Postcolonial Literature

This article examines the concept of “nomad” in Laila Lalami’s Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits (2005). The novel’s popularity anchors in the new depiction that Lalami devotes to the illegal immigrant. The paper seeks to show whether illegal immigration can be considered as a form of nomadic existence. In contemporary theory, the concept of nomad gains much consideration because of the phenomenon of globalization and mass migration.  Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, respectively a philosopher and a psychoanalyst offer the term ‘nomad’ a special attention. They aim at extracting this term from its old conceptions. Consequently, the term ‘nomad’ is used to define a new and different situation. Through implementing this new definition of nomad, the paper reveals that nomadism is not strictly linked to physical crossing of borders. A nomad is a person who manages to voyage through thoughts. For Deleuze and Guattari, physical movement does not define the nomad. The nomad is the individual who transforms his or her demeaning existence into a new and creative exploration through ‘becoming’. The paper probes into the concept of becoming that is presented as an alternative sociality for the novel’s characters. Becoming is an enabling outlet for the pressures erected by the characters’ society.

Genres are not simply carriers of meaning-they generate meaning themselves. By intertextually evoking the genre of the travelogue, Teju Cole's Every Day is for the Thief remembers a genre and its practices of not only portraying but also creating the Other. By ways of openly using but at the same time misusing the main characteristics of the imperialistic travelogue-such as the discourse of negation and visual practices-Every Day is for the Thief highlights entanglements that destabilize any fixed boundary between the past and the present as well as between the colonizer and the colonized. Disappointing the reader's expectations raised by the generic conventions, the generic intertextu-ality asks the reader to reconsider the wider memory context that the genre is placed in. Neither conforming to the traditional travelogue nor to the postcolonial travelogue, Every Day is for the Thief questions these firm categorisations, positioning itself in the in-between and asking for a thinking beyond binary divisions and, most of all, a linking of the past and the present.

Hanif 'Kureishi'nin We're Not Jews 'Adlı Öyküsünde Ulusötesilik

Pakistan kökenli İngiliz yazar Hanif Kureishi, adı geçen eserinde, İngiltere'de farklı etnik kökene sahip kişilerin maruz kaldığı ayrımcılığı ve ırkçılığı bir çocuğun bakış açısıyla aktarır. Bu çalışma, Kureishi'nin öyküsünü ulusötesilik bağlamında incelemektedir.

Introduction
C. L. Crouch
University of Nottingham

The Imperial End: How Empire Overtakes Refugees in Jeremiah
Steed Vernyl Davidson
McCormick Theological Seminary

Embracing Asylum Seekers and Refugees: Jeremiah 29 as Foundation for a Christian Theology of Migration and Integration
C. A. Strine
University of Sheffield

The Art of Wounded Hope: Forced Migration, Prophecy and Aesth/ethics
Susanna Snyder
Catherine of Siena College, University of Roehampton

Temporality, Dispossession and the Search for the Good:
Interpreting the Book of Jeremiah with the Jesuit Refugee Service
Anna Rowlands
Durham University

La narrativa di Igiaba Scego, scrittrice italiana di origini somale, si inserisce nel filone variamente definito come «letteratura migrante» o «postcoloniale». I racconti e i romanzi dell’autrice sono estremamente ricchi di riflessioni e di inserti di natura metalinguistica; un tratto che si fonde con altri elementi portanti della sua prosa quali la narrazione autobiografica, numerosi riferimenti di natura religiosa, il forte legame con le vicende storiche dell’ultimo secolo, l’impegno civile, oltre – naturalmente – ad un singolare intreccio di lingue e di culture. Concentrandosi in particolare sulle sue opere maggiori e più recenti, in questo saggio si indagano i contributi teorici e pratici che l’autrice fornisce attraverso i suoi scritti nel quadro degli odierni modelli linguistici e letterari.

Fiction by Igiaba Scego, an Italian writer of Somali origin, is part of the genre variously defined as “migrant” or “postcolonial” literature. The author’s stories and novels are extremely rich in reflections and additions of a metalinguistic nature; a trait that blends with other key elements of her prose such as autobiographical narrative, numerous references of a religious nature, the strong link with the historical events of the last century, civil commitment, as well as – of course – a unique interweaving of languages and cultures. Focusing in particular on her major and most recent works, this essay investigates the theoretical and practical contributions that the author provides through her writings in the context of today's linguistic and literary models.

This book chapter analyses the role of Mustafa Sa’eed as a Derridean ‘guest’ in Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North. It specifically investigates the aesthetic role that Sa’eed plays in the parallel murder-suicide plot in Britain and Wad Hamid. While Sa’eed finds himself being tried for the murder-suicide of his lovers in London, he plays a less obvious role as instigator in the murder-suicide of his wife Hosna and Wad Rayyes in Sudan later-on. As a foreigner, Sa’eed lays bare the dynamics of hospitality in both settings. On one hand, London extends him a conditional form of hospitality that gives sovereignty to the rule of law when he is accused of murder. On the other, Wad Hamid practices unconditional hospitality by accepting his foreignness, asking nothing about his past and allowing him to settle and have a life amongst its inhabitants. In both settings, however, the question of justice and forgiveness are raised. In Wad Hamid, the narrator refuses to forgive Sa’eed for being the cause of Husna’s murder-suicide. In London, the murder trial becomes a scene for forgiveness-granting and seeking.

This book chapter argues that by rereading these scenes in terms of hospitality, the novel highlights the aesthetic role that Sa’eed plays in the pursuit of justice. In London, Sa’eed appeals to Orientalist fantasies, poetry and ornamentation to maintain the illusion of his foreignness. These elements play a pivotal role in constructing Sa’eed’s familiarity as a foreigner for the characters defending him at court. In Wad Hamid, Sa’eed resigns his foreignness to a locked room. The room holds the same aesthetic motifs as those in London: the mirror, photos and poetry. In this room, however, the narrator decides to forsake his pursuit to define who Sa’eed really is at the end of the novel. The narrator reconciles himself with the enigmatic state of Sa’eed’s foreignness. He forsakes the need to define Sa’eed analytically and embraces the openness of the unknown in Sa’eed’s case. Despite his decision not to forgive him, the narrator decides to keep the room intact. He preserves the room as an aesthetic appeal to justice. While the bedouins ask for forgiveness from the ‘almighty God’, Sa’eed introduces the narrator to another form of this appeal: the aesthetics of hospitality.

The book chapter holds that the maintenance of the same aesthetic motifs in Wad Hamid and London highlights the pivotal role that aesthetics plays in redefining the pursuit of justice. This appeal to justice transcends the borders of cultures. Through the parallelism of its plot and motifs, the novel invests in Sa’eed’s foreignness to illustrate the Derridean claim that hospitality is ‘an art and a poetics‘ on which ‘an entire politics depends‘.  By rewriting the appeal to justice, the novel introduces a ‘new’ politics that could rewrite what an empire is and how cultures could and should interact.

Published 5/4/2016: A deconstruction of distant reading and a close reading of Jorge Luis Borges' "On Rigor in Science." The undecidability of the political and conceptual borders of the story challenges the possibility of any absolutist and orientalist cartographic project (such as Moretti's literary mapmaking). Implications for the digital humanities and distant reading are explored.

Public Interest or Strategic Litigation (PIL) - by which term is meant court action that operates to vindicate the welfare or collective well-being of the general public, is fast gaining acceptance and popularity in the Ugandan legal context. Through it, public-spirited individuals as well as Civil Society Organizations and Non-Governmental Organizations have acted; and, continuously, are acting to challenge governmental lawlessness, administrative indiscretion and the exploitation of the poor by the rich. PIL is also being employed to engender the rule of law, promote noble notions of constitutionalism and democratic governance; and also, push back against retrogressive cultures and other bad tendencies like violation of human rights by State organs. More recently, PIL is also being used to promote social justice, precipitate policy and statutory reform as well as shine bright lights upon historical injustices suffered by minorities and other marginalized or disadvantaged sections of society with view to correction. It is also being used to advance or project such causes like environmental justice and public accountability.

In the Ugandan context, the legal framework in place for PIL is quite extensive and permissive.  It ranges from the supreme law of the land which is the Constitution of the Republic of Uganda, 1995 (as amended) to Acts of Parliament and other subsidiary rules and regulations which act to operationalize specific provisions of those Acts of Parliament.

The practice and procedure of PIL can also be gleaned from judicial pronouncements. In addition, the PIL tradition in Uganda has also borrowed heavily from progressive jurisprudence by judges and courts  in Kenya, South Africa, India and; as well, the wider Commonwealth.

However, despite its rising popularity, PIL has suffered some pitfalls which have acted to diminish its value as an effective weapon for social change. These are procedural and systemic. The paper, therefore, considers the state of PIL in Uganda; its history, practice and procedure. It evaluates its success and pitfalls and makes proposals for the future.

Orientalist discourse has been under investigation especially since Said’s 'Orientalism', and there has been an increased effort to give the previously silenced “Others” a voice in Postcolonial rewritings. That this revisiting of Orientalism not only serves to undermine the Orientalist notions but can also work to reinforce the ideas and confinements sought to deconstruct, is exemplified in this paper on the analysis and comparison of Shakespeare’s 'The Tempest' and its Postcolonial rewriting 'A Tempest' by Aimé Césaire. This paper argues that, in the original, Ariel has a higher degree of agency, and his relationship to Prospero approaches a sense of companionship and equality, where the notion of the master-slave relationship is deconstructed through a more reciprocal communication. In contrast to that, the rewriting, despite, or through, the increase of talking-back speeches, presents a more stylized form of hierarchy, a definite and unshakeable inequality, and less agency for the suppressed, thus, leading not to a deconstruction but an intensification of the master-slave relationship. Therefore, 'The Tempest' presents a dynamic world with a changeable relation between master and servant, whereas 'A Tempest' portrays a static and unshakable master-slave relationship.

Tertiary level regional language medium learners, even after learning English for more than ten years, do not have the expected level of speaking proficiency in English. However, these learners are able to speak fluently, use speaking strategies and achieve task demands in academic speaking contexts if an opportunity is given to them to speak in their L1, in this context Malayalam. Therefore, the reason for the learners' underperformance in formal speaking tasks in English can be attributed to their inability to use appropriate speaking strategies. It can be assumed that if these learners are made aware of their use of speaking strategies in their L1, they may be able to use such strategies in their English as well. However, raising awareness of strategies must be carried out through individualized feedback discussions on their speaking tasks as well as their use of strategies. As this demands the learners to be metacognitively aware of their own language use, such feedback sessions must be convivial in nature and must make use of the learners' first language. An attempt has been made in this paper to present the evidence of the ways in which the feedback varied from person to person and how associations, anecdotes and examples were used to identify strategies and to raise the learners' awareness of strategy use.

Ancient or modern, the society is always male oriented and views women as objects for pleasure. Even when the government advocates policies to protect women, their safety, integrity and honour are consistently being questioned and violated. The problem lies in the collective psyche of the society, which includes both men and women. The sensibility is fashioned according to the male norms and thus the females in our society either witness or participate in their own subjugation process. This article tries to analyse the questions of female subjugation in M.Sajida's Matsyagandhi and Snehalatha Reddy's Sita. It attempts a comparative critiquing of these plays to find how the myth of subjectivity is challenged and redefined by the playwrights.

The article argues that Mustafa's sexual exploits in England do not reflect a vindictive attitude from a colonized subject, who seeks to castigate the British colonizer, as generally assumed. Drawing on Homi Bhabha's conceptualization of the ambivalence of colonial mimicry as a mode that disrupts authority, Mustafa's violent acts mark his latent desire to be completely westernized as he considers aggression to be part of the colonizer's constituent identity. His aim is not, as often assumed, to retaliate against the colonizer but to seamlessly assimilate with the western world through mimesis, which he manifests as his fellow students call him the "Black Englishman." By examining his education and life through the eyes of others who have known him well and by setting him as the foil of the unnamed narrator, Mustafa comes to represent a slippage in the mimetic discourse of colonial mimicry, a puppet in the hands of English puppeteers.

Femi Osofisan is a major dramatist from Nigeria who experiments with forms and theatrical traditions. This book focuses on his development as a dramatist and his contribution to world drama as a postcolonial African writer whose major preoccupation has been to question the colonial and postcolonial issues of identity in theatre, literature and performance. The volume explores how Osofisan exploits his Yoruba heritage in his drama and the performances of his plays by reading new meanings into popular mythology, and by re-writing history to comment on contemporary social and political issues. Osofisan has often introduced new motifs and narratives to energise dramatic performances in Nigeria and globally, and this text discusses developments in his theatre practices in the context of changing cultural trends.

This article discusses of Mattias Hagberg’s novel Rekviem för en vanskapt (2012), a text that addresses the nation’s colonial past through its fictionalization of the life of the historical figure Christina Chatarina Larsdotter, a Sámi woman who was exhibited in Sweden and across Europe in the middle of the nineteenth century. the article shows how Hagberg’s novel reveals that Sweden was deeply complicit in the development and practice of the racist scientific paradigms that were essential to the european colonial project. in relation to this, this essay investigates to what extent this particular text pursues the same strategies of rewriting history and critiquing colonial practices and imperialist technologies as those employed in postcolonial novels from other national contexts.
to conclude, the article considers what it means that this particular
novel, and also the present analysis of the novel, are produced not by
members of the indigenous Sámi, but by White, male writers operating
within the boundaries of the Swedish state.

This article analyses the process of recuperation of social relations during the
colonial period in the work of a Mozambican writer João Paulo Borges Coelho.
The process is seen as a project of filling an empty space in the collective
memory of Mozambican nation that has emerged due to a violent rupture with
the past triggered off by the post‑independence
politics.