Tsitsi Dangarembga Research Articles

A Shona assessment of evolving missionary Christianity in Zimbabwe: research

Beginning before the wave of African decolonisation of the 1960s but accelerating noticeably thereafter, both Christians and non-Christians across much of the continent created retrospective literary reconstructions of the impact of missionary Christianity on traditional societies. They thereby added important perspectives, many of them highly critical, on the saga of the church in Africa. One of the few female indigenous observers was the Shona novelist, Tsitsi Dangarembga (b. 1959), whose award-winning Nervous Conditions was published in 1988. Though bitingly critical in some respects, Dangarembga came neither to bury nor to praise, and her insights amalgamate disparagement of European condescension and heavy-handedness with acknowledgment of instances of missionary respect for indigenous culture. She also emphasised that religious intolerance was not an exclusively European phenomenon. Acta Theologica Vol.24(1) 2004: 91-110

Nego‐Feminism: Theorizing, Practicing, and Pruning Africa’s Way

Nego‐Feminism: Theorizing, Practicing, and Pruning Africa’s Way

Calixthe Beyala's Manifesto and Fictional Theory

Tanga, a girlchild-woman in Calixthe Beyala's Your Name Shall Be Tanga, like the manchild in Ayi Kwei Armah's Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born or the manchild Oskar in Nurrudin Farah's Maps, is one of those significant fictional characters that can be called widowers of their (Beyala 47). protagonist, Tanga, as a girlchild-woman is challenged to live as a girl-child without a beginning known as childhood, though much of the world readily accepts childhood as a universal experience. In that the referent girlchild-woman appears a minimum of thirty times throughout the text, the classifications of girl and as well as and adult are blurred. By categorizing Tanga as neither a nor a during the entire novel, Beyala suggests at the very least an ambivalence towards such categories and at the most a view that child and woman are theoretically inadequate terms by which to classify Tanga. Your Name Shall Be Tanga is not a developmental novel about a girl-child becoming a woman. text does not follow the physical, psychological, and/or social trajectory of a young individual moving towards maturity despite numerous complex obstacles as in Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions. Neither is Your Name Shall Be Tanga a depiction of an age of innocence as in Camara Laye's Dark Child. Beyala cannot be criticized for her so-called glorification of African childhood and/or precolonial Africa. Neither is Your Name Shall Be Tanga a story about conflicts to be resolved, as with the young heroine overcoming a series of trials in Flora Nwapa's Efuru. Beyala does not present the reader with a young figure who endures countless tribulations and still succeeds in overturning established tradition. Finally, Your Name Shall Be Tanga is not a novel filled with stories about admiration, assimilation, or rejection of a colonizer. Her story cannot be neatly labeled a Bildungsroman as does Nedal Al-Mousa for six Arabic novels in The Arabic Bildungsroman: A Generic Appraisal, wherein he argues that the art of living is replaced with heroes who reconcile two cultures. Instead, Your Name Shall Be Tanga is in part a manifesto. On one level, it is a political manifesto drawing attention to the civil rights of children. On another level, it is a political manifesto for the rights of women: socially and economically. A significant part of the argument lies in a fight against free market capitalism, which determines the value of girl-children and women through the demand for their bodies. novel is a social critique like Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina. Your Name Shall Be Tanga strongly contests illegitimacy: it focuses attention on a young female child's right to have others acknowledge her birth, a female child's right to have others value her existence, and a female child's right to control her body. In a real sense, Your Name Shall Be Tanga is an ideological war being fought against psychological, political, social, and economic determinism. A similar war is fought in Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born. Armah's critique of corrupt and

Tropes of Yearning and Dissent: The Troping of Desire in Yvonne Vera and Tsitsi Dangarembga

Tropes of Yearning and Dissent: The Troping of Desire in Yvonne Vera and Tsitsi Dangarembga

The Interaction of ‘Race’ and Gender as Cultural Constructs in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions

Nervous Conditions illustrates the way in which colonial cultural constructs, especially ‘race’, inhibit the construction of sexual identity. The relationship between coloniser and colonised somehow parallels that between males and females. The colonial experience exacerbates gender attitudes within the colonised community and prevents the women in the novel from constructing their sexual and social identity harmoniously.

The African Novel in English: An Introduction

Introduction - reading the African novel a brief historical survey of the African novel Chinua Achebe "Things Fall Apart" Buchi Emecheta "The Joys of Motherhood" Ayi Kwei Armah "The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born" Ama Ata Aidoo "Our Sister Killjoy" Nadine Gordimer "Burger's Daughter Alex la Guma "In the Fog of the Season's End" Ngugi wa Thiong'o "Devil on the Cross" Tsitsi Dangarembga "Nervous Conditions".

Beyond the Limbo Silence

In the tradition of novelists Alice Walker, Jamaica Kincaid, and Tsitsi Dangarembga, Elizabeth Nunez weaves a personal story into the broader tapestry of political history. Twenty-year-old Sara Edgehill has left her native Trinidad in 1963 to attend college in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, where she joins two other girls -- Courtney from St. Lucia and Angela from British Guyana -- in the task of integrating the all-white school. For Sara, coming from a world in which she is connected to a vibrant community and culture, this cold, alien place in which she is neither loved nor understood is profoundly shocking and disorienting.She longs to return to Trinidad, but knows she must finish college. Slowly, Sara finds support in her friendship with Courtney, who covertly practices voodoo rituals, and in a blossoming relationship with Sam, an African-American who draws her into the turbulent civil rights movement.Set against vivid historical events and written with poignancy and insight, Beyond the Limbo Silence will surely take its place among the classics of its genre.

Harmonizing the Nation: Women's Voices and Development in Zimbabwean Cinema

THE LAST DECADE witnessed the birth of Zimbabwean cinema, long delayed by colonialism, revolution, and scarcity. Today's feature films, which rely on international donors, promote development and gender equity. Despite their dependence on foreign funds and technologies, these films challenge the hegemony of Hollywood and engage with local values, contributing to the emerging national culture of Zimbabwe. The new cinema emphasizes the agency of the oppressed, particularly women, and strives to give voice in a popular medium to those silenced by patriarchal, authoritarian, and neocolonial interests. [Africa, Zimbabwe, Film, Women, Development]Neria (Zimbabwe, 1991, English, 103 min.) Production House: Media for Development Trust Director: Godwin MaruruFlame (Zimbabwe, 1996, English, 85 min.) Production House: Black &White Film Co. Director: Ingrid SinclairEveryone's Child (Zimbabwe, 1996, English, 85 min.) Production House: Media for Development Trust Director: Tsitsi Dangarembga

The African novel in English: an introduction

Introduction - reading the African novel a brief historical survey of the African novel Chinua Achebe Things Fall Apart Buchi Emecheta The Joys of Motherhood Ayi Kwei Armah The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born Ama Ata Aidoo Our Sister Killjoy Nadine Gordimer Burger's Daughter Alex la Guma In the Fog of the Season's End Ngugi wa Thiong'o Devil on the Cross Tsitsi Dangarembga Nervous Conditions.

Reading "The Geography of Hunger" in Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions: From Frantz Fanon to Charlotte Brontë

Reading "The Geography of Hunger" in Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions: From Frantz Fanon to Charlotte Brontë

Fighting the Good Fight: What Tsitsi Dangarembga's 'Nervous Conditions' Says about Language and Power

Language is power, and in multilingual contexts this invariably causes complications. Such complications reverberate in postcolonial literature written in a colonial language such as English. However, this is not unique to postcolonial texts. As Mikhail Bakhtin has pointed out, all literary texts are 'ideologically saturated' since language is 'populated over-populated with the intentions of others'.' The power relationships inherent in language have been studied by many scholars. Among the myriad voices in this debate, two stand out as particularly relevant to the present study: Ralph Grillo, who endorses Chomsky's claim that 'questions of language are basically questions of power',2 and Helen Tiffin, who comments that much postcolonial writing reveals 'the continuing struggle over the word'.3 Since many postcolonial texts are set in traditionally patriarchal societies, in which boys are thought more worthy than girls of formal education, any discussion of language and power must include gender politics alongside questions of linguistic and cultural hegemony. The power of language to upset, uproot, and either shackle or set free is demonstrated with devastating clarity in Tsitsi Dangarembga's awardwinning first novel, Nervous Conditions.4 In this text, 'the first published novel in English by a black Zimbabwean woman',5 Dangarembga's treatment of the politics of both language and gender is witty, sophisticated, and hardhitting. Set in Umtali in the former Southern Rhodesia during the g6os and I970s, the novel departs in two ways from the Bildungsroman function which might seem to be its ostensible form. First, it tells the story of five women and

A Dialectic of Autonomy and Community: Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions

A Dialectic of Autonomy and Community: Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions

Mothers, Daughters and Madness in Works by Four Women Writers: Bessie Head, Jean Rhys, Tsitsi Dangarembga and Ama Ata Aidoo/ ﺍﻷﻣﻬﺎﺕ ﻭﺍﻟﺒﻨﺎﺕ ﻭﺍﻟﺠﻨﻮﻥ ﻓﻲ ﺃﻋﻤﺎﻝ ﺃﺭﺑﻊ ﺭﻭﺍﺋﻴﺎﺕ

Mothers, Daughters and Madness in Works by Four Women Writers: Bessie Head, Jean Rhys, Tsitsi Dangarembga and Ama Ata Aidoo/ ﺍﻷﻣﻬﺎﺕ ﻭﺍﻟﺒﻨﺎﺕ ﻭﺍﻟﺠﻨﻮﻥ ﻓﻲ ﺃﻋﻤﺎﻝ ﺃﺭﺑﻊ ﺭﻭﺍﺋﻴﺎﺕ

The Heinemann Book of African Women's Writing

A contemporary selection of 22 African women's shortstories that vividly portray the everyday concerns of women's lives. The stories, divided into sections from north, south, east and west, cover such themes as the exploitation of serving girls, the experience of women behind veils, enduring friendships, the achievement of social power, independence of thought, and the affirmation of personal identity. These are new writers recording the new Africa with a fresh perspective. Authors whose stories are included in this landmark collection are: Northern Africa -- Nawal El Saadawi Assia Djebar Gisele Halimi Leila Sebbar Andree Chedid Southern Africa -- Tsitsi Dangarembga Bessie Head Jean Marquard Zoe Wicomb Sheila Fugard Farida Karodia Eastern Africa -- Evelyn Awuor Ayodo Violet Dias Lannoy Daisy Kabaragama Lina Magaia Western Africa -- Catherine Obianuju Acholonu Ifeoma Okoye Zaynab Alkali Orlanda Amarilis Aminata Maiga Ka

The powers of discourse: The identity of subaltern women under colonial law inNervous ConditionsandDaughters of the Twilight

Summary Subaltern women, their identities constructed within the margins of imperialist history, are subject to the privileged discourses of institutionalised medicine, education and the law. This essay focuses on how the laws of Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa, as well as customary law, circumscribe the corporeality of these women, and reads two narratives, Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga and Daughters of the Twilight by Farida Karodia, in which female right is absent in the face of male law. The paper critiques relevant statutes, acts and court cases, and draws on Kristevan theory of the abject to discuss the representation of the black woman as pollutive and defiling in the apartheid cultural formation.

Killing the Hysteric in the Colonized's House: Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions

Killing the Hysteric in the Colonized's House: Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions

Tsitsi Dangarembga'sNervous Conditions: At the crossroads of feminism and post‐colonialism

(1991). Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions: At the crossroads of feminism and post‐colonialism. World Literature Written in English: Vol. 31, No. 1, pp. 103-112.

A correspondence without theory: Tsitsi dangarembga'snervous conditions.

(1990). A correspondence without theory: Tsitsi dangarembga's nervous conditions.. Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa: Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 91-100.