Article
Literature, African, Australian, Canadian
Nathan Hobby, Van Ikin
JOURNAL OF COMMONWEALTH LITERATURE
(2023)
Article
Literature, African, Australian, Canadian
Kirstine Moffat, David Simes, Aimee-Jane Anderson-O'Connor
JOURNAL OF COMMONWEALTH LITERATURE
(2023)
Article
Literature, African, Australian, Canadian
Shyamala A. Narayan, Payal Nagpal
JOURNAL OF COMMONWEALTH LITERATURE
(2023)
Article
Literature, African, Australian, Canadian
Victoria V. Chang
JOURNAL OF COMMONWEALTH LITERATURE
(2023)
Article
Humanities, Multidisciplinary
R. J. Lim
Summary: The Orchard of Lost Souls by Nadifa Mohamed explores the struggles faced by Somali women in the midst of social and political upheaval. The novel reveals their obscured interior lives and sheds light on their conflicting issues of identity and agency through their perspectives and actions.
EASTERN AFRICAN LITERARY AND CULTURAL STUDIES
(2023)
Article
Humanities, Multidisciplinary
Patrick Mangeni
Summary: This paper discusses initiatives in Uganda and Africa towards decolonizing universities, aiming to increase access to education and ensure pedagogical relevance, using Makerere University's performing arts education as an example to explore specific limitations and solutions in the decolonization process.
EASTERN AFRICAN LITERARY AND CULTURAL STUDIES
(2023)
Article
Humanities, Multidisciplinary
Sharlene Khan
Summary: This paper discusses the resurgence of blackface in South Africa and examines the public criticism surrounding Anton Kannemeyer's artwork "Pappa in Afrika". It questions the assumed critical and transgressive nature of blackface's parodic satire and explores whether it can be understood as a trickster figure in its current usage. The paper analyzes Kannemeyer's use of parody and joke-work and argues that his ahistorical use of blackface actually allows access to racially offensive visualizations that are prohibited in the post-apartheid era, thus producing pleasure through racial stereotypes under the guise of social criticism. The strategies used to safeguard the pleasure generated by offensive jokes are also examined, along with the mask of blackface as a manifestation of continued White economic and cultural power.
EASTERN AFRICAN LITERARY AND CULTURAL STUDIES
(2023)
Article
Literature, African, Australian, Canadian
Leslie Swartz
Summary: Elsa Joubert's novel "Die swerfjare van Poppie Nongena" is recognized as a landmark in South African writing and has drawn criticism for its politics of race, gender, privilege, and voice. Her memoir "Cul-de-sac" is both a memoir of a famous person and an account of a life lived in a non-normative body, addressing personal issues related to incarceration and enfeeblement. The memoir also serves as a platform for Joubert to engage politically with South Africa's leadership regarding the rights of elderly people during the Covid-19 lockdown.
JOURNAL OF COMMONWEALTH LITERATURE
(2023)
Article
Literature, African, Australian, Canadian
Payel Pal
Summary: Basharat Peer's memoir, Curfewed Night, offers a insightful commentary on the violence and displacement experienced by ordinary Kashmiris since 1947. Peer's personal story highlights the gradual loss of belongingness among Kashmiris, ultimately diminishing their sense of self and collective identity. This article analyzes how Peer's memoir intervenes in the othering of Kashmiris in postcolonial India, specifically examining the diminishing Kashmiri Muslim citizenship and identity under Indian statehood. Additionally, it explores how Peer challenges the prevailing imaginations of Kashmir as the other in the Indian nationalist discourse, positioning it as a heterotopic space beyond monolithic comprehension.
JOURNAL OF COMMONWEALTH LITERATURE
(2023)
Editorial Material
Literature, African, Australian, Canadian
Surya Simon
Summary: This interview discusses the caste system and Dalit struggles in India, focusing on Dr Aravind Malagatti's autobiography "Government Brahmana" and the challenges of translation. The interview highlights the significance of Dalit consciousness and the synthesis of individual and collective consciousness.
JOURNAL OF COMMONWEALTH LITERATURE
(2023)
Correction
Literature, African, Australian, Canadian
Kaiser Haq
JOURNAL OF COMMONWEALTH LITERATURE
(2023)
Article
Literature, African, Australian, Canadian
Yutaka Yoshida
Summary: This article explores C.L.R. James's criticism of Herman Melville's work while he was incarcerated on Ellis Island. It highlights the contradictions related to labor, race, literary analysis, and communism in the last chapter. The author argues that the distinction between prison and detention, despite their overt differences, continues to perpetuate racial classification and labor force from the times of slavery to the Cold War era. James emphasizes the role of labor at Ellis Island and draws comparisons between the treatment of inmates and officers with the shipmates of the Pequod in Moby Dick. He suggests that racialized labor will inevitably lead to revolt. The article also mentions the prefiguration of interracial solidarity in James's reference to Korean War POWs on Koje Island.
JOURNAL OF COMMONWEALTH LITERATURE
(2023)
Article
Literature, African, Australian, Canadian
Yuanhang Liu
Summary: This article explores the topic of women's ageing in Australian literature and highlights the importance of the Australian Reifungsroman in breaking the cultural silence surrounding ageing women. Through analyzing the characters in two Australian novels, the article challenges the negative stereotypes and narratives associated with women's ageing.
JOURNAL OF COMMONWEALTH LITERATURE
(2023)
Article
Literature, African, Australian, Canadian
Philip Steer
Summary: This essay examines the relationship between Pakeha writing in mid-20th century New Zealand and the understanding of the land and environmental crises. The study suggests that this writing is actually driven by an awareness of the damaged landscape caused by settler culture. Through the imagery of erosion in geological terms, some writers explore the nature and impact of settlement. In contrast, other writers offer alternative possibilities for environmental thought by drawing on religious vocabularies and Maori thought. This study highlights the critical responses to the challenges posed by the Anthropocene through settler literature produced during an environmental crisis framed in geological terms.
JOURNAL OF COMMONWEALTH LITERATURE
(2023)
Article
Literature, African, Australian, Canadian
Jason Sandhar
Summary: This article reveals how the colonial nature essay both mocks and confirms the European self-crisis in the post-Rebellion era of British India. By examining the animals and people portrayed in these essays, it demonstrates their role in destabilizing the material and psychological aspects of empire. The unique combination of humor and science in this genre provides unexpected insights into the self-perception of colonial agents as the power of Raj shifted. The failure of the colonial class to confront their anxieties about the political and epistemic stability of the sahib is also exposed through the actions of the colonized animals and people.
JOURNAL OF COMMONWEALTH LITERATURE
(2023)
Article
Literature, African, Australian, Canadian
Kazeem Adebiyi-Adelabu
Summary: This article examines the narration of Nigerian poet-scholar Niyi Osundare's painful experience and memories in his poetry volume titled City Without People, in which he versified his experience of being a victim of Hurricane Katrina. The article explores the thematization of pain in the collection and argues that the poet's pain, largely psychic, is a result of various losses. It further demonstrates how the poet worked through the pain to attain wellness, utilizing insights from trauma theory and assumptions about scriptotherapy.
JOURNAL OF COMMONWEALTH LITERATURE
(2023)
Article
Literature, African, Australian, Canadian
Francesca Mussi
Summary: This article contributes to the discourse of healing, Indigenous resurgence, and spiritual regeneration in the context of the Indian Residential School Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Canada. It examines the compatibility between the Commission's restorative justice process and Indigenous conceptualizations of healing. The article also critiques the Commission's narrow focus on the Indian Residential School system and explores the significance of land for Indigenous healing and resurgence. Finally, it discusses how fiction, particularly Richard Wagamese's novel Indian Horse, challenges the Commission's restorative process and emphasizes the importance of storytelling and Indigenous connection to the land for learning, spiritual reclamation, and healing.
JOURNAL OF COMMONWEALTH LITERATURE
(2023)
Article
Literature, African, Australian, Canadian
Ken Junior Lipenga
Summary: This essay examines the disillusionment of African intellectuals with their role in indigenous knowledge production and academia, using poetry as a lens to illustrate this perspective.
JOURNAL OF COMMONWEALTH LITERATURE
(2023)
Article
Literature, African, Australian, Canadian
Kavithaa Rajamony, Jyotirmaya Tripathy
Summary: This paper uses fictional narratives on Chennai after its official conversion from Madras in 1996 to explore ways of belonging. It analyzes how these narratives respond to the new reality of Chennai and the extent to which they see the city producing a standardized experience, as well as how fictional characters corroborate or contest institutional change. The texts reveal the inadequacies of the new name as a stable container of cultural meanings and propose an idea of the city that is internally incoherent and multi-experiential.
JOURNAL OF COMMONWEALTH LITERATURE
(2023)
Article
Literature, African, Australian, Canadian
Matthew Whittle
Summary: This article examines Britain's history of colonialism and post-imperial immigration, arguing for the mapping of a disorderly aesthetics in works by V. S. Naipaul, Bernardine Evaristo, and Eavan Boland. It highlights the role of these aesthetics in countering dominant narratives of colonial order and challenging conceptions of British exceptionalism.
JOURNAL OF COMMONWEALTH LITERATURE
(2023)
