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Postcolonial Criticism and Representations of African Dictatorship

2017-07-05 Foreign Language Study
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Release : 2017-07-05
Genre : Foreign Language Study
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Book Rating : 569/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Postcolonial Criticism and Representations of African Dictatorship by : Cecile Bishop

Download or read book Postcolonial Criticism and Representations of African Dictatorship written by Cecile Bishop. This book was released on 2017-07-05. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The figure of the dictator looms large in representations of postcolonial Africa. Since the late 1970s, writers, film-makers and theorists have sought to represent the realities of dictatorship without endorsing the colonialist cliches portraying Africans as incapable of self-government. Against the heavily-politicized responses provoked by this dilemma, Bishop argues for a form of criticism that places the complexity of the reader's or spectator's experiences at the heart of its investigations. Ranging across literature, film and political theory, this study calls for a reengagement with notions - often seen as unwelcome diversions from political questions - such as referentiality, genre and aesthetics. But rather than pit 'political' approaches against formal and aesthetic procedures, the author presents new insights into the interplay of the political and the aesthetic. Cecile Bishop is a Junior Research Fellow in French at Somerville College, Oxford.

Postcolonial Criticism and Representations of African Dictatorship

2014 Foreign Language Study
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Release : 2014
Genre : Foreign Language Study
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 551/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Postcolonial Criticism and Representations of African Dictatorship by : Cécile Bishop

Download or read book Postcolonial Criticism and Representations of African Dictatorship written by Cécile Bishop. This book was released on 2014. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The figure of the dictator looms large in representations of postcolonial Africa. Since the late 1970s, writers, film-makers and theorists have sought to represent the realities of dictatorship without endorsing the colonialist cliches portraying Africans as incapable of self-government. Against the heavily-politicized responses provoked by this dilemma, Bishop argues for a form of criticism that places the complexity of the reader's or spectator's experiences at the heart of its investigations. Ranging across literature, film and political theory, this study calls for a reengagement with notions - often seen as unwelcome diversions from political questions - such as referentiality, genre and aesthetics. But rather than pit 'political' approaches against formal and aesthetic procedures, the author presents new insights into the interplay of the political and the aesthetic. Cecile Bishop is a Junior Research Fellow in French at Somerville College, Oxford.

Dictators, Dictatorship and the African Novel

2021-03-01 Literary Criticism
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Release : 2021-03-01
Genre : Literary Criticism
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Book Rating : 569/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Dictators, Dictatorship and the African Novel by : Robert Spencer

Download or read book Dictators, Dictatorship and the African Novel written by Robert Spencer. This book was released on 2021-03-01. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the representation of dictators and dictatorships in African fiction. It examines how the texts clarify the origins of postcolonial dictatorships and explore the shape of the democratic-egalitarian alternatives. The first chapter explains the ‘neoliberal’ period after the 1970s as an effective ‘recolonization’ of Africa by Western states and international financial institutions. Dictatorship is theorised as a form of concentrated economic and political power that facilitates Africa’s continued dependency in the context of world capitalism. The deepest aspiration of anti-colonial revolution remains the democratization of these authoritarian states inherited from the colonial period. This book discusses four novels by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Ahmadou Kourouma, Chinua Achebe and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in order to reveal how their themes and forms dramatize this unfinished struggle between dictatorship and radical democracy.

Unmasking the African Dictator

2014 Literary Criticism
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Release : 2014
Genre : Literary Criticism
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Book Rating : 559/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Unmasking the African Dictator by : Gĩchingiri Ndĩgĩrĩgĩ

Download or read book Unmasking the African Dictator written by Gĩchingiri Ndĩgĩrĩgĩ. This book was released on 2014. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Africa, the development of dictatorship fiction as a vehicle for depicting the authoritarian state arose more slowly than in other parts of the world. Therefore until now there has been no exploration of the fictional and dramatic representations of tyrannical regimes in Africa. In Unmasking the African Dictator, Gichingiri Ndigirigi redresses that imbalance. This volume features twelve articles from both established and emerging scholars who undertake representative readings of the African despot in fiction, drama, films, and music. Arranged chronologically, these essays cover postcolonial realities in a wide range of countries: Mali, Cote d'Ivoire, Senegal, the Congo, Nigeria, the Central African Republic, Somalia, Kenya, and Uganda. Included here are a variety of voices that illuminate the different aspects of dictator fiction in Africa and in the process enrich our understanding of the continent's literature, politics, and culture. This work features a foreword by formerly exiled Kenyan novelist, poet, and critic Ngugi wa Thiongo. Ndigirigi's own extended introduction reviews the overarching themes found in the collection and summarizes each of the artistic works being examined while placing the individual essays in context. A pioneering study, Unmasking the African Dictator examines the works of several major authors of dictator fictions including Achebe, Ngugi, Farah, and Tamsi.

The Aesthetics of Tyranny

2012 Africa
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Release : 2012
Genre : Africa
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Book Synopsis The Aesthetics of Tyranny by : Cécile Bishop

Download or read book The Aesthetics of Tyranny written by Cécile Bishop. This book was released on 2012. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Proceeding through a series of case studies centred on the representation of African dictatorships, this work re-examines the relationship between the political and the aesthetic in current approaches to postcolonial themes. The texts analysed are in French and in English, and range across literature, film and social science. Following a number of recent interventions in the field of postcolonial criticism which have placed renewed emphasis on the aesthetic and the literary, this thesis questions the nature of the political resistance that critics sometimes ascribe to certain aesthetic practices. -- However, contrary to recent analyses which have construed the future of postcolonial criticism as an alternative between a 'political turn' and an 'aesthetic turn' (for example Bongie 2008 & 2010), my thesis contests the notion that criticism can only be legitimized by either an evaluative conception of aesthetics or a commitment to progressive politics. Instead, this work argues for a form of criticism that would place the complexity of aesthetic experiences at the heart of its investigations, and shows how representations of African dictatorships offer a privileged opportunity to understand the mutual embeddedness of the political and the aesthetic. In this way, I hope both to intervene in current methodological debates animating postcolonial studies and other forms of politicized criticism, and to offer new insights into a major topic in post-independence African literature and in representations of Africa more generally.

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