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Contemporary Realities in the Selected Plays of Femi Osofisan, Sam Ukala and Tess Onwueme
Issue:
Volume 10, Issue 1, January 2022
Pages:
1-10
Received:
5 November 2021
Accepted:
24 December 2021
Published:
8 January 2022
Abstract: It has often been said that a writer’s assumption, criticisms, and everything he or she writes about are a result of the society he or she has found himself or herself. Literature is a product of the society. No writer writes without reflecting the prevailing issues or problems bedeviling the society he or she comes from. This paper takes a look at the contemporary issues in the Nigerian (even African) polity that have received the attention of Femi Osofisan in Who is Afraid of Solarin? and Women of Owu; Sam Ukala in Odour of Justice and Tess Onwueme in The Missing Face and Tell it to Women. The major aim of this paper is to expose some of the prevailing issues in contemporary Nigeria. These issues have continued to cause major setbacks in the Nigerian polity. The paper has helped in opening the eyes of the readers and drawing their ears on the corruption and other vices perpetuated by the leaders, women and tricksters in our midst. The selected playwrights beam their critical lens on the contemporary realities in Nigeria through their adaptations of oral traditions in their works. It is concluded that the playwrights are very much at alert with their social realities and they expose these socio-political and cultural issues in Nigeria, especially, for positive change.
Abstract: It has often been said that a writer’s assumption, criticisms, and everything he or she writes about are a result of the society he or she has found himself or herself. Literature is a product of the society. No writer writes without reflecting the prevailing issues or problems bedeviling the society he or she comes from. This paper takes a look at...
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A Psychoanalytical Approach of Body Memory in Asian Literature
Issue:
Volume 10, Issue 1, January 2022
Pages:
11-15
Received:
23 September 2021
Accepted:
12 October 2021
Published:
17 January 2022
Abstract: This paper investigates the concept of body memory treated in Shauna Singh Baldwin’s What the Body Remembers. It deals not only with revealing the potential methods of remembering, but also how victims resort to alternative modes of memory and recovery. The late twentieth century has witnessed an increased emphasis on questions of memory as the generations which experienced the atrocities of the two world wars die out, and new or revived national movements build their demands on memories of oppression or trauma. Adopting a non-verbal source of inquiry, Shauna Singh Baldwin questions the unchallenged supremacy of the verbal testimony as a means for healing the self, emphasizing how South Asian Literary Texts themselves point toward non-textual sites of memory such as human body. Baldwin explores the dark tunnels of memory in which the revelation of the past occurs brilliantly through new generatively trans-textual intersections of memory, nationalism and narrative Scars, tattoos, post-memory, and reincarnation are among the new modes presented by this Indian author. In this vein, I claim that the text comes out to suggest new ways in which human body can preserve and displays individual and collective memory. I shall also discuss the extent to which the female body potentially facilitate the act of remembering denying the importance of the language structure.
Abstract: This paper investigates the concept of body memory treated in Shauna Singh Baldwin’s What the Body Remembers. It deals not only with revealing the potential methods of remembering, but also how victims resort to alternative modes of memory and recovery. The late twentieth century has witnessed an increased emphasis on questions of memory as the gen...
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Mundell Lowe’s Accompaniment Style on the Electric Guitar
Issue:
Volume 10, Issue 1, January 2022
Pages:
16-27
Received:
26 December 2021
Accepted:
11 January 2022
Published:
17 January 2022
Abstract: This paper brings information and data about the work of jazz guitarist Mundell Lowe, who has influenced many musicians for over fifty years and is widely recognized for his imaginative and “orchestral-like” method of accompaniment. Mundell Lowe was born on a farm in Laurel, Mississippi, United States, on April 21, 1922, and died on December 2, 2017, he has often been described as a “guitarists' guitarist”. This study provides transcriptions and analysis of his accompaniment (comping) approach on all ten pieces from After Hours, the highly regarded 1961 album by the vocalist Sarah Vaughan. The data analysed in this paper is based on the biographical material and interviews of the guitarist plus transcriptions of the album mentioned - both transcriptions and interviews were done and conducted by the author as part of a doctored research. Lowe's complete accompaniment work is examined in detail and, for on this paper, few samples of his playing on the album were selected and presented for better explanation - the samples are written on traditional music notation. The findings disclose his techniques and tendencies pertaining to chord voicings, harmonic choices, treatment of intros and endings, double-stops, rhythmic devices, reharmonization, as well as several other techniques that embody his stylistic approach. Much of his style can be traced, and so related, to his musical background, his experience as a performer and arranger, and his interest in music styles beyond jazz.
Abstract: This paper brings information and data about the work of jazz guitarist Mundell Lowe, who has influenced many musicians for over fifty years and is widely recognized for his imaginative and “orchestral-like” method of accompaniment. Mundell Lowe was born on a farm in Laurel, Mississippi, United States, on April 21, 1922, and died on December 2, 201...
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The Social Use of Language: An Ethnography of Communication in Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God
Issue:
Volume 10, Issue 1, January 2022
Pages:
28-37
Received:
14 December 2021
Accepted:
15 January 2022
Published:
24 January 2022
Abstract: During colonization, the English language was not only the primary language of government and administration but it was also used in the education of colonized subjects. Consequently, English became a national language in the colonies and had since then complicated its own status as a significant medium of communication because of the colonized conflicting attitudes towards it. Since a writer brings his personality, experience and the totality of his personhood to bear on his work of art, postcolonial writers and critics felt that the use of English from its standard form as well as the cultural values it carried cannot give genuine artistic shape and form to their creative impulses. While some advocate for the return to writing in indigenous African languages others are of the opinion that the use of a foreign language is pointless. In this sense, Chinua Achebe’s quest for a postcolonial literary aesthetic is delineated in Arrow of God, where, with an unparalleled dexterity, he adapts the English language to suit the cultural norms, social interactions, ideas and ideals of his traditional Igbo society. The study was conducted by applying a postcolonial approach to literature which suggests that post-colonial writing seize the English language and replace it in a discourse fully adapted to the colonised place. The primary material used for arguments in this study is Arrow of God where data were purposely collected. Much more data informed by Igbo’s indigenous tradition and culture were abstracted from internet sources and many critical works. The result of the analysis shows that language and culture intertwine to subvert the colonial perspective on the colonized.
Abstract: During colonization, the English language was not only the primary language of government and administration but it was also used in the education of colonized subjects. Consequently, English became a national language in the colonies and had since then complicated its own status as a significant medium of communication because of the colonized con...
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Alienation and Disillusionment Portrayed Through the Mirror of Diaspora and Globalization in Hary Kunzru’s Transmission
Issue:
Volume 10, Issue 1, January 2022
Pages:
38-43
Received:
20 December 2021
Accepted:
13 January 2022
Published:
24 January 2022
Abstract: From the beginning of civilization people have shifted from one place to another for better living and for seeking different opportunities. It is true that globalization is changing this world to a small village but people are becoming more and more forlorn and alienated. In most of the third world countries, western world is considered to be a better place to live in; this leads to disillusionment in several of the cases. Hari Kunzru’s Transmission deals with a character named Arjun Mehta, a programmer, who goes to America to pursue his dreams in the corporate world. Soon he learns he is just a contract employee despite all his capabilities. His largest blow comes when he realizes his job life is about to end. He is isolated though he is surrounded by people and co-workers. To prove his worth, he creates a virus which generated a global havoc. The writer very skilfully introduces another character named Guy Swift whose life goes parallel to Arjun. Unlike Arjun, Guy enjoys all the luxuries of the world; the contrast is perplexing. The virus which Arjun created affected Guy’s life too, showing the smallness of this world and how everything more or less affects everyone. Hary Kunzru tactfully put Guy in a situation where he was deported to another country due to a confusion regarding his identity; the writer has turned the table and showed how it can be when one person is not from a powerful country. Our world does not treat everyone equally: in this globalized world, people are alienated and are given false hope. Arjun lost his identity and his sense of home: he did not have any place to belong. This paper has worked with the disenchantment of Arjun and how his life changed by going to America. This paper has discussed about the brutal world of materialism where people are considered just as a working body: with no feelings whatsoever. The borders are said to be vanishing but people are becoming more and more depressed and lonely. Everyone wants to leave a mark, everyone wants to be noticed like Arjun but most of the times they go unnoticed. This paper has tried to discuss the reason behind these crises and hoped to come up with some answers.
Abstract: From the beginning of civilization people have shifted from one place to another for better living and for seeking different opportunities. It is true that globalization is changing this world to a small village but people are becoming more and more forlorn and alienated. In most of the third world countries, western world is considered to be a bet...
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The Manifestation of Woman as a Şūfī Motif in Modern Arabic Poetry: Abdul Wahāb al-Bayyātī as an Example
Issue:
Volume 10, Issue 1, January 2022
Pages:
44-50
Received:
12 December 2021
Accepted:
13 January 2022
Published:
26 January 2022
Abstract: The contemporary Arab poets have used the motif of women in their works to convey a variety of messages. Indeed, in many poetical works, the woman has played the role of an objective formula through which the modern Arab poet conveyed his idea, as if the woman were a mask. In fact, the woman is shown as a wide-ranging icon that helps the poet attain great ambitions and change the world around him. This image of the woman is influenced by the female character as depicted by medieval Sufi writers who regarded the woman as one of the major foundations of their writing. Consequently, they would select their female characters, give them glamorous names, and make them target of their writings. The content of the Sufi practices centered on love and craving. They considered that created woman their earthly mistress who aided them to reach their supreme lover, God. These Sufi rituals have profoundly impacted modern-day Arab poets. For purposes of focus, our work will discuss the echo of women in two poetical works of Abdul Wahāb al-Bayyātī. We seek to examine why this poet who is believed to represent modern writers, is magnetized to the Sufi image of woman. We assume that the Sufi treatment of women in modern Arabic poetry offers new insights into the dynamic potential of the motif and suggests a new critical approach.
Abstract: The contemporary Arab poets have used the motif of women in their works to convey a variety of messages. Indeed, in many poetical works, the woman has played the role of an objective formula through which the modern Arab poet conveyed his idea, as if the woman were a mask. In fact, the woman is shown as a wide-ranging icon that helps the poet attai...
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From Marginalism to Dualism: On Joseph Conrad’s Cultural Awareness
Issue:
Volume 10, Issue 1, January 2022
Pages:
51-58
Received:
6 January 2022
Accepted:
24 January 2022
Published:
9 February 2022
Abstract: Joseph Conrad is a Polish born English writer who immigrated or expatriated to many different cultural backgrounds. He is considered a marginal man, a restless figure all through his life, and a man in exile, without root and of no belonging. The cultural identity once was one of Conrad’s overriding concerns, one that dominated much of his personal and public life. Conrad was born in Poland, but was not spiritually bred and educated by that culture; he immigrated to and finally settled in Britain, but often kept a heightened sense of his social and cultural alienation. However, having walked in and out of the marginal circles of the several cultures, Conrad was able to free himself from the absolute manipulation of any single culture. His marginal man’s relative sense of cultures and identity have well led him to a richly composite individual—one that combines key elements of many cultures. So, the diverse cultural experiences and the unique cultural understanding enabled Conrad to change from marginal form to janiform and became a writer with the concept of dualism. Then, dualism serves as Conrad’s philosophical foundation for observing and judging the world. Born a Pole, Conrad does not see things totally from a Polish stance, nor does he totally take a Russian stance, French stance, English stance, or other single cultural stance. Such idea of dualism is clearly demonstrated in portraying the image of the “self” and the “other” in this jungle fiction. Although such dualism very often produces tensions and ambivalence on Conrad and his writings, there are certainly deep insights and revelations in it. His concept of dualism might provide instructive understanding of the world today—to see all the aspects of the matter instead of just one, i.e., to see things from both the opposite sides.
Abstract: Joseph Conrad is a Polish born English writer who immigrated or expatriated to many different cultural backgrounds. He is considered a marginal man, a restless figure all through his life, and a man in exile, without root and of no belonging. The cultural identity once was one of Conrad’s overriding concerns, one that dominated much of his personal...
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Şūfī Language and the Opening of Signification: al-Ḥallāj as an Example
Issue:
Volume 10, Issue 1, January 2022
Pages:
59-67
Received:
12 December 2021
Accepted:
26 January 2022
Published:
16 February 2022
Abstract: The present paper studies the use of the Şūfī al-Ḥusayn b. Manşūr al-Ḥallāj as a mask in modern Arabic poetry, specifically the influence this figure exerted on Adūnīs (‘Alī Aḥmad Sa’īd; b. 1930), ‘Abd al-Wahāb al-Bayyātī (1926-1999) and Şalāḥ ‘Abd al-Şabūr (1931-1981). It examines how these poets used al-Ḥallāj’s mask in order to express contemporary national, social and meta-poetical issues. The paper will also demonstrate the intentional use which these poets made of al-Ḥallāj’s sufferings and the story of his crucifixion. They turned him into a saint who died because he refused to give up his values and philosophies in order to express their own sufferings. Contemporary poets, thus, made al-Ḥallāj acquire a new spiritual dimension, quite different from his reputation in Muslim theology, where he had become a symbol of heresy, non-conformism and dissidence. The paper will show the various levels at which “Ḥallāj” thought can be used, whether as a mask and the tale of his execution or Şūfī expressions and ideas that have historically been associated with him
Abstract: The present paper studies the use of the Şūfī al-Ḥusayn b. Manşūr al-Ḥallāj as a mask in modern Arabic poetry, specifically the influence this figure exerted on Adūnīs (‘Alī Aḥmad Sa’īd; b. 1930), ‘Abd al-Wahāb al-Bayyātī (1926-1999) and Şalāḥ ‘Abd al-Şabūr (1931-1981). It examines how these poets used al-Ḥallāj’s mask in order to express contempor...
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