Women’s Literature in African History

Author(s):  
Anthonia C. Kalu

African literature refers to (a) African oral literature (also called Orature) and (b) written African literature from West, North, Central, East, and Southern Africa. African oral literature encompasses works from Africa’s ancient and classical narrative traditions and spans oral narratives, proverbs, drama, poetry, chants and songs, riddles, and so on. With the earliest known works located in ancient Egypt, written African literature includes inscriptions on pyramid walls, the short story, the novel, poetry, drama, autobiography, and so forth. Women’s literature in Africa refers to African literatures by and about women. While storytelling styles vary by region and experiences shaped by history and society, the themes are linked by complex worldviews rooted in a common evocation of human experiences that seem unique to the continent. The languages of African literature include Africa’s indigenous languages as well as the languages acquired by different African societies as a result of the continent’s encounters with the East and experiences of Western colonization.

2018 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-73
Author(s):  
Eldi Grubišić Pulišelić

SummaryThis paper analyses the criticism of the position of women, the existing gender relations and marriage in women’s literature at the end of the 19th century, taking the examples of the novel Plein air (1897) by Croatian author Jagoda Truhelka (1864–1957) and of the short story Wieder die Alte (1886) by Austrian writer Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830–1916). These authors, from the area of the then Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, in spite of different ethnicity, but also of different social status, published stories in the late 19th century where they discussed a similar topic. Both authors are concerned with the issue of women’s work and existence outside or inside civil marriage, but the endings of their works are completely different. While Truhelka’s heroine manages to realize a marriage of love, the heroine of Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach becomes a victim of existing social relationships. Despite the sharp critique of patriarchy and the disruption of the stereotype of a woman as an angel in the home in Plein air, at the end of the novel there is a harmonization of interpersonal relations and the resolution of all existing conflicts, both at a personal and socio-political level. Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach does not show such optimism in Wieder die Alte and her emancipated women are left alone to build their moral integrity into a life without male love. However, we can conclude Truhelka’s, as well as Ebner-Eschenbach’s heroine remain trapped between tradition and emancipation because of, or despite the fact that love shows (no) power in the tyranny of society.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Q. Oaks ◽  
◽  
Susanne U. Janecke ◽  
Tammy M. Rittenour ◽  
Thad L. Erickson ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
John Levi Barnard

This chapter situates Chesnutt’s writing within a tradition of black classicism as political engagement and historical critique extending from the antebellum period to the twentieth century and beyond. Reading Chesnutt as a figure at the crossroads of multiple historical times and cultural forms, the chapter examines his manipulation of multiple mythic traditions into a cohesive and unsettling vision of history as unfinished business. In the novel The Marrow of Tradition and the late short story “The Marked Tree,” Chesnutt echoes a nineteenth-century tradition that included David Walker, Henry Highland Garnet, and writers and editors for antebellum black newspapers, while at the same time anticipating a later anti-imperial discourse generated by writers such as Richard Wright and Toni Morrison. Chesnutt provides a fulcrum for a collective African American literary history that has emerged as a prophetic counterpoint to the prevailing historical consciousness in America.


Author(s):  
Charlotte Lennox ◽  
Margaret Anne Doody

The Female Quixote (1752), a vivacious and ironical novel parodying the style of Cervantes, portrays the beautiful and aristocratic Arabella, whose passion for reading romances leads her into all manner of misunderstandings. Praised by Fielding, Richardson and Samuel Johnson, the book quickly established Charlotte Lennox as a foremost writer of the Novel of Sentiment. With an excellent introduction and full explanatory notes, this edition will be of particular interest to students of women's literature, and of the eighteenth-century novel.


Author(s):  
Andrew Kahn

The Short Story: A Very Short Introduction charts the rise of the short story from its original appearance in magazines and newspapers. For much of the 19th century, tales were written for the press, and the form’s history is marked by engagement with popular fiction. The short story then earned a reputation for its skilful use of plot design and character study distinct from the novel. This VSI considers the continuity and variation in key structures and techniques such as the beginning, the creation of voice, the ironic turn or plot twist, and how writers manage endings. Throughout, it draws on examples from an international and flourishing corpus of work.


Circulation ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 137 (suppl_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Inmaculada Hernandez ◽  
Samir Saba ◽  
Yuting Zhang

Background: Recent studies have shown strong geographic variation in oral anticoagulation (OAC) use in atrial fibrillation (AF); however, it remains unknown how this contributes to the geographic variation in ischemic stroke observed across the US. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the relationship between the geographic variation in the initiation of OAC and the incidence of ischemic stroke in a cohort of Medicare beneficiaries newly diagnosed with AF. Methods: Using 2013-2014 claims data from a 5% random sample of Medicare beneficiaries, we identified patients newly diagnosed with AF in 2013-2014 and categorized them according to their initiation of OAC. Our sample included 21,226 OAC initiators and 20,068 patients who did not initiate OAC therapy. We assigned each patient to one of the 9 US Census Divisions using the zip code, and collected their medical claims with a diagnosis of ischemic stroke. We constructed logistic regression models to estimate the average adjusted probability of OAC initiation and Poisson models to estimate the average adjusted rate of ischemic stroke, in each Census Division. Both estimates were adjusted for demographics, eligibility for Medicaid coverage and for low-income subsidy, enrollment in a Medicare Advantage Part D plan, and a comprehensive list of clinical characteristics. We computed the correlation between the average adjusted probability of OAC initiation and the average adjusted rate of ischemic stroke at the Census Division level. Results: The probability of OAC initiation was lowest in the West South Central (0.47) and highest in the West North Central (0.54) and New England (0.54). The average adjusted rate of ischemic stroke was lowest in the West North Central (0.09) and highest in the South Atlantic (0.14) and South West Central (0.14). The average adjusted probability of OAC initiation at the Census Division level and the average adjusted rate of ischemic stroke were inversely correlated, with R=-0.576, p-value=0.10. This suggests that variation in OAC initiation likely explains at least a third of geographic variation in ischemic stroke [R 2 =(-0.576) 2 =0.332]. Conclusions: Our results suggest that geographic variations in OAC initiation within the U.S. explain, in part, variations in the incidence of ischemic stroke among AF patients. Further mechanistic research using advanced causal mediation models is warranted.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1949 ◽  
Vol 3 (6) ◽  
pp. 865-865

A "Measles Year" ACCORDING to the reports of the U.S. Public Health Service, this is a measles year. For example, a total of 15,266 cases were reported for the week of January 29, 1949, compared to a five year median of 6,712. Increases were reported in all geographic divisions except New England and the West North Central area. The largest increases were in the East South Central and South Atlantic areas. Of the total that week, an aggregate of 10,522 cases occurred in the following 12 states: Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Alabama, Texas, Oregon, and California. In contrast to measles, the influenza incidence picture shows an unusually low number of cases. For example, in the week of January 29, 1949, a total of 4,534 cases was reported, compared to a five year median of 14,253. List of Publications Under date of March 1948 the Children's Bureau has published a list of its publications. The list includes all publications of the Children's Bureau issued since 1945 that are available for general distribution; earlier publications of the Bureau that are still available and of current value; some reprints of material published elsewhere but reproduced by or for the Bureau. Pediatricians will find some of these reprints of particular interest. Single copies of the list and of most of the publications can be obtained free from the Children's Bureau, Washington 25, D.C.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1948 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 138-140

THE accompanying table summarizes the incidence of nine important communicable diseases, based on weekly telegraphic reports from State health departments. The reports from each State for each week are published in PUBLIC HEALTH REPORTS under the section "Incidence of Disease." [See Table in Source Pdf]. Diseases Above Median Incidence Measles—The number of cases of measles rose from 102,680 during the preceding 4 weeks to 114,983 during the 4 weeks ended May 22. The incidence was 3.4 times the number of cases reported for the corresponding period in 1947, which was, however, a comparatively low measles year, but it was only about 10 percent above the 1943-47 median. In the New England and East South Central sections the incidence was below the normal expectancy and in the South Atlantic section the number of cases was only slightly higher than the median for the preceding 5 years, but in the other 6 sections the increases over the median expectancy ranged from 1.1 times the median in the West North Central section to 3.4 times the median in the West South Central section. Poliomyelitis.— The number of cases of poliomyelitis rose from 126 during the preceding 4-week period to 440 during the current 4 weeks. The incidence was 3.5 times that reported for these weeks in 1947, which number (126 cases) also represents the 1943-47 median. An increase of this disease is expected at this season of the year, but the current number of cases represents a larger increase at this time than has normally occurred in preceding years. While each section of the country except New England contributed to the relatively high incidence, the greatest excesses over the 5-year medians were reported from the West North Central and West South Central sections. Of the total cases Texas reported 179, California 62, South Carolina 46, New Jersey 16, Iowa 14, Florida 12, Alabama 11, and Illinois, South Dakota, and Louisiana 10 each; 85 percent of the reported cases occurred in those 10 states which represent every section of the country except the New England and Mountain sections. Since the beginning of the year there have been 947 cases of poliomyelitis reported as compared with 894 and 810 for the corresponding period in 1947 and 1946, respectively.


Author(s):  
Haytham Bahoora

This chapter examines the development of the novel in Iraq. It first considers the beginnings of prose narrative in Iraq, using the intermingling of the short story and the novel, particularly in the first half of the twentieth century, as a framework for reassessing the formal qualities of the Arabic novel. It then turns to romantic and historical novels published in the 1920s, as well as novels dealing with social issues like poverty and the condition of peasants in the countryside. It discusses the narrative emergence of the bourgeois intellectual’s self-awareness and interiority in Iraqi fiction, especially the novella; works that continued the expression of a critical social realism in the Iraqi novelistic tradition and the appearance of modernist aesthetics; and narratives that addressed dictatorship and war in Iraq. The chapter concludes with an overview of the novel genre in Iraq after 2003.


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