Behaviour and Cultural Value in West African Stories: Literary Sources for the Study of Culture Contact

Africa ◽  
1964 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 353-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Austin J. Shelton
Keyword(s):  
African Literature ◽  
Cultural Background ◽  
Culture Contact ◽  
West African ◽  
Cultural Value ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Literary Sources ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Art For Art's Sake ◽  
The Relationship

Opening ParagraphIn much modern West African literature in English and French the authors depict problems concerning the relationship between the socio-cultural background and the particular experiences and behaviour of the characters portrayed. Investigation and analysis of such stories to ascertain the authors' ‘solutions’ of the characters' problems can aid our understanding of values and attitudes among modern Africans and in turn contribute to the growing corpus of knowledge about culture contact. As Cyprian Ekwensi, the Nigerian novelist, has claimed: ‘African writing is writing which reveals the psychology of the African.’ Obviously it reveals the psychology of both the author and the characters whom he portrays, and even though stories are written by individuals who are ‘modern’ Africans, strong opposition to any consideration of African literature as individualistic ‘art for art's sake’ has been manifested by Africans, including the Society of Nigerian Authors in their reply to Martin Tucker's 1962 argument that African novelists are over-communal and insufficiently individualistic in what they portray. In making such a response, the Nigerian authors in effect reasserted a traditional African attitude towards art as socially functional rather than merely aesthetically pleasing. One is thus justified in pursuing the study of modern literary works by Africans as expressions of attitudes and values related to tradition, contact, and change.

The West African Students' Union: A Study in Culture Contact

Africa ◽  
1953 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Garigue
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Geographical Origin ◽  
Culture Contact ◽  
West African ◽  
Historical Account ◽  
The West ◽  
African Students ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Large Groups

Opening ParagraphThis study of a specific instance of culture contact, that provided by the situation of West African students in Britain, is limited to a discussion and analysis of their association in the West African Students' Union. The fact of common geographical origin partly explains the formation of such a Union, for the same reason as United States, Canadian, South African, and other large groups of students living in Britain have become so organized. But this would ignore the situation of colour prejudice facing coloured students in Britain, and also their colonial status in relation to Britain. Because of this determining characteristic of being an association of coloured colonial students, the West African Students' Union has developed, throughout its history, certain features not normally found among students' unions, and which are reminiscent of ‘protest movements’. The analysis which is presented here seeks to determine the reasons why West African students organized themselves into the West African Students' Union from 1926 onwards. It is unfortunately not possible to do more here than touch briefly upon the major changes which took place during that time, but as most of the data here presented have not hitherto been published, enough details have been included to give an idea of the manner in which members of the West African Students' Union responded to the situation of culture contact. The paper is divided into two parts: first, an historical account of the type of ideas held by the members of the Union; and, secondly, a discussion of the reasons why West African students join the Union.

scholarly journals Den kriminelle romanen og leseren

2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 140-161
Author(s):  
Gerd Karin Omdal
Keyword(s):  
Literary Works ◽  
Language And Gender ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Book Format ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Important Objective ◽  
Critical Investigation

Abstract In the article KYKA / 1984 is studied as a concrete experiment with the printed book as a medium and with the double-book-format. Karin Moe is in this text dealing with questions concerning the relationship between work and text, and between work, text and reader. The article is an exploration of the design and the composition of the book, and it also explores several kinds of transtextuality, which are establishing interconnections with other literary works and genres. Questions raised by Moe in KYKA / 1984 concerning language and gender are also examined. An important objective of the article is to uncover how and why an experimental and critical investigation is carried out in a book copying a well-known commercial format.

Author–Screenwriter– Director (1930s–1950s): Articulating Authorship Through Self-Adaptations and Film Novelisations in Bengali

2021 ◽  
pp. 097492762098395
Author(s):  
Priyanjali Sen
Keyword(s):  
Literary Works ◽  
Bengali Literature ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Literature And Film ◽  
Film And Literature ◽  
Significant Factors

During the 1930s, one of the significant factors that strengthened the connection between Bengali literature and film was the emergence of certain key figures who straddled overlapping roles as author–screenwriter–director, frequently adapting their own literary works and reframing the contentious ‘authorship issue’ that arises between writer and filmmaker. By focusing on three such figures—Premankur Atorthy (1890–1964), Sailajananda Mukhopadhyay (1901–1976) and Premendra Mitra (1904–1988)—this essay examines the manner in which self-adaptations served to transfer the power of the literary author to the nascent cinematic auteur, particularly through the intermediary process of screenwriting. The essay also draws attention to the practice of film novelisations that was mobilised since the mid-1940s by Mitra and others like Jyotirmoy Roy and Panchugopal Mukhopadhyay, where novels were written based on cinematic works, akin to French cinéromans and contrary to ‘authorless’ novelisations by ghostwriters. In subsequent years, film novels were written by director Hemen Gupta, writers Tarashankar Bandopadhyay, Shaktipada Rajguru and Kalkut, which brings to light a largely unexplored dimension of the relationship between Bengali film and literature.

Representations of Music and Musicians in the Sanskrit Epics: The Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-262
Author(s):  
Kaustubh Gaurh
Keyword(s):  
Social Factors ◽  
Musical Thought ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Literary Sources ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
The Relationship

The aim of this study is to understand the ‘idea’ of music that existed in early India in the first millennium bce. Observing the historiographical trends that have emerged in the historical studies of music, it can be seen that there is scarcity of sources to study the kind of music that was practised in this time period. But the approach presented here deals with the traces of music in the literary sources (the Sanskrit epics: the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata) which cover the representations of music and musicians. This would help us infer the nature of musical thought that evolved in early India. 1 The objective is to study the relationship between an art form and the society, by looking at ‘art in society’, not ‘society in art’ to see how music was conditioned by early Indian social factors. 2 After discussing the sources used for the study, a range of philosophical, material and societal aspects are addressed by looking at how the societies in early India engaged themselves with music.

scholarly journals Trains of African Easterly Waves and Their Relationship to Tropical Cyclone Genesis in the Eastern Atlantic

2017 ◽  
Vol 145 (2) ◽  
pp. 599-616 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdou L. Dieng ◽  
Saidou M. Sall ◽  
Laurence Eymard ◽  
Marion Leduc-Leballeur ◽  
Alban Lazar
Keyword(s):  
West African ◽  
Dynamical Structure ◽  
African Easterly Waves ◽  
The South ◽  
The West ◽  
Easterly Waves ◽  
West African Coast ◽  
African Coast ◽  
Tropical Depressions ◽  
The Relationship

In this study, the relationship between trains of African easterly waves (AEWs) and downstream tropical cyclogenesis is studied. Based on 19 summer seasons (July–September from 1990 to 2008) of ERA-Interim reanalysis fields and brightness temperature from the Cloud User Archive, the signature of AEW troughs and embedded convection are tracked from the West African coast to the central Atlantic. The tracked systems are separated into four groups: (i) systems originating from the north zone of the midtropospheric African easterly jet (AEJ), (ii) those coming from the south part of AEJ, (iii) systems that are associated with a downstream trough located around 2000 km westward (termed DUO systems), and (iv) those that are not associated with such a close downstream trough (termed SOLO systems). By monitoring the embedded 700-hPa-filtered relative vorticity and 850-hPa wind convergence anomaly associated with these families along their trajectories, it is shown that the DUO generally have stronger dynamical structure and statistically have a longer lifetime than the SOLO ones. It is suggested that the differences between them may be due to the presence of the previous intense downstream trough in DUO cases, enhancing the low-level convergence behind them. Moreover, a study of the relationship between system trajectories and tropical depressions occurring between the West African coast and 40°W showed that 90% of tropical depressions are identifiable from the West African coast in tracked systems, mostly in the DUO cases originating from the south zone of the AEJ.

scholarly journals Between Heaven and Earth: Family ownership versus rights of monastic communities. The Theodosian Code and late antique legal practice

2020 ◽  
pp. 117-170
Author(s):  
Marzena Wojtczak
Keyword(s):  
Roman Law ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Literary Sources ◽  
Monastic Communities ◽  
The Will ◽  
The One ◽  
Secular Power ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Heaven And Earth

This article investigates the relationship between the legislation introduced in the field of proprietary rights assigned to various Church entities and the practice of accumulation of wealth by the monastic communities in late antique Egypt. On the one hand, among the literary sources the predominant theme concerning Egyptian monasticism is the idea of voluntary poverty and renunciation of worldly possessions aimed at the pursuance of a contemplative life. On the other hand, the papyri offer insight into monastic life that does not seem to have been entirely detached from the outside world. In this vein, the laws of Valentinian I and Theodosius II clearly indicate that monks and nuns continued to own property without disturbance after undertaking religious life. In addition, Theodosius the Great and later emperors restricted the freedom of certain groups of citizens to disown their property, rendering the Christian ideal of voluntary poverty not always feasible. It is only with Justinian that the rules regarding monastic poverty are shaped and set by the secular power. The incentive for this study is to check for any conflict between the principles of classical Roman law in the field of private ownership and imperial legislation included in the Codex Theodosianus. Giorgio Barone-Adesi observed the tension that took place between the Christian communities and their corporations that were allotted ever broader privileges and the Roman principle of preservation of the property within the family unit. There is, however, still some room left for discussion since not all the data easily adds up to an unequivocal conclusion. In this analysis, the Code is treated as a measure for taking a stand by the legislator in the dispute between the will of the owner, recognition of the rights of the heirs and family members, and finally the privileges granted to the religious consortia.

scholarly journals Hausa phraseologisms as a structural property of language and cultural value

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-120
Author(s):  
Nina Pawlak
Keyword(s):  
Key Words ◽  
Structural Property ◽  
Cultural Background ◽  
Cultural Value ◽  
Comparative Perspective ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Structural Level ◽  
Cultural Experience ◽  
Surrounding World ◽  
Nominal Compounds

The paper discusses phraseological units in Hausa as combinations of lexical units which have grammatical and cultural motivations. Its purpose is to identify language-specific types of structural phraseologisms and their culture-specific meanings. At the structural level, the most productive patterns of verbal phrases and nominal compounds are being presented. Special attention is devoted to various types of verb-based nominal phrases which refer to perceiving the surrounding world through instances of people’s behavior. The structural phraseologisms are also seen as a means of abstract conceptualization and a source of grammaticalization processes. The cultural background of the Hausa phraseologisms is referred to culture key-words and the traces of cultural experience which determine the meaning of the whole phrase. This approach includes a comparative perspective in studies on phrasal expressions in the Hausa language. The examples are taken from lexicographic sources and from descriptive works, they are also extracted from literary texts, the text of “Magana Jari Ce” [Speech is an Asset] by Abubakar Imam in particular.

scholarly journals Literature and Psychology in the Context of the Interaction of Social Sciences

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 49-55
Author(s):  
Badegül Can Emir
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Virginia Woolf ◽  
Wide Field ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Fyodor Dostoevsky ◽  
Lev Tolstoy ◽  
The Relationship

There is a two-way relationship between literature and psychology coming together on the same intersection at the point of essential people and human behavior. As it is possible to approach literature and to evaluate literary works with the resources of psychology, and of literary sciences, so it is also possible to consider literary works based on psychology and to discover psychological facts in literature. Thus, both psychologists and writers have taken into consideration the relationship between literature and psychology. Studies of the science of psychology directed to literature, literary works and writers that was introduced by Freud continued with other outstanding theorists of psychology such as Adler, Jung, Lacan, From, Reich and Klein. Likewise, writers and literary theorists such as N.Holland, Lev Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Virginia Woolf contributed to the psychology of literature. This paper is an effort to analyze the relationship between literature and psychology considering the wide field which the science of psychology opens for literature.

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