AFRICAN WOMANISM: DESAFÍOS FRENTE A LA CONDICIÓN POSTCOLONIAL EN PURPLE HIBISCUS DE CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE

En el presente artículo se desarrollará un análisis crítico literario sobre la obra Purple Hibiscus (2003) de la escritora nigeriana Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Dicho estudio sentará su base sobre el African Womanism de acuerdo al desarrollo realizado por las teóricas Chikwenje Okonyo Ogunyemi y Nah Dove. A lo largo de este artículo, se buscará mostrar aquellas características de dicha propuesta teórica reflejadas en la obra de Adichie, en donde los contextos desarrollados dan cuenta de escenarios y personajes altamente conflictuados. Lo anterior es atribuible a lo que podemos identificar como condición postcolonial que se refleja en la trama y ante la cual la propuesta de Okonyo y Dove es contrastada, dando paso a visiones críticas que permiten verificar que, a pesar de las complicadas situaciones retratadas en la novela, existe una resistencia que posibilita una apreciación disruptiva que quebranta la mirada occidentalizada sobre dicho contexto. 

Women Navigating Minority Status in Selected Stories in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s "The Thing Around Your Neck"

This paper provides an intertextual reading of three stories purposely selected from Chimamanda Adichie’s The Thing Around Your Neckagainst the theoretical backdrop of her feminist treatise ‘A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions’. The ‘Manifesto’ is her theoretical attempt to condense the practical application of African feminism into the modern context within which her stories are set. In this paper, I distil the practical implications of Adichie’s postulations on a feminist manifesto through a reading of selected stories in The Thing Around Your Neck. I rely on a close reading of the text, in which key concerns and aesthetic approaches of African feminism are identified and critically assessed. Through the three short stories from the collection, namely ‘Imitation’, ‘The Arrangers of Marriage’ and ‘The Headstrong Historian’ Adichie demonstrates her feminist philosophy: In ‘Imitation’ and ‘The Arrangers of Marriage’, for example, she tells the stories of two women who are both physically and psychologically uprooted from their cultures and forced to struggle for their identities and place in society by circumventing the patriarchal order. They embrace sisterhood as one of the strategies to overcome their segregation. These women also refuse to be defined by society and instead choose to assert their identities and value. They are more than just mothers or wives of rich Nigerian men. In ‘The Headstrong Historian’, Adichie dramatizes the story of a woman who, despite living in a traditional and highly patriarchal society where women have no voice, is able to rise and confound men (both native and foreign). Therefore, the most engaging feature in Adichie’s writing is how she uses marriage as a dramatic stage to test out her theories on feminism and gender issues and to demonstrate how women navigate their minority status

LA REPRESENTACIÓN DE LA MUJER EN “VAMPIRO”, “EL ALMOHADÓN DE PLUMAS” Y “THANATOPIA” Un análisis de tres cuentos góticos

Under 1800-talet fanns det ett begränsat antal modeller för kvinnor, både i vardagen och i litteraturen, och dessa modeller har blivit symboliska för de kvinnliga karaktärerna i den gotiska litteraturen. Modellerna är återkommande i ett stort antal verk men det är dock inte säkert att en karaktär enbart passar i en specifik modell, utan det kan hända att vissa skrider mellan två eller fler. Därför tänkte den här uppsatsen analysera tre kvinnliga karaktärer från tre spanskspråkiga gotiska noveller: Inés från “Vampiro” (1901) av Emilia Pardo Bazán, Alicia från “El almohadón de plumas” (1917) av Horacio Quiroga och la madrastra från “Thanatopia” (1925) av Rubén Darío. Genom att beskåda de kvinnliga karaktärernas roller, attribut och framställningar kommer de att kategoriseras in i de mest passande modellerna när det kommer till gotisk litteratur. Analysen visar att två av de tre karaktärerna tillhör mer än en modell medan den tredje är en brusten gestaltning av en gotisk modell. Det går även att se hur författarna använt sig av intertextualitet i sina noveller, både för att alludera till klassiska gotiska verk samt till sagor

From writing to screen: Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela by Sanjay Leela Bhansali

openIl presente lavoro di tesi si propone di esplorare il cinema indiano attraverso l'analisi approfondita del film Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela (2013), diretto da Sanjay Leela Bhansali. L'introduzione offrirà una panoramica di Bollywood e spiegherà le motivazioni che mi hanno portato a scegliere questo percorso. La tesi sarà suddivisa in due capitoli principali. Il primo capitolo si concentrerà sulla scrittura e sul adattamento di Romeo e Giulietta , mentre il secondo capitolo analizzerà il film, esaminandone gli aspetti tecnici, i temi, la regia, la colonna sonora e la rappresentazione dei personaggi. Questa tesi mira a fornire una comprensione approfondita dell'interazione tra testo teatrale e mezzo cinematografico, evidenziando come Romeo e Giulietta continui a essere una fonte di ispirazione per il cinema in tutto il mondo.This thesis aims to explore Indian cinema through an in-depth analysis of the film Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela (2013), directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. The introduction will provide an overview of Bollywood and explain why I chose this topic. The thesis will be divided into two main chapters. The first chapter will focus on the writing and adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, in contrast, the second chapter will analyze the film, examining its technical aspects, themes, direction, soundtrack, and character portrayal. This thesis aims to offer a comprehensive understanding of the interaction between theatrical text and cinematic medium, highlighting how Romeo and Juliet continue to be a source of inspiration for cinema worldwide

Shakespeare’s Tragic Heroines: Personality And Status Versus Gender

Readings of Shakespeare’s female characters as presentations of ideals – such as innocence – or as characters limited by the innate nature of their gender fail to understand the full personalities and challenges these characters have. The chosen characters are discussed in the pairings of Cordelia and Cleopatra (queens) and Desdemona and Juliet (high-status ladies) to show how this thesis’s chosen female characters are presented through their individual statuses and personalities rather than their genders

Influence of English and American poetry on Pere Gimferrer's work

The Catalan poet Pere Gimferrer represents a distinctive personality of the poetry group Novísimos, active mainly in the 1970s. His work was influenced by the reality of life in Spain after the Civil War, especially postism and social poetry. Literary postmodernism also played a significant role in his poetic formation. From the multitude of influences that shaped Pere Gimferrer, this thesis aims to map in detail the influence of the (post)modern poetry of Thomas Stearns Eliot and Ezra Pound on Gimferrer's work. Pere Gimferrer's poetry approaches his models through literary techniques innovative at the time - intertextuality, metapoetry, culturalism, or the use of popular culture elements within the poetic text. The influence of both poets writing in English is mapped on Gimferrer's two magnificent works, namely the poetry collection Arde el mar and the poem L'espai desert. These two Gimferrer's pieces of work are compared with T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land and Ezra Pound's Cantos. Comparing Gimferrer's texts with the poetry of Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot using comparative textual analysis convincingly shows that Pere Gimferrer knew the mentioned works of both poets and used similar themes and motifs. At the same time, it can be argued that Pere Gimferrer uses similar images and scenes, harmonizes a...Katalánský básník Pere Gimferrer představuje výraznou osobnost básnického seskupení Nejnovějších, aktivního především v sedmdesátých letech 20. století. Jeho dílo bylo ovlivněno realitou života ve Španělsku po občanské válce, v oblasti literatury zejména postismem a sociální poezií. Velký podíl na jeho básnickém formování měla i literární postmoderna. Z množství vlivů, které Pereho Gimferrera utvářely, si tato práce klade za cíl detailně zmapovat vliv (post)moderní poezie Thomase Stearnse Eliota a Ezry Pounda na Gimfererovo dílo. Poezie Pereho Gimferrera se těmto vzorům přibližuje používáním v té době inovativních literárních technik - intertextualitou, metapoezií, kulturalismem nebo užitím prvků populární kultury v rámci básnického textu. Vliv obou anglicky píšících básníků je mapován na dvou velkolepých Gimferrerových básnických dílech, sbírce Moře hoří a poémě Liduprázdný prostor. Ty jsou srovnávány s dílem Pustá země s T. S. Eliota a Cantos Ezry Pounda. Komparace Gimferrerových textů s poezií Ezry Pounda a T. S. Eliota pomocí textových srovnávacích analýz přesvědčivě ukazuje, že Pere Gimferrer znal zmíněná díla obou básníků a zároveň užívá obdobných témat a motivů. Lze také tvrdit, že Pere Gimferrer využívá obdobné obrazy, výjevy, ladí podobnou atmosféru, dokonce užívá v mnoha případech i...Institute of Romance StudiesÚstav románských studiíFaculty of ArtsFilozofická fakult

Lizzie: A Work of Historical Fiction

This thesis was completed as a part of the MFA program in Creative Writing at Liberty University. The critical paper covers the genre of historical fiction. The creative piece contains the opening chapters of Lizzie, a novel of historical fiction covering the life of Elizabeth Evelyn Wright

The OA Diamond Journals Study. Part 1: Findings

From June 2020 to February 2021, a consortium of 10 organisations undertook a large-scale study on open access journals across the world that are free for readers and authors, usually referred to as “OA diamond journals”. This study was commissioned by cOAlition S in order to gain a better understanding of the OA diamond landscape

Transforming cultural identity: Textual analysis of Aawambo cultural practices in three post-independence Namibian texts

Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics and Literary Theory, North-West University, Vanderbijlpark CampusThe issue of transforming cultural identity has emerged in the writings of Namibian post independence female authors, particularly in the context of the cultural identity of women. In the name of culture, widows face numerous challenges while they grieve for their departed husbands. Marriage is seen as a means of honouring a woman. She is humiliated, abused, and left without dignity after the spouse passes away. Women are also subjected to biological parenting to gain the status of motherhood and being respected as mothers in society. As a qualitative desktop study, this research purposely selected three books written by Namibian female authors, following independence of the country, to promote the idea of self-narrative, women empowerment and self-determination for women to fight the injustice of the patriarchal system. Approached from a womanist concept, the study employed African womanism, African post-colonial feminism and literary criticism to establish the arguments from a feminist point of view. The study employed a qualitative desktop approach within a womanist paradigm of textual analysis. It was designed to investigate Aawambo cultural practices as depicted in Namibian female autobiographies in terms of self-narrative, biography and prose as literary genres. These theories were used to determine how the authors created a platform to challenge the patriarchal system, enabling the characters – mothers, women and widows to express their own experiences in a more comprehensible manner. In the study, I examined cultural practices as portrayed in the narratives and interpreted specific aspects related to transforming cultural identity. The focus was on Oshiwambo culture, which formed the basis for the general conclusions as derived from the research findings. The research concludes that the selected texts respond to the Namibian postcolonial situation. The main characters depicted in these texts carry the torch of women’s liberation, constituting both a liberating and transformative voice. They portray eagerness and strength in mobilising other women, despite facing numerous challenges in a patriarchal environment.Doctora