'Feminist and Womanist Criticism of African Literature: a Bibliography\r'

'wo manpowers liberationist and Womanist Criticism of African lit: A Bibliography By Sharon Verba July 20, 1997 Those women who shin without giving up hope, herald the impending change… : change in attitude for two(prenominal) men and women as they evaluate and re-evaluate their kind roles…. -Rosemary Moyana, â€Å" imprint force & Women” Rereading, ordainful misreading, and de- and re-coding atomic number 18 tools utilize in African books and womanist or libber communication to challenge â€Å" decreeized ‘lit” that tends to bneediness out filthy and blanch out Woman. -Kofi Owusu, â€Å"Canons Under beleaguering” T]he bodied effort has to emerge from the ranks of those whose life is theorized. -Sisi Maqagi, â€Å"Who Theorizes” womens rightist critical review of African literatures is a steadily growing case. The avocation bibliography includes clauses and try ons in English and French which poll African litera tures (fiction, poetry, drama and oral literature) from a womens liberationist or womanist perspective. It does non include, unfortunately, condemnation in separate speechs — such(prenominal)(prenominal) as Wolof, Xhosa, Zulu, Portuguese, German, or Arabic — due to my addle inability to read those speechs.Also, authors whose flora atomic number 18 so starr written in languages other than French or English, such as Ngugi wa Thiongos plays and the novel, Devil on the Cross, and Nawal al Sadawis moulds, whitethorn be under-represented in this bibliography, as criticism a good deal tends to be written in the language of the give-up the ghost being anticipateed. The first discussion component fails of this taste will present everywhereviews on two bring up furnishs for those interested in both feminism and African literatures: the impudently ebate everywhere the role of womens rightist criticisms in addressing African literatures, and an examinati on of the changes which seduce developed over the past decade in the ways womens rightist criticism tone-beginninges African literatures. This examination will shadower these changes from 1985-1996 by considering experimental conditions which represent the ongoing evolution of womens rightist criticism in this line of business. Finally, this search likewise includes a section which apologises my methodology and sources in compiling the bibliography, and a section ecstasying hints for prospective searches, peculiarly of online indexes. womens liberationist Criticism and African booksMevery publications of concern to libber/womanist conceit ar raised and addressed in these conditions. (1) Among the issues interpreted up in the state of feminist speculation and criticism are the importance of feminism as a literary critical method; the mold and mis-re initiation of women in literary texts; the grooming of women; the access of women to the economical meat o f survival; motherhood; women in the domestic sphere; women as office of their communities; womens role in regime and revolution; sexuality; and the direct handling of women by men, and men by women.Underlying this array of feature(a)(prenominal) interests are misgivings of gender in representation and of the human beings or realities of life for women in Africaâ€past, present, and emerging. The arguments found in the titles in this bibliography present a multiplicity of views, a hardly a(prenominal) of which whitethorn even be anti-feminist, obviously all of which make gender a seat of discussion, and all of which offer much for the consideration of feminist thought with respect to African literatures.The state of feminist literary criticism/thought in Africa â€Å" instantly” is the direct focalisation of several(prenominal) of the members, although all of the articles could be said in to a greater extent or less degree or another to be a incision of this particular disputation. I put â€Å"now” in quotations, because these articles offer a broad range of sequenceâ€1980-1996†and those which h cardinalen on this particular topic present an evolving communication. cardinal assemblings of essays in particular are noteworthy for their presentation of a range of com points on feminism and literary criticism in Africa: Ngambika: Studies of Women in African writings (1986) and conspiracy African womens libs: make-up, Theory and Criticism 990-1994 (1995). Ngambika includes cardinal articles which focus on the representation of women in African literature. Taken together the articles provide an invaluable overview of the types of feminist criticism being applied to African literatures in the mid 1980s, although hygienic-nigh do not focus on the issue of feminism as a critical method. hotshot essay in this collection proves a notable exception. In the collections introductory essay Carole Boyce Davies(2) do es write of the tension found in the works of many an(prenominal) critics of African literatures, especially female person critics.These critics, she says, work out of a growing awareness of the demand to balance both â€Å"the desire to liberate African peoples from neo-colonialism and other processs of lead and class oppression, straddled with a respect for certain features of traditional African cultures,” and â€Å"the physique credit that a feminist intelligence is necessary in examining the set up of women in African societies” (1).Davies indeed outlines the issues of women writers in Africa (including the relatively small number of women writers) and the presentation of women in fiction written by African men, as advantageously as the schooling of an African feminist criticism. In her treatment of the latter concern, she lists 4 major areas which African feminist critics tend to address: the development of the canon of African women writers, the ex amination of assort images of women in African literature, the study of African women writers and the development of an African female aesthetic, and the examination of women and the oral tradition (13-14). charm Davies acknowledges the objections African women writers and critics have to the depot â€Å"feminist” and discusses womanist possibility, she focuses on the idea of a developing African feminist supposition which will not hardly perform the balance act menti nonpareild at the graduation exercise, notwithstanding reach out to address the major issues she has outlined. Seven old age later, in the 1993 topic A History of Twentieth-Century African literary productionss, Davies and Elaine Savory Fido contri hardlyed a chapter entitle â€Å"African Women Writers: A Literary History. In it, they learn African women writers and their writings, focusing especially on the styles and genres use by these writers. Included is a truncated segment on â€Å"Feminism and African Women Writers” as tumesce as a separate section on â€Å"Criticism and African Womens physical composition. ” In the section on feminism, they note the continued reluctance of many African women writers and critics to be labeled as feminists because of the overtones of westernization the term carries, however they to a fault call for out that most African women writers are committed, in the words of Omolara Ogundipe-Leslie, â€Å"as a writer, as a woman and as a third macrocosm person” (339).This 3 commitment encompasses much of the politics of African feminism, as well as womanism, whether the labels are accepted or not. Fido and Davies conclude: â€Å"The role and history of feminist politics or activism on womens rights in Africa is a discourse which African women are studying and clarifying for themselves” (339). mavin of the home plates in which this discourse can be seen is southmost African Feminisms: Writing, Theory and Critic ism 1990-1994.South African Feminisms presents a collection of articles on feminist literature and criticism, including and expanding the reach on feminist criticism of African literatures which was part of the special issue Current Writing: school text and reply in Southern Africa 2 (1990). M. J. Daymonds mental institution gives a wakeless overview of the issues raised in the collection, including the debate over feminist criticism and the development of an African feminist theory.The section â€Å"Theory and Context” includes eight articles originally published from 1990-1993. Taken together, these articles constitute an nice sampling of rough of the issues and trends in African feminist criticism, including Sisi Maqagis â€Å"Who Theorizes? ” in which she questions the ability of egg white critics, African or non-African, female or male, to develop a theory which will adequately address the issues of black African women, kind of than appropriating those i ssues, and the voices which raise them.Jill Arnott, in an article entitled â€Å"French Feminism in a South Africa? Gayatri Spivak and the Problem of Representation in South African Feminism,” contends that difference, which can practically lead to misrepresentation, can withal at times lead to accurate and insightful work: â€Å"to power a genuinely dialectical interaction amid two vigilantly foregrounded overcome-positions,” hardly completely with an awareness of the position of ifference and a certifiedness of the act of representation (87). Desiree Lewis, in â€Å"The Politics of Feminism in South Africa,” counters that such a cognizant and effective use of difference may well be impossible, as long as thither is a political climate in which white female academics are attempting to hold on to their power within the academy, at the expense of black women.In the alike article she also points out that unless black works class women can make their sta tements about the real â€Å"oppressive orthodoxies” and do so without creating, as she argues horse opera feminism has, another oppressive orthodoxy, on that point may be no way out of the current impasse. Changes in Feminist Criticism of African belles-lettres Although many of the articles include in this bibliography, like those above, examine feminist literary criticism as a topic, most focus on literary concerns: texts, authors, or issues.In the seventeen years this bibliography spans there are supplantings in the draw outage these concerns are given. Critical analyses of individual authors course both poke out and deepen over the years, especially as an individual authors body of work grows or is acquireed from obscurity. In general, in the 1990s there are fewer works of criticism that examine several authors and more(prenominal) which focus on individuals and their work than there were in the 1980s. Also, the topics pore upon subtly shift over the years. Ima ges of women in the works of…. ” could be the render for many of the articles written in the 1980s as feminist critics examined representations, or misrepresentations, of African women in literary texts. At the same time these critics raised the question of the role of African authors, male and female, in expanding and/or correcting such representations. These concerns are still addressed; indeed, the feminist criticism on these topics is, like the criticism of precise authors, expanding and deepening.To highlight these changes, I shall examine here some of the collections and representative individual articles which have been produced over the years, beginning with the landmark collection Ngambika, which was published in 1986, followed by Women in African Literature Today in 1987, articles by Kofi Owusu and Elleke Boehmer in 1990, the 1990 issue of Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa, Essays on African Writing 2: Contemporary Literature published in 1995 and The Marabout and the Muse: parvenue-sprung(prenominal) Approaches to Islam in African Literature in 1996.All of the articles in the first section of Ngambika overtly tackle the issue of the representations of women in the works of African authors. Carole Boyce Davies writes one of these articles: â€Å"Maidens, Mistresses, and Matrons: feminine Images in Selected Soyinka Works. ” In it, she argues that Soyinka often offers exactly stereotyped images of women which spill into one of three categories: the foolish perfect(a) in rural settings, the femme fatale in urban settings, and the masculinized matron.Those theatrical roles which fall in the latter category, in Davies opinion, rise close-set(prenominal) to being non-stereotypes, but even they are draw with â€Å"no depth” (81). The â€Å"foolish virgins” and the â€Å"femme fatales,” Davies argues, fill only the roles of stereotypes and symbols, possessions or trophies to be won awa y from westward influences by African traditions, or, more threateningly, these women are seen as dangers which can distract and destroy.Davies acknowledges that Soyinka sometimes shows women briefly in a positive light but notes that â€Å"throughout Soyinkas works one finds the kernel of positive portrait of the female image which is never fully agnize” (85). Davies concludes with the argument â€Å"that the artist has the power to create new realities;… women as nevery victors nor victims but partners in struggle” (86). Davies article is representative of the criticism which examines the image of women in African literatures. That is, she dreadfully addresses the concerns of the author (i. e. he need for recognizable symbols) as she argues against the relegation of women solely to emblematic roles, asking for characterizations which do not â€Å"[reinforce] a controvert perception of self to the female viewer/ lecturer and, concomitantly, a condescensi on in the appraisal of women on the part of the male” (78). In the years next the publishing of Ngambika, several diarys and monograph series devoted to African literatures published issues on women as authors of or characters in African literatures. One of the first was the Women in African Literature Today issue of African Literature Today (Vol. 5). Like Ngambika, this issue contains many delicate articles, almost all of which are written from a feminist perspective. I would like to discuss two of these articles as representative not merely of this particular collection, but of the feminist criticism on African literatures being published at this time. In â€Å"Feminist Issues in the lying of Kenyas Women Writers” Jean F. OBarr list three main categories of feminist concerns in the fiction of Kenyan woman writers: â€Å"how female children become women; … what marriage means for women;… here womens work fits into their lives” (57). OBarr notes t hat the women authors she analyzes â€Å"all write from the womans point of view, sharply underscoring the idea that the female perspective …. may be different from the male perspective on the same topic” (58). OBarr analyzes the works of Kenyas female authors from a sociological approach, hoping to establish a stronger image of the social lives of Kenyas women than is possible from the works of male authors. She concludes that Kenyas women find themselves in a quadruple bind: â€Å"they see themselves do traditional roles… ithout traditional resources… while at the same time they are undertaking modern activities… while being denied access to modern support systems” (69). While OBarr looks at the fiction of Kenyan women in ordinate to locate the reality of womens lives, Katherine hound attempts in the polemical article â€Å"Women without Men: The Feminist Novel in Africa” to find a radically feminist future for African women. cad endeavors to placement African women writers into the westbound feminist mold by speaking of their work as a more radical source of the Western feminist tradition.In speaking of â€Å"the contemporary British or American novel” she claims â€Å"our heroine slams the door on her domestic prison, journeys out into the great world, slays the dragon of her time-worn society, and triumphantly dis keeps the grail of feminism by ‘decision herself,” (14). She argues that in comparison African novels by women go far beyond their Western counterparts, refusing to â€Å"dabble in daydreaming about enlightened heroes or reformed, non-sexist societies,” (15). Frank finds that the â€Å"feminist” writers of Africa portray women not only as taking on active and shared roles with men, but as finding â€Å"a wad of their own. … destiny with a vengeance,” (15). Frank contends that Mariama Ba, Flora Nwapa, Buchi Emecheta and Ama Ata Aidoos novels are , in their feminisms, â€Å"more radical, even more militant, than [their] Western counterpart[s]” (15). But Franks interpretations place African heroines on a path which is not different, but rather the same, if more intense, than the one taken by the British and American heroines she notes above. Frank stresses that in these novels women find only pain and degradation in their consanguinitys with men, but on their own and in their proportionships with other women they find â€Å"female solidarity, power, independence” (33).In her interpretation, Barr neglects to note examples in which the future is shared by men and women. For example, when she speaks of Mariama Bas So Long a Letter, she focuses on Ramatoulaye and Aissatous friendship and the â€Å"world they create apart from men,” (20). While this in itself glosses over the complex (and by no means completely negative) relationships these women have with the men in their lives, she also does not speak of Ramatoulayes daughter and son-in-law, and the hope Ramatoulaye finds in their relationship.In this article, Frank does not acknowledge a difference mingled with demonstrating that a womans worth is not inextricable from her relationship with men, that a woman can take care of herself, as Ramatoulaye discovers, and an actual desire to live a life without men. However, controversial as some of her interpretations are, her essay effectively outlines the some of the subtle feminisms of African women novelists.Katherine Franks berth is one which falls into the category of â€Å"radical, feminist-separatist ideology” which Kofi Owusu defines and rejects in his article in Callaloo entitled â€Å"Canons Under Siege: Blackness, Femaleness, and Ama Ata Aidoos Our Sister Killjoy”(1990). While Frank sees Aidoos character Sissie as moving towards an autonomous, self-determining life without men (Frank 32), Owusu finds Aidoo to be â€Å"in tune with the ‘old (Achebes Ã¢â‚¬Ë œvast corpus of African traditional stories) and the ‘new (‘modern feminist theory) (357).Owusu sees Aidoo, and other female writers, not as bridging a gap amongst Western and African thought but creating something new out of both and challenging the canons that would ignore either black or female concerns. Much of Owusus article analyzes â€Å"the discontinuities as well as continuities between womanist-feminist perspectives, on the one hand, and African literature, on the other” (342), allowing Owusu to witness Aidoos work as one which â€Å"give[s] a sensation of structural and linguistic irony which is functional. … signify[ing] a couple of things: the need for, and very process of, revamping” (361).Here, the canons need to be reformed in recognition of both melt and gender, not one or the other, or one without the other. While Kofi Owusu focused on Aidoos linguistic and textual manipulations, the question of the image of women in African lite rature continues to be a highly examined topic. Elleke Boehmer explores the construction of women as mothers, whores, representations of national pride, or finally, as spiritual advisors and supporters, but not as individuals actively and crucially pertain in political activity.In â€Å"Of Goddesses and Stories: Gender and a upstart Politics in Achebes Anthills of the Savannah,” Boehmer analyzes Chinua Achebes efforts to include women in his re-vision of the future and questions whether women remain a â€Å"vehicle” of fracture rather than actual women with an active role in the future of the country, that is, whether â€Å"woman is the ground of change or rambling displacement but not the subject of transformation” (102).She concludes that Achebe has still idealized women but that his creation of a female character with an important yet dim role for the future has opened up post for women to have active and involved roles, side by side with men, in the bu ilding of the future. Like Davies article on Soyinka from Ngambika discussed earlier, Boehmers work recognizes Achebes literary prowess and commends his willingness to make women positive symbols, but in the end laments the lack of depth in his female characters.Although South African Feminisms was published in 1996, many of the articles in it come from the 1990 issue of Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa, which was dedicated to â€Å"Feminism and Writing. ” This issue continued the trend of publishing articles debating not only the appropriateness of feminism in an African context but also the challenges of applying it to African literatures, as well as articles focusing on women writers or womens images in literature.In â€Å"A Correspondence Without Theory: Tsitsi Dangarembgas Nervous Conditions,” Brenda Bosman addresses the psychological dislocation forced upon the women of the heroines family by â€Å"Englishness,” the term used by her mother to describe the process of engrossment which various members of the family undergo. However, one of the most interesting aspects of the article is Bosmans explicit attempt to find a position from which to speak, as a white South African woman, to â€not for, or of†Dangarembga.She writes her article in the form of a letter to Dangarembga, and acknowledges that she might not have succeeded in finding a legitimate position: â€Å"you may find… despite all my conscious efforts, I have nonetheless submitted to the voice of my education”(311). Considering the problematics of education in Nervous Conditions, this could be seen as a double entendre, but her article shows a conscious attempt to find a place from which to speak comfortably, an increasingly difficult matter for some African feminists.The last two articles I will discuss reveal change in the field of feminist criticism of Africa on two levels: both are located in collections of essays on African lite rature which can be considered â€Å"general,” and both are examples of the further increase in variety in the forms of feminist criticism of African literature. Although very good collections of critical essays focusing exclusively on women and African literature are published, it is important to note that few, if any â€Å"general” collections are now being published without the inclusion of at to the lowest degree one, if not several essays which address feminist concerns.In Essays on African Writing 2: Contemporary Literature (1995), there are three articles which are written from a feminist perspective. One of these is Belinda Jacks â€Å"Strategies of Transgression in the Writings of Assia Djebar. ” In it she explores the means by which Djebar writes for Arabic women of Algeria in the language of the colonizer.Jack distinguishes Djebars writings by arguing that her â€Å"texts are not written in the French language but a French language” a language which no longer belongs to the colonizers because of the deliberate shifts Djebar makes (23). Jack also notes that Djebar also transgresses against Islam in her choices of subject matter, especially sexuality, again firm in the knowledge that while such speech may be a transgression, it is only a transgression because with speech (or writing) comes power.The last article I wish to discuss also focuses on Assia Djebar and her concerns with Islam. The Marabout and the Muse: New Approaches to Islam in African Literature (1996) contains quadruplet articles which approach literature from a distinctly feminist perspective: one on Somali womens Sittaat (songs sung for and to notable women in Moslem history), one on the tradition of female Islamic writers in Nigeria, and two which examine Djebars Loin de Medine.In â€Å"Daughters of Hagar: Daughters of Muhammad” Sonia lee(prenominal) argues that through her early fictional exploration of women in Islam, Djebar is attempting to m ake a space for Islamic women â€Å"to reclaim the true law of God” (60). Lee finds that Djebars historic training combined with her literary skills allow her to â€Å"[oscillate] between the actual and the probable, thus underlying the real subject matter of the novel, …. the problematic of Islamic collective reminiscence with regard to women” (51). The above articles typify the growing involution of feminist approaches to African literatures.While feminist criticisms continue to gallop the literary canon by bringing literature by African women to critical attention and continue to address the representation of African women in literatures, the methods used by such criticism in relation to African literatures continue to evolve. As feminist critics, both African and non-African, use sociological, linguistic, psychoanalytic, historical and other approaches to broaden the examination of African literatures, at least some Western feminist critics are also move to incorporate a heightened awareness of their own positions with regards to the authors and literatures they discuss.Methodology This bibliography is, in every sense of the word, selective. African authors were included if an article (in English or French) could be located which discussed him or her from the angle of feminism, womanism, or the treatment of gender. Authors were not excluded or included on any other basis, including race and gender. Interviews were included for many of the female writers because such interviews often are a main source of feminist thought (their own) on their works.The sources I used to find these articles were the bibliographies of African literature located in the journal Callaloo (1987-89 and 1990-93), the MLA Bibliography, the African studies bibliographies for the years 1995-96, the CD-Rom resource Womens Resources International, 1972-August 1996, as well as various library catalogs for monographs, whether collections or single-authored. In addit ion, I scanned the bibliographies of articles and books to find other germane(predicate) citations.thither are several good bibliographies which focus, at least in part, on feminist criticism of African literatures from the 1970s through the mid 1980s. Brenda Berrians Bibliography of African Women Writers and Journalists, Carole Boyce Davies â€Å"A Bibliography of Criticism and Related Works” in Ngambika, and Barbara Fisters bibliography on criticism in Third World Womens Literature in combination cover this earlier arrest very thoroughly.I did not use these bibliographies to compile this one; to avoid excess duplication, I have focused on criticism published from 1980 on and simply cite these earlier bibliographies at the end of this one, although I am sure some duplication has occurred. This bibliography is make by authors and also includes a section on general works, which is organized first by those which cover African literatures without focusing on a specialized co untry, percentage or author, then by region, and then individual countries.Works of criticism are placed in this section if they refer to several authors/works from the continent, a particular region, or country. If an article focuses on four or fewer authors, it is included under the name of each author. The bibliography includes articles on eighty-seven individual authors, as well as general articles on Africa, atomic number 99 Africa, North Africa, West Africa, Algeria, Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Somali, South Africa, and Zimbabwe; it cites more than four hundred articles and monographs.It is interesting to compare the authors found in this bibliography with the ninety-five authors found in the biography section of Hans Zells A New Readers Guide to African Fiction (1st ed. , 1971; 2nd rev. ed. ,1983). The authors in Zells work are often considered the early canon of African literatures. Only twenty-five authors appear in both the current bibliography and Hans Zells Guide. There may be several reasons for this difference. Many of the authors included in my bibliography were not then considered a part of the canon of African literature; and a few had not even published at the time Zells work appeared.Carole Boyce Davies also offers an insight which may explain the lack of overlap. She notes in her introduction to Ngambika that one of the priorities of African feminist literary criticism is â€Å"the development of a canon of African women writers and a parallel canon of critical works with the final aim of expanding the African literary canon” (14). The Guides were compiled in the early years of this expansion, and it is quite possible that today the lists would be more reflective of each other.At the same time, many African women writers actively rebuke attempts to place African men on the defensive, arguing that a critical approach to literature (as well as other social, political, and heathen expressions) must explore the strengths of both A frican women and African men. While feminist criticism does focus on male authors, it more often strives to bring to the foreland of literary discussions the works of female African authors and the strong, individualist portrayals of women they offer.Future Search Hints The issues discussed above make feminist criticism of African fiction an exciting and dynamic field. They also make it a very complex field to research. There are several issues to keep in header when beginning research in this area. One of the most difficult to overcome is the lack of reportage of this area in mainstream indexing sources, such as the MLA, especially when one looks for early works, which were often carried in journals not then indexed by the MLA.Other sources which do cover these journals, such as the excellent bibliographies periodically offered by Callaloo on studies of African literature, do not offer separate sections for feminist criticism, and it is necessary to assess which ones are relevant by the titles or, at times, the authors, of the articles. For my own part it should be noted that it is entirely possible that I have missed articles which should appear in this bibliography.Many of the scoop sources are only available in print, such as International African Bibliography, Current Bibliography of African Affairs, and Cahiers detudes africaines, which are more time-consuming to search, but well worth the effort. As the discussion above indicates, the term â€Å"feminism” can be extremely constricting when it is being used as a word form in either online or print indexes. For this reason, it is prudent to keep other terms in mind when searching for articles, whether in print or electronic resources, such as the keywords/descriptors â€Å"Gender” and â€Å"Womanism/Womanist”.It is important, as well, not to limit searches to the term â€Å"African. ” While some articles are indexed with this descriptor, those articles which deal with a s pecific author may be listed under that authors country instead, as of course are those which deal with the literatures of a specific region or country. Finally, especially when searching for articles in online indexes, it is utile to keep in mind specific topics, such as â€Å"sexuality,” â€Å"motherhood,” and â€Å"politics” combined with â€Å"women” or â€Å"female. â€Å"\r\n'