Abortion Ecologies in Southern African Fiction

Abortion Ecologies in Southern African Fiction PDF Author: Caitlin E. Stobie
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350250201
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 334

Get Book Here

Book Description
Focusing on texts from the late 1970s to the 1990s which document both changing attitudes to terminations of pregnancy and dramatic environmental, medical, and socio-political developments during southern Africa's liberation struggles, this book examines how four writers from Botswana, South Africa, and Zimbabwe address the ethics of abortion and reproductive choice. Viewing recent fiction through the lens of new materialist theory – which challenges conventional, individual-based notions of human rights by asserting that all matter holds agency – this book argues that southern African women writers anticipate and exceed current feminist revivals of materialist thought. Not only do the authors question contemporary discourse framing abortion as either a confirmation of a woman's 'right to choose' or an unethical termination of human life, but they challenge conventional understandings of development, growth, and time. Through close readings of both literal gestation in the selected texts and the metaphorical reproduction of the post/colonial nation, this study advances the concept of reproductive agency, creating a range of queer ecocritical alternatives to tropes such as those of 'the Mother Country', 'Mother Africa', or 'the birth of a nation'. This study situates abortion narratives by Wilma Stockenström (translated by J. M. Coetzee), Zoë Wicomb, Yvonne Vera, and Bessie Head alongside contemporary postcolonial feminist theories, melding traditional beliefs with materialist views to reconsider the future of reproductive health matters in southern Africa. Merging queer ecocritical perspectives from materialism and postcolonialism, this study will appeal to students and researchers in the medical humanities, new materialisms, and postcolonial studies.

Abortion Ecologies in Southern African Fiction

Abortion Ecologies in Southern African Fiction PDF Author: Caitlin E. Stobie
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350250201
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 334

Get Book Here

Book Description
Focusing on texts from the late 1970s to the 1990s which document both changing attitudes to terminations of pregnancy and dramatic environmental, medical, and socio-political developments during southern Africa's liberation struggles, this book examines how four writers from Botswana, South Africa, and Zimbabwe address the ethics of abortion and reproductive choice. Viewing recent fiction through the lens of new materialist theory – which challenges conventional, individual-based notions of human rights by asserting that all matter holds agency – this book argues that southern African women writers anticipate and exceed current feminist revivals of materialist thought. Not only do the authors question contemporary discourse framing abortion as either a confirmation of a woman's 'right to choose' or an unethical termination of human life, but they challenge conventional understandings of development, growth, and time. Through close readings of both literal gestation in the selected texts and the metaphorical reproduction of the post/colonial nation, this study advances the concept of reproductive agency, creating a range of queer ecocritical alternatives to tropes such as those of 'the Mother Country', 'Mother Africa', or 'the birth of a nation'. This study situates abortion narratives by Wilma Stockenström (translated by J. M. Coetzee), Zoë Wicomb, Yvonne Vera, and Bessie Head alongside contemporary postcolonial feminist theories, melding traditional beliefs with materialist views to reconsider the future of reproductive health matters in southern Africa. Merging queer ecocritical perspectives from materialism and postcolonialism, this study will appeal to students and researchers in the medical humanities, new materialisms, and postcolonial studies.

Love Falls On Us

Love Falls On Us PDF Author: Robbie Corey-Boulet
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN: 1786995190
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244

Get Book Here

Book Description
In 2009 Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill became a top global news story. Two years later Hillary Clinton declared “Gay rights are human rights and human rights are gay rights,” but still today there is little consensus on how to advance those rights beyond the U.S. and Europe. The fact is that international LGBT activism and allies have created winners and losers. In Africa those who easily identify with the identities of the global movement find support, funding and care. Those whose sexualities don’t align so neatly don’t. In this faithful and moving investigation, award winning journalist Robbie Corey-Boulet shows that LGBT liberation does not look the same in Africa as it does in the United States or Europe. At a time when there is a groundswell of interest in LGBT life in Africa and attempts at reversing LGBT rights across much of the ‘developed’ world Corey-Boulet lays bare past failures. To the extent that there exists a right way to engage on LGBT issues in Africa—and, indeed, worldwide—Love Falls on Us is for those looking to learn what it is.

The Ordeal of the African Writer

The Ordeal of the African Writer PDF Author: Charles Larson
Publisher: Zed Books
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 180

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book demonstrates how only a small number of African writers--like Chinua Achebe, Ben Okri, Nuruddin Farah, and Wole Soyinka--have become known outside of their own continent. It also details the enormous obstacles they face within Africa to get their work published, let alone to support themselves financially from their writing. Charles R. Larson combines writers' own testimony, pen portraits of their lives, and factual investigation to explore the full dimensions of this problem.

Pan-African Social Ecology: Speeches, Conversations, and Essays

Pan-African Social Ecology: Speeches, Conversations, and Essays PDF Author: Modibo Kadalie
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780990641889
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 175

Get Book Here

Book Description


Women's Activism in Africa

Women's Activism in Africa PDF Author: Balghis Badri
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN: 1783609117
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Get Book Here

Book Description
Throughout Africa, growing numbers of women are coming together and making their voices heard, mobilising around causes ranging from democracy and land rights to campaigns against domestic violence. In Tanzania and Tunisia, women have made major gains in their struggle for equal political rights, and in Sierra Leone and Liberia women have been at the forefront of efforts to promote peace and reconciliation. While some of these movements have been influenced by international feminism and external donors, increasingly it is African women who are shaping the global struggle for women’s rights. Bringing together African authors who themselves are part of the activist groups, this collection represents the only comprehensive and up-to-date overview of women’s movements in contemporary Africa. Drawing on case studies and fresh empirical material from across the continent, the authors challenge the prevailing assumption that notions of women’s rights have trickled down from the global north to the south, showing instead that these movements have been shaped by above all the unique experiences and concerns of the local women involved.

Male Daughters, Female Husbands

Male Daughters, Female Husbands PDF Author: Professor Ifi Amadiume
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN: 1783603348
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Get Book Here

Book Description
In 1987, more than a decade before the dawn of queer theory, Ifi Amadiume wrote Male Daughters, Female Husbands, to critical acclaim. This compelling and highly original book frees the subject position of 'husband' from its affiliation with men, and goes on to do the same for other masculine attributes, dislocating sex, gender and sexual orientation. Boldly arguing that the notion of gender, as constructed in Western feminist discourse, did not exist in Africa before the colonial imposition of a dichotomous understanding of sexual difference, Male Daughters, Female Husbands examines the structures in African society that enabled people to achieve power, showing that roles were not rigidly masculinized nor feminized. At a time when gender and queer theory are viewed by some as being stuck in an identity-politics rut, this outstanding study not only warns against the danger of projecting a very specific, Western notion of difference onto other cultures, but calls us to question the very concept of gender itself.

Abortion Politics

Abortion Politics PDF Author: Ziad Munson
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745688829
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 200

Get Book Here

Book Description
Abortion has remained one of the most volatile and polarizing issues in the United States for over four decades. Americans are more divided today than ever over abortion, and this debate colors the political, economic, and social dynamics of the country. This book provides a balanced, clear-eyed overview of the abortion debate, including the perspectives of both the pro-life and pro-choice movements. It covers the history of the debate from colonial times to the present, the mobilization of mass movements around the issue, the ways it is understood by ordinary Americans, the impact it has had on US political development, and the differences between the abortion conflict in the US and the rest of the world. Throughout these discussions, Ziad Munson demonstrates how the meaning of abortion has shifted to reflect the changing anxieties and cultural divides which it has come to represent. Abortion Politics is an invaluable companion for exploring the abortion issue and what it has to say about American society, as well as the dramatic changes in public understanding of women’s rights, medicine, religion, and partisanship.

Theory of African Literature

Theory of African Literature PDF Author: Chidi Amuta
Publisher: Zed Books
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Get Book Here

Book Description
A classic work that overturns conventional assessments of African literature, offering a unique contribution to literary criticism.

African Literature as Political Philosophy

African Literature as Political Philosophy PDF Author: Mary Stella Chika Okolo
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN: 1848136048
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 223

Get Book Here

Book Description
The politics of development in Africa have always been central concerns of the continent's literature. Yet ideas about the best way to achieve this development, and even what development itself should look like, have been hotly contested. African Literature as Political Philosophy looks in particular at Achebe's Anthills of the Savannah and Petals of Blood by Ngugi wa Thiong'o, but situates these within the broader context of developments in African literature over the past half-century, discussing writers from Ayi Kwei Armah to Wole Soyinka. M.S.C. Okolo provides a thorough analysis of the authors' differing approaches and how these emerge from the literature. She shows the roots of Achebe's reformism and Ngugi's insistence on revolution and how these positions take shape in their work. Okolo argues that these authors have been profoundly affected by the political situation of Africa, but have also helped to create a new African political philosophy.

Writing African Women

Writing African Women PDF Author: Stephanie Newell
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786990083
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 217

Get Book Here

Book Description
How does our understanding of Africa shift when we begin from the perspective of women? What can the African perspective offer theories of culture and of gender difference? This work, as unique and insightful today as when it was first published, brings together a wide variety of African academics and other researchers to explore the links between literature, popular culture and theories of gender. Beginning with a ground-breaking overview of African gender theory, the book goes on to analyse women's writing, uncovering the ways different writers have approached issues of female creativity and colonial history, as well as the ways in which they have subverted popular stereotypes around African women. The contributors also explore the related gender dynamics of mask performance and oral story-telling. This major analysis of gender in popular and postcolonial cultural production remains essential reading for students and academics in women's studies, cultural studies and literature.