Search

Copyright of Critical African Studies is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Africa Spectrum is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including shame as a complex narrative affect and dramaturgy; feminised shame in the contexts of intoxication and caregiving; and shame in troubled and troubling masculinities.

Jasvinder Sanghera's autobiographical trilogy explores how the concept of shame is instrumentalised in the practice of forced marriage in South Asian British diasporic contexts. As corollaries in the various performances and perceptions of South Asian marriage customs, shame and honour operate as technologies of power that police South Asian women's sexualities and desires. This essay maps how the affect of shame oscillates between the private and the public spheres of family and community spaces in Sanghera's texts. The trilogy fulfils specific purposes: seeking respite from shame, gesturing towards modes of trauma work and healing from the violence and silence imposed through forced marriage, reconstituting negated selves at individual and community levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Kanada-Studien is the property of Gesellschaft fuer Kanada Studien e.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The central impetus for this piece is my curiosity about how the pre-modern pagan mythological figure of the Green Man manifests itself in English literary genres that were very much pertinent to J.R.R. Tolkien's areas of scholarship. In my elucidations of the figure of the Green Man in the medieval Arthurian romance poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as translated by Tolkien as well as his fantasy cycle of The Lord of the Rings, I explore how the liminality of this figure in the English imagination can be used to reflect on discourses around literary representations of forms of Otherness. The sets of relationships under examination consist of those between Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Treebeard's dealings with the Hobbits and the specific interaction between the Druedain or the Woses represented by Ghân-buri-Ghân and the Men of Rohan, represented by Theoden on the eve of the War of the Ring. Informing my readings of these works is Verlyn Flieger's observation that "(t)he form and subject matter of J.R.R. Tolkien's major fiction clearly derive from the medieval genres of epic, romance and fairy tale", whereby he has reconceptualized many stock characters and reconfigured archetypal situations and contexts i.e. putting "a modern spin on many of his characters […] while at the same time keeping faith with the medieval types from which they derive" (Flieger, "Green Knight" 115). I read the figure of the Green Man as functioning as a palimpsestic device in these texts, in that it evokes pagan cultural sensibilities that connote natural forces as having considerable influence on more Christian worldviews that mark the English cultural contexts. Thus a pertinent question then would be: could the Green Man function as a transcultural contact zone (see Mary Louise Pratt 1992) in these texts to allow for ruminations on constructions of the Self and the Other? A salient component in my ruminations here on both these Tolkienian works will be an intersectional lens considering forms of masculinity, religious and cultural standpoints Christian and pagan positions as well as their accompanying forms of racialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the influence of tea on the colonial history of Great Britain. It presents the history of the tea trade between China and Europe. The social significance of coffee houses and tea gardens is discussed. The author cites the global influence of tea on consumption rituals and its power to foster companionship and colonization.

An essay regarding the appropriation of Gurinder Chaddha to the literary texts of the film "Pride and Prejudice," by Jane Austen is presented. It highlights the gender issues in the Indian commercial cinema. It focuses on the transgressive transcultural aesthetic, diaspora and cultural prejudices employed by Chaddha on the meta-level of the film narrative.

An essay is presented on the use of Indian Spice Shops in novels of Indian women writers including "The Mistress of Spices," by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, "Smell," by Radhika Jha and "One Hundred Shades of White," by Preethi Nair. It says that the protagonists of the books are involved with the spice shops which cater to cultural and culinary demands of Indian diasporic communities. It adds that the shops serve as transcultural strategies and interrogation backdrops and spatial instigators.

The article explores the notion that roots and transculturality are not exclusive and that roots can be transcultural. Particular focus is given to the film "Bombay Talkie," produced by Ismail Merchant and James Ivory and the novel "Bombay Talkie," by Ameena Meer. The idea of a return to India has been addressed by both the film and the novel as a transcultural strategy in effecting identity negotiations. The "Bombay Talkie" formula consists of melodrama, action, suspense and love story.