Gynocentric Contours Of The Male Imagination A Study Of The Novels Of Chinua Achebe And Ng G Wa Thiong O

The focus of this book is upon the changing perception of women in African society and their portrayal over different periods in the novels of Chinua Achebe and Ngugi wa Thiong’o; the writers who intriguingly wrote on the constant changing role of African women in Igbo and Gikuyu clans. The book dicusses the image of African women entrapped in double jeopardy in both traditional and modern Africa. There has been a remarkable transformation in the representation of women from the early novels to the later novels of both the writers that has been studied in this book from close quarters. The approach and technique of the novelists in projecting their female characters has also been analyzed. The novels of both the writers marked a sea change in the thinking and perception of Westerners with reference to Africa and its people. This work is devoted to the exploration of the image of women in the East and West African societies through the selected novels of Chinua Achebe and Ngugi wa Thiong’o.

In 1992 when a Dalit woman left the convent and wrote her autobiography, the Tamil publishing industry found her language unacceptable. So Bama Faustina published her milestone work Karukku privately in 1992-a passionate and important mix of history, sociology, and the strength to remember.Karukku broke barriers of tradition in more ways than one. The first autobiography by a Dalit woman writer and a classic of subaltern writing, it is a bold and poignant tale of life outside mainstream Indian thought and function. Revolving around the main theme of caste oppression within theCatholic Church, it portrays the tension between the self and the community, and presents Bama's life as a process of self-reflection and recovery from social and institutional betrayal.The English translation, first published in 2000 and recognized as a new alphabet of experience, pushed Dalit writing into high relief. This second edition includes a Postscript in which Bama relives the dramatic movement of her leave-taking from her chosen vocation and a special note "Ten YearsLater".

Government Brahmana is the English translation of the Kannada autobiography of Aravind Malagatti. The autobiographical narrative is in the form of a series of episodes from the author s childhood and youth. These episodes function as what G.N. Devy calls epiphanic moments in a caste society. The author reflects on specific instances from his childhood and student days that illustrate the normative cruelty practiced by caste Hindu society on dalits. We encounter all the tropes of (male) dalit life: is isolation in school where even drinking water is an ordeal; life in the village where dalits perform the filthiest tasks but are denied access to common wells, lakes, where they cannot step into shops and therefore have their purchases thrown at them, where they have to cut their own hair because no barber would touch it; consuming dead-animal meat and innards; doomed love affairs with `upper caste women. A painful, disturbing, thought-provoking memoir, this text is conversely full of vitality, even tenderness. In its structure and purpose as a series of notes towards a dalit autobiography Government Brahmana appears to be anticipated by Ambedkar s own autobiographical sketches.

“Laura Bier unpacks the complicated dynamics and legacy of an historical moment in which women were understood to be crucial to modern nation-building.” —Lila Abu-Lughod, author of Do Muslim Women Need Saving? The first major historical account of gender politics during the Nasser era, Revolutionary Womanhood analyzes feminism as a system of ideas and political practices, international in origin but local in iteration. Drawing connections between the secular nationalist projects that emerged in the 1950s and the gender politics of Islamism today, Laura Bier reveals how discussions about education, companionate marriage, and enlightened motherhood, as well as veiling, work, and other means of claiming public space created opportunities to reconsider the relationship between modernity, state feminism, and postcolonial state-building. Bier highlights attempts by political elites under Nasser to transform Egyptian women into national subjects. These attempts to fashion a “new” yet authentically Egyptian woman both enabled and constrained women’s notions of gender, liberation, and agency. Ultimately, Bier challenges the common assumption that these emerging feminisms were somehow not culturally or religiously authentic, and details their lasting impact on Egyptian womanhood today. “Addresses a major void in the historical literature on Egypt. Showing how gendered politics proved central to Nasserist attempts to modernize, the book broadens our understanding of state feminism, secularism, and the postcolonial period. A very welcome addition, the work combines theoretical sophistication with rich evidence and well-crafted arguments.” —Beth Baron, author of Egypt as a Woman “Laura Bier’s well-researched and engaging text skillfully illustrates how Nasser spun ‘the woman question’ to define his Arab socialist agenda.”—Lisa Pollard, author of Nurturing the Nation

"Chinua Achebe: New Perspectives" synthesizes the themes: power and responsibility, particularly as they affect political governance in Africa. It valiantly explores and attempts to correlate the issues of gross abuse of power and privilege as central foci in Achebe's fiction. Through a systematic appraisal of these works, from "Things Fall Apart" to "Anthills of the Savannah," Dr. Umelo R. Ojinmah makes a sustainable case, that to Achebe, things will always fall apart until "our people" begin to understand the responsibility that power imposes on those who exercise it. -- From publisher's description.

This reissued classic traces the ramifications and diverse understandings of the concept of "beginning" in history and offers valuable insights into the role of the intellectual and the goal of criticism.

Globalization poses new challenges for the modern welfare state and democracies. One controversial issue is how struggles for economic equality are linked with struggles for recognition of difference according to gender, ethnicity and sexuality. The Politics of Inclusion and Empowerment examines the political and academic debates about the inclusion or exclusion of women and marginalized social groups from different policy contexts. The focus is on the different class and gender regimes influencing the interplay of political, civil and social citizenship at different levels of politics.