I came across this article on looking for something else and pass it on. It is an acacemic journal article looking mainly at the role of English in postcolonial literature, but may be of interest for its consideration of questions dealt with by African authors. Citation, URL, and some brief excerpts below. DZO
Chanda, Ipshita. 2003. "The Tortoise and the Leopard, or the Postcolonial Muse." Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 23:1&2. http://cssaame.com/issues/23/17.pdf "... this paper addresses the process of reading the literatures in the language of the colonizer written by the colonized. In all colonized societies, oral and/or written traditions of verbal art existed before the colonizers arrived with their language and the specific structures of socialization based on this language as well as particular hierarchies derived from it. In order to understand the process of production of literatures in the colonizers' language in these societies and offer certain speculations on the communities of reception that these processes interpellate, it is necessary, therefore, to consider the relations between orality and literacy and their implications for development and progress, at the basis of which lies the idea of civilization predicated upon writing and written documentation. I will attempt to show that these fundamental issues, relating to the context and process of producing literatures by the colonized in the colonizers' language, have a crucial bearing upon the academic discipline of literature as it is taught in universities of postcolonial/third world location and elsewhere." ... "I explore the negotiations represented in the texts between the language-world constructed through colonial policy and continued by postcolonial educational policies, and the 'vernacular' world that existed before the coming of the colonizers. This helps one to discern the effects of each upon the other, thus delineating the dynamics of the literary process in the colonizers' language and its position within the literary system of the postcolony. Within this framework arise the following questions: Written as these literatures are, in a global language, what is their status in the communities of their origin, and in the global community? What are the epistemological issues involved in reading them? To whom are they addressed and by whom? Ultimately, I would like to raise a question that seems so obvious that we often forget to answer it in our practice: What is the function of the colonizer's language as the vehicle of postcolonial writing? I am arguing that the use of English in postcolonial writing is a political maneuver that must be recognized, for to abstract English from its sociohistorical specificity into the realm of the 'universal' that literature so easily becomes would be a strategic silencing at worst, and a naïve obfuscation at best." ... "Can the postcolonial writer, after all, speak for herself even when she uses the colonizers' language? Or does the latest version of Empire still speak in her voice?" ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Know an art & music fan? Make a donation in their honor this holiday season! http://us.click.yahoo.com/.6dcNC/.VHMAA/Zx0JAA/TpIolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AfricanLanguages/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
