scholarly journals Privileging the Decolonial Critical Theory in studying wa Thiong’o’s literary works

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 104-120
Author(s):  
Brian Sibanda
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
North American ◽  
Global South ◽  
Ngugi Wa Thiong'o ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Impaired Vision ◽  
Literary Theories ◽  
Post Colonialism

Literary theories are the lens in which reality is created and viewed. If an incorrect or limited lens in used, then they impact on vision hence the corrective lenses are used to correct impaired vision. The literary works of Ngugi wa Thiong’o have been comfortably viewed from Marxist, Nationalist and Post-colonialist lens. It is the argument of this paper that though these literary theories do shed clarity on the works of wa Thiong’o, they limit the span of what we see that is outside their frames. The paper privileges the Decolonial Critical Theory, a theory located in the Global South, as the most appropriate lens to visibilise the decolonial thoughts and philosophy of wa Thiong’o. The appropriateness of the Decolonial Critical Theory is that it provides a critical lens outside the Euro- North American “mainstream” canon foregrounded in coloniality. The argument expanded here is that essentialisms and fundamentalisms like Marxism, Nationalism and Post-colonialism are limited in the critique of wa Thiong’o as they do not take coloniality and decoloniality into account. Undoubtedly, wa Thiong’o has been many things politically and philosophically, but decoloniality as a philosophy is the organising idea and overarching line of his thought. Like decoloniality itself, wa Thiong’o has developed, journeyed and passed through different ideological and philosophical liaisons to arrive at his present decolonial consciousness and activism hence Decolonial Critical Theory is a betting lens in looking at this journey.

THE DYNAMICS OF EPISTEMOLOGICAL DECOLONISATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY: TOWARDS EPISTEMIC FREEDOM

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Academic Freedom ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Global South ◽  
Epistemic Virtue ◽  
Epistemic Dependence ◽  
Knowledge Domain ◽  
Normative Foundation ◽  
Conceptual Study

The problem of the 21st century in the knowledge domain is best rendered as the ‘epistemic line’. It cascades directly from William E B Dubois’s ‘colour line’ which haunted the 20th century and provoked epic struggles for political decolonisation. The connection between the ‘colour line’ and the ‘epistemic line’ is in the racist denial of the humanity of those who became targets of enslavement and colonisation. The denial of humanity automatically disqualified one from epistemic virtue. This conceptual study, therefore explores in an overview format, how Africa in particular and the rest of the Global South in general became victims of genocides, epistemicides, linguicides, and culturecides. It delves deeper into the perennial problems of ontological exiling of the colonised from their languages, cultures, names, and even from themselves while at the same time highlighting how the colonised refused to succumb to the ‘silences’ and fought for epistemic freedom. The article introduces such useful analytical concepts as ‘epistemic freedom’ as opposed to ‘academic freedom’; ‘provincialisation’; ‘deprovincialisation’; ‘epistemological decolonisation’; ‘intellectual extroversion’; and ‘epistemic dependence’. It ends with an outline of five-ways-forward in the African struggles for epistemic freedom predicated on (i) return to the base/locus of enunciation; (ii) shifting the geo-and bio-of knowledge/moving the centre; (iii) decolonising the normative foundation of critical theory; (iv) rethinking thinking itself; and finally (v) learning to unlearn in order to relearn.

scholarly journals Developing Multi-Literacy Skills by Creating Graphic Story in Literature Class: A Project-Based Learning Approach

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-95
Author(s):  
Rahmad Hidayat ◽  
Fajar Susanto
Keyword(s):  
Action Plan ◽  
Literary Text ◽  
Literacy Skills ◽  
Project Based Learning ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Literary Adaptation ◽  
Text Understanding ◽  
Literary Theories ◽  
Literature Class ◽  
Reader Response Criticism

The research aims to develop multi-literacy skills by creating a literary graphic story as a creative and innovative way for English Department students in learning literature. By creating an adaptation from text to picture, students are expected to improve their ability to understand literary works and express their creative and innovative skills. This is a qualitative study implementing the Project-based Learning (PBL) approach in literature class, which aims to produce graphic stories as the output of studying literature. Students do not only understand the literary theories but also make something out of their understanding. The scaffolding instruction method was employed to examine practices of improving multiliteracy skills. A detailed action research plan, including preliminary observation in the classroom, action plan, intervention, and guiding, is applied. The investigation related to the barriers in doing the project is going to be conducted as well. Reader Response criticism is introduced to students in the reading and analyzing stage as a useful method to develop their critical thinking in evaluating the literary works they read. We argue that the students improve their reading skills, writing skills and producing graphic story stories based on their own interpretation of the literary text, which is proven by the summary and conversation texts they produce in the graphic stories. They also develop their creativity by producing images and pictures as the result of the literary adaptation process. There are two significant outcomes of the project: developing literary text understanding as well as producing the original graphic story.

Non-Violence as a Tool of African Revolutionary Praxis in Femi Osofisan’s Red is the Freedom Road

Utafiti ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-80
Author(s):  
Clement Olujide Ajidahun
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Ngugi Wa Thiong'o ◽  
Wole Soyinka ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Revolutionary Praxis

Abstract The deployment of violence as a subversive and revolutionary tool for effecting social change in post-independent African states has been very controversial among literary scholars. This paper employs Marxism in re-reading Femi Osofisan’s Red is the Freedom Road, and argues that the use of violence as a popular means of engendering progressive transformation of society is too costly in blood and devastation. Instead, tackling the various sociopolitical challenges confronting postcolonial African nations is better pursued through dialogue and negotiation rather than armed confrontation. Osofisan’s revulsion in response to the use of violence permeates his drama; but this does not in any way reduce his literary stature when compared with Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Wole Soyinka, whose literary works seem to support the view that there comes a point when the deployment of violence becomes necessary.

scholarly journals Kenneth Burke: Pioneer of Ecocriticism

2001 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 413-431 ◽  
Author(s):  
LAURENCE COUPE
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
North American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Kenneth Burke ◽  
Ecological Perspective ◽  
Know How ◽  
Anxiety Of Influence ◽  
De Man

Nearly every handbook of critical theory acknowledges Kenneth Burke (1897–1993) to be the twentieth-century North American critic who was most ahead of his time. Yet he seems to have been so ambitious that we still do not know how to place him. Indeed, it would require the space of a whole book to trace the extensive but scarcely documented impact which he has had. Concepts for which many other critics became famous may be traced back to him: ‘‘the order of words’’ (Frye); ‘‘the rhetoric of fiction’’ (Booth); ‘‘blindness and insight’’ (De Man); ‘‘narrative as a socially symbolic act’’ (Jameson); ‘‘the anxiety of influence’’ (Bloom). Indeed, it may well be that very anxiety which has led so many contemporary critics to repress his memory. But there is a change in the critical climate, corresponding to the global. This article is written in the hope that Burke will shortly be recognized as the first critic systematically to analyse culture and literature from an ecological perspective. As the dating of our epigraph indicates, he initiated this project over half a century before the rise of ecocriticism in the United States. Moreover, this was no passing phase for him; his whole career may be understood as a profound experiment in green thinking.

The History (and Philosophy) of Religions

2012 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan Rennie
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
North American ◽  
American Association ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Annual Conference ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
The North ◽  
Potential Improvement ◽  
Philosophical Nature

In a paper given at a Roundtable at the American Academy of Religion (AAR) National Annual Conference in Montreal in November of 2009, jointly organized by the North American Association for the Study of Religion and the Critical Theory and Discourses in Religion Group of the AAR, I argued for the ineluctably philosophical nature of what is most commonly called ‘method and theory in the study of religion.’ That paper ( Rennie, 2010 ) also argues that what is conventionally referred to as ‘philosophy of religion’ does not, strictly speaking, warrant that name since it is in fact a form of theology that utilizes philosophical methodologies to consider principally, if not exclusively, Christian concerns. I also argued that a philosophy of religion(s) constituted along the lines of the philosophy of science would be a potential improvement in both ‘philosophy of religion’ and ‘method and theory in the study of religion.’ In this paper I would like to consider—with the help of a closer look at contemporary philosophy of science—precisely what a reconstituted history (and philosophy) of religions might look like, how it might differ from current scholarship, and what it might achieve. Dans une communication donnée lors d’une table ronde à l’American Academy of Religion (AAR) National Annual Conference à Montréal en novembre 2009, organisée conjointement par le North American Association for the Study of Religion et le groupe de Critical Theory and Discourses in Religion de l’AAR, j’avais argué la nature inéluctablement philosophique de ce qui est couramment appelé « Method and Theory in the Study of Religion ». Cet article ( Rennie, 2010 ) soutient également la thèse que ce qu’on appelle couramment « Philosophie de la religion » ne correspond pas stricto sensu à ce qu’une telle dénomination recouvre puisqu’il s’agit en fait d’une forme de théologie recourant à des méthodes philosophiques pour envisager des préoccupations principalement, sinon exclusivement, chrétiennes. Je soutiens aussi qu’une philosophie des religions constituée à partir des lignes de force de la philosophie des sciences pourrait apporter une amélioration potentielle de la philosophie de la religion, de la méthode et de la théorie dans l’étude des religions. Dans cet article, j’aimerais examiner précisément —par le biais des apports de la philosophie des sciences contemporaine— ce à quoi l’histoire (et la philosophie) des religions pourrait ressembler, les termes dans lesquels elle se distinguerait des approches actuelles et ce à quoi nous pourrions ainsi aspirer.

scholarly journals CERPEN PEREMPUAN TANPA NAMA: MARGINALISASI DAN INFERIORITAS PEREMPUAN (TANTANGAN MENUJU SASTRA YANG MEMBEBASKAN)

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Luh Putu Sendratari
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Gender Issues ◽  
The Body ◽  
Gender Mainstreaming ◽  
Women's Bodies ◽  
Literary Works

Literary works are often interpreted as a medium for the distribution of artistic desires alone. In fact, such a worldview is a mirror of superficiality in understanding literature. Kadek Sonia Priscayanti's short story is one of literary works critical of gender issues, especially in women's bodies, through what women's bodies are viewed and how the body is treated socially and culturally. Semiotic method used to dissect this work with interpretation supported by critical theory about Antonio Gramscie dominance / hegemony, Derrida decontruction and Bourdieu Interpretatif Kontrukstif hence can be found there is depiction of marginalization, inferioritas woman and way of woman do resistance to condition of injustice that happened. At least, this work adds to the list of articles that are sensitive to gender issues and can be an inspiration for the development of the Gender Mainstreaming program in the School World through the aspirations of literary works.Keywords: marginalization, inferiority, resistance, Gender Mainstreaming

scholarly journals Puzzlement of a déjà vu: Illuminaries of the global South

2019 ◽  
Vol 68 (3) ◽  
pp. 540-556
Author(s):  
Nirmal Puwar
Keyword(s):  
North American ◽  
Global South ◽  
The South ◽  
Academic Knowledge ◽  
The North ◽  
Deja Vu ◽  
Déjà Vu

The act of decentring established Euro-North American sites and flows of knowledge as longstanding geopolitical anchors of epistemological authority presents déjà vu scenarios, involved in centre-staging processes. The very position of being a messenger from the ‘North’ of knowledge and theory from the ‘South’ can reproduce the same patterns the undertaking seeks to unsettle. The context in which academic performativity is shaped is integral to both the making and taking of space in intellectual circuits of production and circulation. This article considers how centre-staging in academia performatively involves particular features. As a case in point, the focus is on the centre-staging of Boaventura de Sousa Santos (epistemology of the South) and Raewyn Connell (Southern Theory), who have become globally known for insisting on bringing knowledge from the South to the North. The wider ecology of the global circuits of academia, as well as their own performative dramaturgy, constitutes points of observation. A self-enterprising ownership of big global conceptual programmes places them high in the decentring of knowledge. There is a leap frogging over former stocks of published academic knowledge, as well as a centre-staging of knowledge projects, whereby it is they who become the flag bearers of this enterprise. Within this process it is important to recognise who is illuminated. Bibliographic tracks become traced over, in the very ways in which fields are mapped in order to produce a point of intervention.

scholarly journals A Comparative Ecological Assertion in the Poems of Agha Shahid Ali and Sylvia Plath

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (10) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
AadilMuzafar Pala ◽  
Dr.Zameerpal Kaur
Keyword(s):  
Air Pollution ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Acid Precipitation ◽  
Sylvia Plath ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Environmental Preservation ◽  
Man And Nature ◽  
Post Colonialism

The serious ecological crises like air pollution, acid precipitation, global warming, deforestation, and loss of biodiversity have engulfed our planet earth. Ecocriticism became very much acclaimed critical approach in the 1980’s after Feminism and Post-colonialism, and developed, with attention from scholars of various fields, in different countries into a separate subject. In the application of Ecocriticism to the study of all forms of literary works it shows the ideas and thoughts that prove helpful in dealing with the relationshipbetween man and nature, and also contribute to the cause of environmental preservation.

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