narrative polyphony and metatextual reflexion on the production of a story. The speech of protagonists affected by “intellectual madness” plays a strategic role in the structure of the novel which, as a hybrid genre, draws on oral and literary traditions in a still splintered aesthetic. The image of the pack represents an unreasonnable society condemning a so-called mad individual whose madness consists in bringing a counter-memory of the foundation myths.


Parties Annexes Dec 2004

Parties Annexes

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

No abstract provided.


Post-Modern Pathologies And Pan-African Erasures: Problems Of Identity In Coastal East Africa, Jesse Benjamin Oct 2004

Post-Modern Pathologies And Pan-African Erasures: Problems Of Identity In Coastal East Africa, Jesse Benjamin

Jesse Benjamin

No abstract provided.


Werewere Liking Et La Poétique Du Jeu Pour Libérer L'Imaginaire Postcolonial Africain, Kasereka Kavwahirehi Jun 2004

Werewere Liking Et La Poétique Du Jeu Pour Libérer L'Imaginaire Postcolonial Africain, Kasereka Kavwahirehi

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

This essay addresses the issue of poetics and political stakes in Werewere Liking's novel, Elle sera de jaspe et de corail. While this novel has been presented as illustrative of the Negro-African aesthetics rooted in orality, the present article argues that Liking's poetics of hybridity is a postcolonial strategy whose aim is the liberation of African imagination and creativity. The essay ends by suggesting some similarities between Liking's project and that of the Congolese philosopher, especially in his philosophical essay, L'Afrique va-t-elle mourir? Bouscu/er l'imaginaire africain. Through their works, Ka Mana and Werewere Liking are examining the conditions for a …


Patrice Emery Lumumba : Entre Metaphore Et Metonymie, Justin K. Bisanswa Jun 2004

Patrice Emery Lumumba : Entre Metaphore Et Metonymie, Justin K. Bisanswa

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

The purpose of this text is to analyze the historiography devoted to Patrice Lumumba and the use of rhetoric that launched him into legend. The metaphor characterizes Lumumba in his journey towards death and the alienation of identity, rendering concrete a kind of degradation, of the animated and the unanimated. Further, the metaphor breaks down into a string of fragments, or of metonymical qualities. Lumumba's struggle for justice, equality, purity, truth, and the ideal translates the drama of which he is a victim into an extreme search for the ideal. This drama expresses itself by a notable use of the …


Lectures Mythophores Des Recits De L'Origine Dans N'Zid De Malika Mokeddem, Mireille Rosello Jun 2004

Lectures Mythophores Des Recits De L'Origine Dans N'Zid De Malika Mokeddem, Mireille Rosello

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

In 1957, Barthes critiqued the omnipresence of imperialist myths. Is his study of the collusion between myths and colonialism still relevant today? Rather than looking for a new canon of postcolonial myths, Rosello proposes to distinguish between two critical stances: demystification and demythification. Rosello suggests that literature can afford to take the risk of mythification through a reading of a "mythoforic" novel: Malika Mokeddem's N'zid, a text that remythifies and demystifies the opposition between nomads and sedentaries.


Gommage Et Résistance Dans Le Processus De Mythification Postcoloniale, Robert Fotsing Mangoua Jun 2004

Gommage Et Résistance Dans Le Processus De Mythification Postcoloniale, Robert Fotsing Mangoua

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Using the central figures of Um Nyobe and Patrice Lumumba, this paper aims to show that postcolonial mythology is a confrontation of two tendencies: on one hand, the colonial and postcolonial States, whose efforts tend to rub out history and its great faces, and on the other, artists and thinkers from Africa or abroad who want to establish the memory and the deeds of the missing as a source of inspiration for the present and next generation.


Mango Beti Et Les Mythologies Postcoloniales : Héritier Et Inspirateur, Nathalie Etoke Jun 2004

Mango Beti Et Les Mythologies Postcoloniales : Héritier Et Inspirateur, Nathalie Etoke

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Mango Beti belongs to a nationalist tradition embodied by Ruben Um Nyobe, the Cameroonian revolutionary. This paper analyzes how the writer manages to rebuild the aborted Rubenist ideal through fictional devices. Charismatic leaders such as Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, who have been able to bring about social change and improve the living conditions of their people, also nurture Beti's political commitment. What is the link between the writer and these inspiring men? Is Mongo Beti himself a similar inspiration for other African writers?


Mythologie Postcoloniale Française Ou La Quête Permanente Du Livre Rose De La Colonisation, Armelle Cressent Jun 2004

Mythologie Postcoloniale Française Ou La Quête Permanente Du Livre Rose De La Colonisation, Armelle Cressent

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

This article touches on four books about colonization, which were recently published in France and which are intended for wide readership. This article underlines how the authors maintain the myth of a "rather beautiful" French Colonization or/and how they tend to avoid a too brutal questioning of the French colonial past in their writings.


Subversion D'Un Mythe Colonial : Le« Grand Blanc De Lambaréné » Dans Le Roman Francophone D'Afrique, Sylvère Mbondobari Jun 2004

Subversion D'Un Mythe Colonial : Le« Grand Blanc De Lambaréné » Dans Le Roman Francophone D'Afrique, Sylvère Mbondobari

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

Among its goals, this study aims to throw new light on the representation of the West in African Francophone literature. In this respect, it will examine some characteristic aspects of the image of the "Grand Blanc de Lambarene" - Albert Schweitzer - produced by the African imagination. For the first time, this paper shows which discursive and structural strategies are used by Sylvain Bemba and Seraphin Ndaot to represent Albert Schweitzer, to express their convictions, and how they confer a thematic or aesthetic aspect to their text. To be fully heuristic, the representation of Schweitzer requires that we reconstitute the …


Reviews: Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity And Race, Ethnicity, And Sexuality: Intimate Intersections, Forbidden Frontiers, Mechthild Nagel Apr 2004

Reviews: Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity And Race, Ethnicity, And Sexuality: Intimate Intersections, Forbidden Frontiers, Mechthild Nagel

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

No abstract provided.


When Male Becomes Female And Female Becomes Male In Mande., Kassim Kone Apr 2004

When Male Becomes Female And Female Becomes Male In Mande., Kassim Kone

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

This paper argues that an ideology of masculinity among the Bamana is based on the belief of supremacy of the male biological heritage over the female heritage in procreation. The statuses and roles of Bamana men and women remain culturally and contextually fluid however. Father to his own children, a man is also the male mother to his sister’s child. On the opposite, the paternal aunt is the female father to her brother’s child. A clear picture of the gender relations requires an understanding of women’s roles and their power and authority in their families of orientation. Similarly, male domination …


Arms Control, Mary Kennan Herbert Apr 2004

Arms Control, Mary Kennan Herbert

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

No abstract provided.


Review: Gender, Development, And Globalization, Jennifer L. Mendel Apr 2004

Review: Gender, Development, And Globalization, Jennifer L. Mendel

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

No abstract provided.


Invited And Invented Spaces Of Participation: Neoliberal Citizenship And Feminists' Expanded Notion Of Politics., Faranak Miraftab Apr 2004

Invited And Invented Spaces Of Participation: Neoliberal Citizenship And Feminists' Expanded Notion Of Politics., Faranak Miraftab

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

This short conceptual piece calls for a careful rethinking of what feminist scholars have articulated as an expanded notion of politics: the notion that rejects the binary constructs of formal/informal, and demonstrates the significance of community-based activism as an informal arena of politics and citizenship construction. Introducing the interacting and mutually constitutive concepts of “invited” and “invented” spaces of citizenship, this essay urges recognition of the full range of spaces within the informal arena where citizenship is practiced. It warns of the risk arising from the literature’s limited focus on strategies of survival: namely, the likelihood of a bifurcated conceptualization …


Djotaayi Dieguenye: The Gathering Of Women In Mariama Ba's Fictional World., Siga Fatima Jagne Apr 2004

Djotaayi Dieguenye: The Gathering Of Women In Mariama Ba's Fictional World., Siga Fatima Jagne

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

Mariama Bâ's fiction is situated in the tradition of the speakerly text—the oral tradition of the Senegalese griot women. This paper focuses on Bâ’s nuanced analysis of caste, friendship, fate, and women's relations. Bâ is critical of archaic and misogynist traditional practices and in her writing she expresses a hope for a positive construction of the Wolof world view.


From The Editor, Mechthild Nagel Apr 2004

From The Editor, Mechthild Nagel

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

No abstract provided.


En-Gendering Critical Spatial Literacy: Migrant Asante Women And The Politics Of Urban Space., Epifania Adoo-Adare Apr 2004

En-Gendering Critical Spatial Literacy: Migrant Asante Women And The Politics Of Urban Space., Epifania Adoo-Adare

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

The power of spatial configurations in our everyday social practices and ideological constructions of place and identity cannot be denied. As an architect and an Asante woman who has always lived in African and diasporic cities, I am particularly interested in how Black women’s socioeconomic lives have been constituted, situated, and enacted in western urban spatiality. I believe that Black women the world over are disproportionately represented in unsuitable and inadequate urban spaces and are also underrepresented in urban development decision-making processes. Also, as a Black female architect intent on imagining and constructing radical architectural counter-narratives within hegemonic spatial politics, …


A Requiem For Voicelessness: Pakistanis And Muslims In The Us., Asma Barlas Apr 2004

A Requiem For Voicelessness: Pakistanis And Muslims In The Us., Asma Barlas

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

In this essay, I discuss the attack on the civil liberties of Muslims, some challenges I face as a Muslim-Pakistani-American in the present political milieu, and the psychology of racism. This was delivered as a 15-minute talk and is in the nature of some reflections and not a systematic analysis.


Review: The Socialist Feminist Project, Kathryn Russell Apr 2004

Review: The Socialist Feminist Project, Kathryn Russell

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

No abstract provided.


Labels Of African American Ballers: A Historical Contemporary Investigation Of African American Male Youth's Depletions From America's Favorite Pastime 1885-2000, Keith Harrison Feb 2004

Labels Of African American Ballers: A Historical Contemporary Investigation Of African American Male Youth's Depletions From America's Favorite Pastime 1885-2000, Keith Harrison

Dr. C. Keith Harrison

No abstract provided.


Au Seuil Du Chaos : Devoir De Mémoire, Indicible Et Piège Du Devoir Dire, Issac Bazié Jan 2004

Au Seuil Du Chaos : Devoir De Mémoire, Indicible Et Piège Du Devoir Dire, Issac Bazié

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

That literature has not entirely lost its means when faced with great human tragedies is a fact widely debated when it comes to the Holocaust. This text relies on a discussion of the unspeakable in order to reflect on the texts written about Rwanda’s genocide. Reading those texts’ thresholds reveals a tension of writing between history and fiction, “devoir de mémoire” and near resignation of speech.


Rulers, Scholars, And Invaders: A Select Bibliography Of The Songhay Empire, Brent D. Singleton Jan 2004

Rulers, Scholars, And Invaders: A Select Bibliography Of The Songhay Empire, Brent D. Singleton

Library Faculty Publications & Presentations

No abstract provided.


African Bibliophiles: Books And Libraries In Medieval Timbuktu, Brent D. Singleton Jan 2004

African Bibliophiles: Books And Libraries In Medieval Timbuktu, Brent D. Singleton

Library Faculty Publications & Presentations

The West African city of Timbuktu flourished as a center for Islamic scholarship from the 14th through the 16th century. The social structure of the city was based on wealth, with further stratification by degree of literacy, and expertise in interpreting Islamic legal texts. As a consequence, books and libraries evolved into blessed symbols of scholarship, wealth, and power. This study explores the history of books and libraries during the Golden Age of Timbuktu (1493--1591), followed by a discussion of the divergence of library practices in Timbuktu from those in the greater Islamic world of the time.