DOCSLIB.ORG

Contemporary Nigerian Fiction and the Return to the Recent Past

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Contemporary Nigerian Fiction and the Return to the Recent Past BEARING WITNESS TO AN ERA: CONTEMPORARY NIGERIAN FICTION AND THE RETURN TO THE RECENT PAST Juliet Tenshak Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD in English Studies School of Arts and Humanities, University of Stirling. December 2017. Acknowledgements The Ph.D journey has been long, very challenging but rewarding. On this journey, I got fresh and startling insights to the meaning of the word „Help‟. I made it to this point because of the help I have received from so many people in various ways, and at different times. I am humbled. My first expression of gratitude goes to my supervisor Professor David Murphy, whose support, PATIENCE, and encouragement is in large part the reason I made it this far. I would also like to thank my second supervisor Dr. Gemma Robinson who has been unfailingly supportive and encouraging. I am also grateful to the school administrator Alison Scott for the support I received from her in the course of my study. I owe a debt of gratitude to the British Federation of Women Graduates, who provided much-needed financial support for the final year of my Ph.D. To my husband Fidel Odhiambo Wayara, you are my exceedingly great reward. Thank you for loving and pushing. To my girls; Walsham, Naannaa and Kiyenret, thank you for putting up with my absence. Thank you for making motherhood a thing of joy and fulfillment for me, and thank you for the sacrifices you individually and collectively made for me to do this. I love you girls more than the whole world and back! To my mother Dr. Joyce Mangvwat, thank you for all that you were for my girls and I. Thank you for always showing up and being a pillar of support. I wish you are here now. I pray you are resting with your maker and finally at peace. To my sister Naan Francis, I don‟t know how I would have coped without your continued, persistent and constant support and encouragement. Words fail to express the depth of my gratitude. To my friends Raulatu Piwuna, Jackie Olua, Blessing Gaiya, and Monique Toppin, thank you for not leaving me to walk this path alone. Thank you for all the times you allowed me to lay aside my survivor‟s shell and hidden from prying eyes, cry. You are friends who have stuck closer than sisters. Thank you to Ruth Sambo and Kiyenpiya Pwaspo for holding the fort in my absence and for being such great second mothers to my girls. May you abound in all things good. To Adamu Igoche, Morgan Piwuna and Idika Olua, Allah ya yi maku albarka! To Joan Whitehorn, Lore Kelling and Roselyn Boyd, those early months in Scotland were bearable because you opened your hearts and homes to me, I remain forever grateful. To my pastor Richard Olawale and his wife Debbie, of the RCCG City of God Stirling, what can I say? God bless you. To Nasir and Toyin Kolade and to Elizabeth Buba, I bless you. God has seen your labor of love, He recognizes the seeds you have sown, there is laid up for you a great harvest. I am grateful. ii Thank you to Okey Ndibe for sharing his thoughts about his novel Arrows of Rain with me. Daalu. Thank you to Obiwu who made it possible. Now to Him who has done exceedingly, abundantly, above all that I could ever think of or imagine - Glory! iii Abstract The body of writing collectively referred to as third generation or contemporary Nigerian literature emerged on the international literary scene from about the year 2000. This writing is marked by attempts to negotiate contemporary identities, and it engages with various developments in the Nigerian nation: Nigeria‟s past and current political and socio-economic state, different kinds of cultural hybridization as well as the writers increasing transnational awareness. This study argues that contemporary Nigerian fiction obsessively returns to the period from 1985-1998 as a historical site for narrating the individual and collective Nigerian experience of the trauma of military dictatorship, which has shaped the contemporary reality of the nation. The study builds on existing critical work on contemporary Nigerian fiction, in order to highlight patterns and ideas that have hitherto been neglected in scholarly work in this field. The study seeks to address this gap in the existing critical literature by examining third-generation Nigerian writing‟s representation of this era in a select corpus of work spanning from 2000-06: Okey Ndibe‟s Arrows of Rain (2000), Helon Habila‟s Waiting for an Angel (2002), Sefi Atta‟s Everything Good will Come (2005), and Chimamanda Adichie‟s Purple Hibiscus (2006). The four novels chosen were written in response to military rule and dictatorship in the 80s and 90s, and they all feature representations of state violence. This study finds that, despite variations in the novels aesthetic modes, violence, control, silencing, dictatorship, alienation, the trauma of everyday life and resistance recur in realist modes. Above all, the study argues that contemporary Nigerian fiction‟s insistent representation of the violent past of military rule in Nigeria is a means of navigating the complex psychological and political processes involved in dealing with post-colonial trauma by employing writing as a form of resistance. iv Authors Declaration I declare that this thesis is my own work and that all critical and other sources (literary and electronic) have been specifically and properly acknowledged, as and when they occur in the body of my text. Parts of this thesis appear in the following publications: Tenshak, J., "Dictatorship and Alienation in Sefi Atta‟s Everything Good will Come," in Walter P. Collins III (ed.), Writing Contemporary Nigeria: How Sefi Atta Illuminates African Culture and Tradition, New York: Cambria Press, 2015. Tenshak, J., "Popular Perception, Social Reality: The SAP Experience in Contemporary Nigerian Writing," International Journal of English Language and Translation Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2, 2015, pp.33-41. Signed: Juliet Tenshak Date: December 2017. v Table of Contents Acknowledgements ……………………………………………………………………………...ii Abstract …………………………………………………………………………………………iv Author’s Declaration…………………………………………………………………………….v Table of Contents ……………………………………………………………………………....vi Chapter One: History, Memory and the Imagination in Contemporary Nigerian Fiction 1.0. Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………..1 1.1. A New Generation of Writers and Writing from Nigeria………………………………….....9 1.1.1. The Literary Shift…………………………………………………………………………13 1.1.2. The Socio-Economic Situation……………………………………………………………14 1.1.3. The Political Influence………………………………………………………....................15 1.2. The Representation of History in the Selected Texts……………………………………….17 1.3. The Past in Nigerian Fiction………………………………………………………………...22 1.4. Literature and History in Contemporary Nigerian Fiction………………………………….25 1.5. Foregrounding the 80s and 90s in Contemporary Nigerian Fiction………………………...30 1.6 Critical Framework…………………………………………………………………………..32 1.7. The Female Writer in Nigeria……………………………………………………………….37 1.8. Chapter Breakdown……………………………………………………………....................41 Chapter Two: Control and Silencing in Okey Ndibe’s Arrows of Rain 2.0 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………44 2.1 Narrating a Nation…………………………………………………………………………..47 2.2 When Silence is not Golden…………………………………………………………………54 2.2 1. The Employment of Silence as a Means of Control………………………………………55 2.2.2. Discarding Silence to Challenge Power and Attain Agency……………………………...58 2.3. The Prison Condition of a Nation…………………………………………………………...63 2.3.1. Physical Imprisonment……………………………………………………………………65 2.3.2. Psychological Prison……………………………………………………………………...66 2.4. The Rape of a Nation……………………………………………………………………......67 2.5. Memory as Resistance………………………………………………………………………69 2.6. The Question of Identity…………………………………………………………………….71 2.7. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………..74 vi Chapter Three: Desperate Times, Desperate Measures: Resistance and Protest in Helon Habila’s Waiting for an Angel 3.0 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………….76 3.1 Examining Habila‟s use of the Imagination in Waiting for an Angel…………………….....82 3.2 Waiting for an Angel: Critical and Theoretical Context…………………………………….88 3.3 Resistance and Protest……………………………………………………………………....96 3.4 The Students‟ Protest: Action Inspired by Knowledge……………………………………..98 3.5 The Need for Action: Protest on Poverty Street……………………………………………104 3.6 The Repressive State Apparatus……………………………………………………………110 3.7 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….....113 Chapter Four: The Economics of Oppression: The SAP Experience in Sefi Atta’s Everything Good will Come 4.0. Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..116 4.1. SAP in Nigeria: An Overview……………………………………………………………..121 4.2. The Perception of SAP in Everything Good will Come…………………………………...127 4.3. The Repressive Nature of the Military during the Period of Adjustment…………………131 4.4. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………133 Chapter Five: Dictatorship, Alienation and the Trauma of Everyday Life in Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus 5.0. Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..134 5.1. A Reading of Purple Hibiscus as an Allegory…………………………………………….138 5.2. Dictatorship and Alienation: A definition…………………………………………………141 5.3. Dictatorship in Purple Hibiscus……………………………………………………………144 5.4. Tracing Alienation in Nigerian Literature…………………………………………………152 5.5. Alienation: Powerlessness…………………………………………………………………154 5.5.1. Between the Mask and the Face: Social Isolation……………………………………….157 5.5.2. Normlessness…………………………………………………………………………….159 5.6. The Trauma of Everyday Life……………………………………………………………..163 5.7. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………169
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Best According To
    Books | The best according to... http://books.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329724792­99819,00.html The best according to... Interviews by Stephen Moss Friday February 23, 2007 Guardian Andrew Motion Poet laureate Choosing the greatest living writer is a harmless parlour game, but it might prove more than that if it provokes people into reading whoever gets the call. What makes a great writer? Philosophical depth, quality of writing, range, ability to move between registers, and the power to influence other writers and the age in which we live. Amis is a wonderful writer and incredibly influential. Whatever people feel about his work, they must surely be impressed by its ambition and concentration. But in terms of calling him a "great" writer, let's look again in 20 years. It would be invidious for me to choose one name, but Harold Pinter, VS Naipaul, Doris Lessing, Michael Longley, John Berger and Tom Stoppard would all be in the frame. AS Byatt Novelist Greatness lies in either (or both) saying something that nobody has said before, or saying it in a way that no one has said it. You need to be able to do something with the English language that no one else does. A great writer tells you something that appears to you to be new, but then you realise that you always knew it. Great writing should make you rethink the world, not reflect current reality. Amis writes wonderful sentences, but he writes too many wonderful sentences one after another. I met a taxi driver the other day who thought that.
    [Show full text]
  • Flora Nwapa, Buchi Emecheta and Mariama Ba
    University of Wollongong Research Online University of Wollongong Thesis Collection 1954-2016 University of Wollongong Thesis Collections 1997 Representations of female experience in the novels of post-colonial West African writers: Flora Nwapa, Buchi Emecheta and Mariama Ba Jean Wilson University of Wollongong Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.uow.edu.au/theses University of Wollongong Copyright Warning You may print or download ONE copy of this document for the purpose of your own research or study. The University does not authorise you to copy, communicate or otherwise make available electronically to any other person any copyright material contained on this site. You are reminded of the following: This work is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of this work may be reproduced by any process, nor may any other exclusive right be exercised, without the permission of the author. Copyright owners are entitled to take legal action against persons who infringe their copyright. A reproduction of material that is protected by copyright may be a copyright infringement. A court may impose penalties and award damages in relation to offences and infringements relating to copyright material. Higher penalties may apply, and higher damages may be awarded, for offences and infringements involving the conversion of material into digital or electronic form. Unless otherwise indicated, the views expressed in this thesis are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the University of Wollongong. Recommended Citation Wilson, Jean, Representations of female experience in the novels of post-colonial West African writers: Flora Nwapa, Buchi Emecheta and Mariama Ba, Master of Arts (Hons.) thesis, Department of English, University of Wollongong, 1997.
    [Show full text]
  • CHILDHOOD in CONTEMPORARY NIGERIAN FICTION Christopher
    CHILDHOOD IN CONTEMPORARY NIGERIAN FICTION Christopher Ernest Werimo Ouma A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of doctor of philosophy. July, 2011 i DECLARATION I declare that this thesis is my own unaided work. It is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. It has not been submitted before for any other degree or examination at any other university. -------------------------------------------- Christopher Ernest Werimo Ouma -------- DAY OF------------------ 2011 ii DEDICATION To those who fell on the way, E.O and J.O, as well as my fallen colleague and friend Kimathi Emmanuel Chabari, R.I.P. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I thought writing this would be easy, but I realise now that it requires me to take a trip down memory lane for five years. This journey started when I arrived in Johannesburg in 2006 for my M.A. The tricky thing though is that time accumulates debts of gratitude as one traverses different places, spaces and meets different people. Therefore, I should say that the few pages allotted for acknowledging the contributions of many people in this activity can never be enough. Nonetheless, as Ben Okri says, “there are many destinies” and that if we fail to keep that appointed hour with one destiny, we are bound to fulfill the next. In this spirit therefore, I hope that this activity is a gesture to our shared yet different “destinies,” and that this appointed hour is not the only one.
    [Show full text]
  • Globalism, Humanitarianism, and the Body in Postcolonial Literature
    Globalism, Humanitarianism, and the Body in Postcolonial Literature By Derek M. Ettensohn M.A., Brown University, 2012 B.A., Haverford College, 2006 Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English at Brown University PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND MAY 2014 © Copyright 2014 by Derek M. Ettensohn This dissertation by Derek M. Ettensohn is accepted in its present form by the Department of English as satisfying the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Date ___________________ _________________________ Olakunle George, Advisor Recommended to the Graduate Council Date ___________________ _________________________ Timothy Bewes, Reader Date ___________________ _________________________ Ravit Reichman, Reader Approved by the Graduate Council Date ___________________ __________________________________ Peter Weber, Dean of the Graduate School iii Abstract of “Globalism, Humanitarianism, and the Body in Postcolonial Literature” by Derek M. Ettensohn, Ph.D., Brown University, May 2014. This project evaluates the twinned discourses of globalism and humanitarianism through an analysis of the body in the postcolonial novel. In offering celebratory accounts of the promises of globalization, recent movements in critical theory have privileged the cosmopolitan, transnational, and global over the postcolonial. Recognizing the potential pitfalls of globalism, these theorists have often turned to transnational fiction as supplying a corrective dose of humanitarian sentiment that guards a global affective community against the potential exploitations and excesses of neoliberalism. While authors such as Amitav Ghosh, Nuruddin Farah, and Rohinton Mistry have been read in a transnational, cosmopolitan framework––which they have often courted and constructed––I argue that their theorizations of the body contain a critical, postcolonial rejoinder to the liberal humanist tradition that they seek to critique from within.
    [Show full text]
  • Journal of Arts & Humanities
    Journal of Arts & Humanities Volume 09, Issue 06, 2020: 75-85 Article Received: 27-05-2020 Accepted: 30-06-2020 Available Online: 08-06-2020 ISSN: 2167-9045 (Print), 2167-9053 (Online) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18533/journal.v9i6.1934 Coming of Age through War: Exploring Bildung in Adichie’s half of a Yellow Sun Cecilia Addei (PhD)1, Cynthia Elizabeth Osei (PhD)2, Theresah Addai-Mununkum (PhD)3 ABSTRACT This paper explores Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun as a novel of formation with respect to its portrayal of Ugwu, one of the main focalisers of the novel. The novel follows the representation of Ugwu as he develops from a young house boy till he matures to become the chronicler of his people’s war time experience. A core proposition of the paper is that even though Ugwu fights with the Biafran army as a child soldier, his war-time experience does not destroy him like we see in other West African child-soldier novels. Rather, he learns important lessons from the war which makes him mature to become the writer of Biafran war history. This makes the novel conform to the Bildungsroman genre unlike most child soldier novels whose protagonists develop abnormally making those novels anti-Bildungsromane. Keywords: Half of a Yellow Sun, Bildungsroman, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Child soldier, Biafra War. This is an open access article under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. 1. Introduction Half of a Yellow Sun is the second novel of the renowned Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
    [Show full text]
  • Gender Issues in Alcohol Consumption: a Study Of
    1 GENDER ISSUES IN ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION: A STUDY OF EQUIANO’S 2 TRAVELS, NWAPA’S EFURU AND ACHEBE’S THINGS FALL APART 3 4 5 6 Abstract 7 This paper appraises gender issues in alcohol consumption in Africa, in terms of 8 processing and control using Oladuah Equiano’s autobiography- Equiano’s Travels , 9 Flora Nwapa’s Efuru, and Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. These three literary 10 texts are thoughtfully chosen for the study, in view of the fact that Equiano 11 pioneered African literature, and advanced by Flora Nwapa and Chinua Achebe in 12 their debut, Efuru and Things Fall Apart , published in 1966 and 1958, respectively. In 13 Equiano’s Travels, published in 1789, Equiano capture and document the Igbo 14 lifestyle in its nativity. Scholars have attempted to look at the works of these literary 15 titans from several perspectives and themes but, to the best of the knowledge of 16 these researchers, they have not enquired into the Igbo lifestyle in alcohol 17 consumption and given it the desired academic attention as amply presented in the 18 literary works of these literary paragons and pathfinders, as the present study 19 intends to do. While Achebe looks at the traditional humane living of Igbo society in 20 the hinterland in its pre-colonial period, Nwapa discusses the lifestyle and folkways 21 of Igbo Lake people of Oguta. Nwapa presents a segment of this Igbo society, which 22 grants women access to alcoholic drink in the public, in sharp contrast to the rest of 23 Igbo society that restricts women from drinking the same liqueur.
    [Show full text]
  • Narrative Topography: Fictions of Country, City, and Suburb in the Work of Virginia Woolf, W. G. Sebald, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Ian Mcewan
    Narrative Topography: Fictions of Country, City, and Suburb in the Work of Virginia Woolf, W. G. Sebald, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Ian McEwan Elizabeth Andrews McArthur Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2012 © 2012 Elizabeth Andrews McArthur All rights reserved ABSTRACT Narrative Topography: Fictions of Country, City, and Suburb in the Work of Virginia Woolf, W. G. Sebald, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Ian McEwan Elizabeth Andrews McArthur This dissertation analyzes how twentieth- and early twenty-first- century novelists respond to the English landscape through their presentation of narrative and their experiments with novelistic form. Opening with a discussion of the English planning movement, “Narrative Topography” reveals how shifting perceptions of the structure of English space affect the content and form of the contemporary novel. The first chapter investigates literary responses to the English landscape between the World Wars, a period characterized by rapid suburban growth. It reveals how Virginia Woolf, in Mrs. Dalloway and Between the Acts, reconsiders which narrative choices might be appropriate for mobilizing and critiquing arguments about the relationship between city, country, and suburb. The following chapters focus on responses to the English landscape during the present era. The second chapter argues that W. G. Sebald, in The Rings of Saturn, constructs rural Norfolk and Suffolk as containing landscapes of horror—spaces riddled with sinkholes that lead his narrator to think about near and distant acts of violence. As Sebald intimates that this forms a porous “landscape” in its own right, he draws attention to the fallibility of representation and the erosion of cultural memory.
    [Show full text]
  • Nation, Power and Dissidence in Third-Generation Nigerian Poetry in English by Sule E
    Nation, power and dissidence in third-generation Nigerian poetry in English by Sule E. Egya TERMS of USE The African Humanities Program has made this electronic version of the book available on the NISC website for free download to use in research or private study. It may not be re- posted on book or other digital repositories that allow systematic sharing or download. For any commercial or other uses please contact the publishers, NISC (Pty) Ltd. Print copies of this book and other titles in the African Humanities Series are available through the African Books Collective. © African Humanities Program Dedication Fondly for: Anyalewa Emmanuella, Oyigwu Desmond and Egya Nelson. Love, love, and more love. About the Series The African Humanities Series is a partnership between the African Humanities Program (AHP) of the American Council of Learned Societies and academic publishers NISC (Pty) Ltd*. The Series covers topics in African histories, languages, literatures, philosophies, politics and cultures. Submissions are solicited from Fellows of the AHP, which is administered by the American Council of Learned Societies and financially supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The purpose of the AHP is to encourage and enable the production of new knowledge by Africans in the five countries designated by the Carnegie Corporation: Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda. AHP fellowships support one year’s work free from teaching and other responsibilities to allow the Fellow to complete the project proposed. Eligibility for the fellowship in the five countries is by domicile, not nationality. Book proposals are submitted to the AHP editorial board which manages the peer review process and selects manuscripts for publication by NISC.
    [Show full text]
  • The Domestication of the English Language for Literary Purpose in Nigeria: Creating a National Identity
    International Journal of Social Science and Humanity, Vol. 2, No. 6, November 2012 The Domestication of the English Language for Literary Purpose in Nigeria: Creating a National Identity Dare Owolabi amaze native speakers. It is a well-known fact that many Abstract—Nigeria is, obviously, one of the largest ESL users Nigerian writers have received accolades globally on in the world. The language that first came with the colonial account of their literary prowess in the English language masters as a foreign language has since grown in leaps and medium. For example Nigerian born Wole Soyinka, is the bounds to now become a second language and, unarguably, the country’s official language. As the largest black nation in the first African Nobel Laureate in literature. With the world, Nigeria, using English as the official language, has attainment of this status, it is high time true recognition be affected the language in a way that has created a Nigerian accorded the emerging variety of English in Nigeria, which identity that is fast becoming a variety of English as an has been successfully domesticated, by the way the international language. This variety of English, which I refer to language has been and is still being ‘home-grown…adapted as Niglish has international intelligibility, having been used by Nigerian writers to win international awards. This study and tamed to suit the Nigerian environment’ (Adegbija, examines how the English language has been nativized in the 2004). Dynamism is one of the characteristics of any living Nigerian environment for literary purpose, using selected language, and the different varieties of English emerging works from recent literary artists in Nigeria and by Nigerians.
    [Show full text]
  • Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart Is Probably the Most Authentic Narrative Ever Written About Life in Nigeria at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
    Grade 11 Literature Holy Cross High School Coverage: • Overview of the Author • Background to the Novel • About Things Fall Apart • Summary of the Novel • Character List • Character map • Themes of the Novel • Structure of Part I the Novel • Chapters 1 to 13 Summary; Analysis and Questions • Structure of Part II of the Novel • Chapters 14 to 19 Summary; Analysis and Questions • Structure of Part III of the Novel • Chapters 20 to 25 Summary; Analysis and Questions • Viewpoints of the Novel from different characters • Acknowledgements The Author Chinua Achebe Background Background (1) • Poet and novelist Chinua Achebe was one of the most important African writers. • He was also considered by many to be one of the most original literary artists writing in English during his lifetime. • He is best known for his novel Things Fall Apart (1958). • Born Albert Chinualumogo Achebe, Chinua Achebe was raised by Christian evangelical parents in the large village Ogidi, in Igboland, Eastern Nigeria. • He received an early education in English, but grew up surrounded by a complex fusion of Igbo traditions and colonial legacy. • He studied literature and medicine at the University of Ibadan; after graduating, he went to work for the Nigerian Broadcasting Company in Lagos and later studied at the British Broadcasting Corporation staff school in London. • During this time, Achebe was developing work as a writer. • Starting in the 1950s, he was central to a new Nigerian literary movement that drew on the oral traditions of Nigeria's indigenous tribes. Background (2) • Although Achebe wrote in English, he attempted to incorporate Igbo vocabulary and narratives.
    [Show full text]
  • 'Producing Exile: Diasporic Vision in Adichie's Half of a Yellow'
    650 Diasporic Vision in Adichie producing exile: diasporic vision in adichie's f half of a yellow sun Susan Strehle "For surely it is one of the unhappiest characteristics of the age to have produced more refugees, migrants, displaced persons, and exiles than ever before in history . ." —Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism Diaspora involves both burdens and gifts. Those who suffer exile have experienced the catastrophic loss of homeland; displaced by traumatic violence from homes they will not recover, they may never experience a sense of belonging to a home again. At the same time, émigrés arrive in a space liberated from nationalism, with its damaging assumptions of homogeneity and unity, and their new, defamiliarized place makes possible a transgressive and resistant politics and sociality. The diasporic subject inhabits two locations and takes on internal divisions and doublings. Invoking W. E. B. Du Bois, R. Radhakrishnan identifies in diasporic subjects a version of double-consciousness, brought from past to present location: "If the diasporic self is forever marked by a double consciousness, then its entry as legitimate citizen into the adopted homeland is also neces- sarily double" (Diasporic 174). V. Y. Mudimbe and Sabine Engel agree that "Members of diasporas define themselves in terms of at least a double identity" rather than the "unconditional fidelity" of national citizens (4), and can therefore "think, live, and work as international MFS Modern Fiction Studies, Volume 57, number 4, Winter 2011. Copyright © for the Purdue Research Foundation by the Johns Hopkins University Press. All rights to reproduction in any form reserved. Strehle 651 citizens, or citizens of a globalized world" (5).1 In a divided and con- tradictory relation to place, these subjects may mourn the loss of rootedness; simultaneously, from an "uprooted" position, they may criticize both previous and present places.2 Producing this doubled diasporic vision, the experience of diaspora involves loss and gain, painful displacement and liberatory relocation.
    [Show full text]
  • The Evolution of Feminism in Nigerian Media: a Look at Igbo Culture Films
    THE EVOLUTION OF FEMINISM IN NIGERIAN MEDIA: A LOOK AT IGBO CULTURE FILMS A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Master of Arts in Media Studies University of Regina By Joy Adanna Emelogu Regina, Saskatchewan January 2019 Copyright 2019: J. A. Emelogu UNIVERSITY OF REGINA FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES AND RESEARCH SUPERVISORY AND EXAMINING COMMITTEE Joy Adanna Emelogu, candidate for the degree of Master of Arts in Media Studies, has presented a thesis titled, The Evolution of Feminism in Nigerian Media: A Look at IGBO Culture Films, in an oral examination held on December 19, 2018. The following committee members have found the thesis acceptable in form and content, and that the candidate demonstrated satisfactory knowledge of the subject material. External Examiner: Dr. Claire Carter, Department of Women’s and Gender Studies Supervisor: Dr. Sheila Petty, Department of Film Committee Member: Dr. Christine Ramsay, Department of Film Committee Member: Dr. Darlene Juschka, Department of Women’s & Gender Studies Chair of Defense: Dr. Philip Charrier, Department of History Abstract This thesis addresses the subject of feminism in the Nigerian media, particularly on how issues related to women’s rights and gender discrimination have been addressed in Igbo culture Nigerian films. For several decades, the Nigerian home video industry, dominated by Igbo culture-themed films, has been one of the most influential media forms across Nigeria and Africa in general. These films are a staple in many homes; the images, narratives, and ideas that they disseminate go a long way in shaping or reinforcing public perceptions about the role of women and their status in society.
    [Show full text]