scholarly journals A Marxist Reading of Mariama Bâ's So Long a Letter

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 67-75
Author(s):  
Hamzat Abdulkadir
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
African Women ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
So Long A Letter

This work examines Mariama Bâ's So Long a Letter from a Marxist perspective. It explores the radical and feminist tendencies on the stereotype of African women with the awareness that women are equal with men without prejudice to the interpretation of the theory of creation. Based on Marxist theoretical framework, our analysis shows that the oppression and exploitation of women is a process involving women themselves. The woman, in effect, continually reproduces the conditions of her subservience as Marx will add, through alienation, competition, rivalry and docility. Through alienation, women forfeit their rights to be the initiators and controllers of their historical processes. The study concludes that Marxist Feminist must practically engage in struggle against inequality and all manifestations of oppression and exploitation of women.

scholarly journals Technique of Exploring Women’s Choice in Select Novels of El Sadaawi, Ba, Alkali and Adichie

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 42
Author(s):  
Angela Ngozi Dick
Keyword(s):  
Women Writers ◽  
Gender Studies ◽  
African Women ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
African Society ◽  
Mariama Ba ◽  
Literary Art ◽  
African Women Writers ◽  
Higher Institutions ◽  
So Long A Letter

Women writers in Africa have enjoyed wider audience especially in higher institutions where the curriculum includes African Women Writers, Gender Studies and other related courses. African women writers may focus on a variety of subject matters but what is common to their literary art is that they concentrate on the experience of women. This article focuses on how the authors use their literary art to portray women’s experiences in their social melieu.  Nawal El Sadaawi, Mariama Ba, Zaynab Alkali and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie are women writers from Africa. The first three women are older and from Moslem background. Adichie is younger and from a Christian background. The choice made of the novels of these women is due to the recurrent problem of being a woman everywhere. In contemporary times women are still treated differently just because they are women. However, it has been observed that there is nothing intrinsic in women that depict them as the bad or inferior species of human beings. This article focuses on the commonality of style used by the select African novelists in couching the predicament of women in the African society. The novels chosen in this research are El Sadaawi’s  Woman at Point Zero and God Dies by the Nile; Ba’s So Long a Letter and Scarlet Song; Alkali’s The Stillborn and The Virtuous Woman and  Adichie’s Americanah.

scholarly journals From paradox to pattern shift: Conceptualising liminal hotspots and their affective dynamics

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monica Greco ◽  
Paul Stenner
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Wicked Problem ◽  
Health Domain ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Affective Dynamics

This article introduces the concept of liminal hotspots as a specifically psychosocial and sociopsychological type of wicked problem, best addressed in a process-theoretical framework. A liminal hotspot is defined as an occasion characterised by the experience of being trapped in the interstitial dimension between different forms-of-process. The paper has two main aims. First, to articulate a nexus of concepts associated with liminal hotspots that together provide general analytic purchase on a wide range of problems concerning “troubled” becoming. Second, to provide concrete illustrations through examples drawn from the health domain. In the conclusion, we briefly indicate the sense in which liminal hotspots are part of broader and deeper historical processes associated with changing modes for the management and navigation of liminality.

African feminism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Filomina Chioma Steady
Keyword(s):  
Negative Impact ◽  
Peace Building ◽  
African Women ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Structural Racism ◽  
Women's Associations ◽  
African Feminism ◽  
Social Divisions ◽  
Corporate Globalization ◽  
Historical Processes

The distinctiveness of African feminism lies in its social and humanistic thrust, which recognizes that unequal power relations can be based not only on gender, but also on race, class, national origin and other social divisions. It is inspired by struggles that transcend gender, and that are shaped by historical processes of external domination and exploitation. These include the trans-Atlantic slave trade, colonization, structural racism and corporate globalization. The global political economy continues to have a largely negative impact on African women and men and to destabilize African societies. African feminism finds expression in activism for economic, social and humanistic transformation through women’s associations. These associations seek to empower women by promoting economic, political and legal participation, peace building, female education and accessible health care. They also protest against the negative effects of global economic forces. African feminism is often in conflict with Western feminism and its hegemonic tendencies, holding that it fails effectively to address concerns about corporate globalization, race, class and other social divisions. Western feminism it finds largely to be fuelled by an anti-male ideology and rooted in individualistic preoccupations with gender equality in jobs, positions, power and sexual expression, while focusing less on social and humanistic transformations.

scholarly journals TRACING THE EVOLUTION OF THE IMAGE OF AFRICAN FEMALES THROUGH THE AGES: AN OVERVIEW OF SELECTED LITERARY WORKS

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-32
Author(s):  
Ebele Peace Okpala
Keyword(s):  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Political Campaigns ◽  
African Women ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
African Woman ◽  
Good Education ◽  
Self Development ◽  
Class Status ◽  
Definition Of

The image of African women has evolved over the years. The study traced and critically analyzed how African female persona and experience have been depicted starting from pre-colonial, colonial to postcolonial eras using selected literary texts. It highlighted the impacts made by feminist writers towards a re-definition of the African woman. The theoretical framework was hinged on Feminist theory. Feminism, feminist ideologies and their proponents were also highlighted. The research revealed that the image of pre-colonial and colonial African women as portrayed in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God, Elechi Amadi’s The Concubine, Wole Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel, Flora Nwapa’s Efuru, El Saadawi’s The Woman at Point Zero, Mariama Ba’s So Long a Letter among others was ascribed a second class status. The Postcolonial African women have come to the awareness of their rights and roles through the numerous intellectual and political campaigns of African feminist writers. Their image has changed from being in the kitchen, bearing and rearing children to also shouldering responsibilities as most powerful men in the community as depicted in Chinua Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah, Chimamanda Adichie’s Half of the Yellow Sun among others. The study recommended the acquisition of good education and self-development as the major strategies to confront the impediments orchestrated by patriarchy.

Mind wandering as data augmentation: How mental travel supports abstraction

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Myrthe Faber
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Data Augmentation ◽  
Mental Content ◽  
Mind Wandering ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Important Addition

Abstract Gilead et al. state that abstraction supports mental travel, and that mental travel critically relies on abstraction. I propose an important addition to this theoretical framework, namely that mental travel might also support abstraction. Specifically, I argue that spontaneous mental travel (mind wandering), much like data augmentation in machine learning, provides variability in mental content and context necessary for abstraction.

Adaptive and Maladaptive Neural Plasticity Due to Facial Nerve Palsy

2016 ◽  
Vol 224 (2) ◽  
pp. 102-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carsten M. Klingner ◽  
Stefan Brodoehl ◽  
Gerd F. Volk ◽  
Orlando Guntinas-Lichius ◽  
Otto W. Witte
Keyword(s):  
Facial Nerve ◽  
Neural Plasticity ◽  
Cortical Plasticity ◽  
Brain Plasticity ◽  
Motor Nerve ◽  
Predictive Coding ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Cortical Reorganization ◽  
Nerve Lesion ◽  
Peripheral Facial Palsy

Abstract. This paper reviews adaptive and maladaptive mechanisms of cortical plasticity in patients suffering from peripheral facial palsy. As the peripheral facial nerve is a pure motor nerve, a facial nerve lesion is causing an exclusive deefferentation without deafferentation. We focus on the question of how the investigation of pure deefferentation adds to our current understanding of brain plasticity which derives from studies on learning and studies on brain lesions. The importance of efference and afference as drivers for cortical plasticity is discussed in addition to the crossmodal influence of different competitive sensory inputs. We make the attempt to integrate the experimental findings of the effects of pure deefferentation within the theoretical framework of cortical responses and predictive coding. We show that the available experimental data can be explained within this theoretical framework which also clarifies the necessity for maladaptive plasticity. Finally, we propose rehabilitation approaches for directing cortical reorganization in the appropriate direction and highlight some challenging questions that are yet unexplored in the field.

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