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Hybrid Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies
Number of Followers: 1  Open Access journalISSN (Print) 2707-2150 - ISSN (Online) 2707-2169 Published by Royallite Global  [4 journals]
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- Marginality, subversion and the performativity of declining masculinity in
selected Kenyan feature films by women filmmakers
Authors: Gloria Kemunto Mokaya, Charles Kebaya, Larry Ndivo
First page: 1
Abstract: Borne out of the need to understand the performance of masculinity in film, this article explores practices and notions of masculinity in the Kenyan society as represented in feature films. It seeks to understand both men’s and women’s perceptions of masculinity and how, in defining, enacting and performing them, they evoke social expectations, personal agency, and cultural subversions. Specifically, the article shows how feature films represent marginality and reconfigure declining trends of masculinity in society today. Thus, the article probes two questions; where are real men' and how is masculinity performed in contexts where the ‘conventional’ artefacts of masculinity are not readily available to men' Raewyn Connell’s theorization of hegemonic masculinity guided analyses and interpretations of findings in this article. Using two feature films by women filmmakers, Dangerous Affair (2002) and Soul Boy (2010), the paper shows how men are fashioning and working out masculine identities and selves away from the reveled mythic figurations of masculinity which, largely due to shifting contexts, appear elusive to them. It also reveals that marginalized men’s experiences with masculinity are unique, because context undermines the everyday ways they express themselves as dominant females emerge.
PubDate: 2023-03-03
DOI: 10.58256/hjlcs.v5i1.1067
Issue No: Vol. 5, No. 1 (2023)
- Hyb "Hybridity In Ngugi wa Thiango's Early and Novels:
Authors: Nasir Umar Abdullahi
Abstract: As one of the Postmodernist’s tools of analysis in the field of literary studies, Postcolonial theory has been employed by numerous African, non-African and Western literary critics over the years in myriads of literary discourses. Albeit Ngugi wa Thiongo’s early and later novels namely: Weep Not, Child, The River Between A Grain of Wheat, Petals of Blood, Devil on the Cross and Matigari for instance have been read through the Postcolonial telescope, the epistemological results uncovered aren’t satisfactory. Consequently, critical re-readings of the texts are much required a little more, given the nature of Postcolonial theory, brimmed with avalanche of theoretical concepts capable of providing new insights into the texts. This is the basis for this study. So, this paper explores the discourse of hybridity in Ngugi’s early and later novels. It goal is not only to demonstrate how the prolific African writer has hybridized the holy Bible in his early and later fictions but also to unveil how the hybridization of the Christian holy book in the early novels, metamorphoses in the later.
PubDate: 2023-03-03
DOI: 10.58256/hjlcs.v5i1.1060
Issue No: Vol. 4, No. 4 (2023)
- Interweaving of Melodies: Convergence of Divergent Voices in Ngugi Wa
Thiongo’s Devil on the Cross (1980)
Authors: Andrew Nyongesa
Abstract: Literary critics have analysed the African novel using few philosophical models that reflect conventional experiences on the continent. Dominant subjects such as political upheavals, relegation of women and revolutions characterize African works of prose, which prompts most critics to employ Marxist, postcolonial and feminist canons in critical appreciation. As much as these canons aptly dissect African classics, there exist other literary canons that bring out multiple voices embedded in some African works of prose fiction. This study breaks away from the aforementioned conventional trends by unearthing divergent voices and how they turn the novel into a conference of competing ideologies. Using dialogism, this article analyses divergent voices with regard to diverse subjects conveyed by characters in Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s Devil on the Cross (1980). The ideas of Mikhail Bakhtin (1984) will form a theoretical basis of interpretation. This analytical study is, therefore, a close textual reading of the primary and secondary texts while Bhakhtin (1984) serves as a theoretical framework for the interpretation. One major finding of the study is that its Marxist content, notwithstanding Ngugi’s Devil on the Cross is a polyphonic novel.
PubDate: 2023-03-03
DOI: 10.58256/hjlcs.v5i1.1045
Issue No: Vol. 4, No. 4 (2023)
- Anglophone Cameroonian literary engagement: Historical perspectives
Authors: Audace Mbonyingingo
Abstract: This paper focuses on the period of the 1990s onwards as it saw the emergence of a new generation of Anglophone Cameroonian writers with a different vision of what Cameroon as a reunified nation was going to be. I mainly analyse the uniqueness of Bole Butake’s and Bate Besong’s literary engagements, with a particular focus on the historical realities that inform their plays. The playwrights draw characters from the lower classes and engage them in a struggle to change their own destiny. As revolutionary playwrights, their characters are taken in a collective resistance against the marginalisation and exploitation of the people by a highly repressive regime in place. The playwrights are thus particularly interesting because their task is, to borrow from Wastberg (1988: 17), “to reshape a distorted history and portray a misjudged society honestly, without idealizing it”. Thus, in this discussion, I explore the interconnectedness between dramaturgy and politics in Cameroon by highlighting the post-reunification malaise that is resented by Anglophone Cameroonian writers in general, and in particular by Bole Butake and Bate Besong. More specifically, I endeavor to show that Bole Butake and Bate Besong are revolutionary playwrights whose dramatic engagement gestures towards the idea of nation-building project which was timidly “idealised” by the previous generation of writers. I finally seek to show how uniquely the playwrights engage with the Anglophone Problem and how they envision the Cameroonian nation within the possibilities of their dramatic engagements and representations. The chosen plays seek to offer in-depth analyses of the reunification epistemologies and also connect them with the Cameroonian institutions. There is a “horizontal colonialism” (Doh, 1993:78) tantamount to the European colonialism which obliges a dialectical perspective enabling us to understand not just the Anglophone Cameroonian history but also the post-reunification Anglophone Cameroonian literary production.
PubDate: 2022-12-31
DOI: 10.58256/hjlcs.v4i4.983
Issue No: Vol. 4, No. 3 (2022)
- Beautiful dreams: Deconstructing discourses of redemption in Darko’s
Beyond the Horizon (1995), Unigwe’s On Black Sisters’ Street (2009),
Adichie’s Americanah (2013) and Mbue’s Behold the Dreamers (2016)
Authors: Gloria Ajami Makokha, Mugo Muhia, Oluoch Obura
Pages: 11 - 24
Abstract: This paper entails an analysis of how in their different particularities, Amma Darko’s Beyond the Horizon, Chika Unigwe’s On Black Sisters’ Street; Chimamanda Adichie’s Americanah and Imbolo Mbue’s Behold the Dreamers explore the underbelly of notions informing the discourse of a redemptive West for Africans located at the margins of globalisation. The analysis locates Chimamanda’s Americanah and Mbue’s Behold the Dreamers within the racialised polity in the USA, in the midst of either a global economic meltdown or individual inability to access the fruits of globalisation because of the fact of race or immigration status. It also explores how choicelessness in the job market in Europe informs the radical choice of persisting at the social and economic margins of Europe despite the harsh realities and outcomes in this choice. This paper demonstrates that the questions of place at particular moments in history force a revision of initial fantasy about the notions of the redemptive West. This textual analysis is informed by the postcolonial theory, as articulated by Robert Nichols and Homi Bhabha and their postulations on identity, ‘othering’ and ‘in-between spaces’.
PubDate: 2022-11-06
DOI: 10.58256/hjlcs.v4i3.932
Issue No: Vol. 4, No. 3 (2022)
- Alcohol and drug abuse in fragmenting youth social identities: Analysis of
selected Kenyan Fiction
Authors: Vincent Odhiambo Oduor, Jairus Omuteche, David W. Yenjela
Abstract: This study examines the problems of excessive drug abuse and addiction among the Kenyan youths as represented in young adult fiction written by Kenyans. The study is motivated by works of a few popular fiction writers of 1970’s who introduced topics such as drug abuse and addiction in their works. These topics had been considered taboo by the early African writers of the 1960s but it is only recently that the same topics have been accepted in youth fiction. This study therefore discusses these writings as pictures that reflect how life of drugs affect the identity formation of the Kenyan youth. In the process of its enquiry, the study employs postmodern literary theory because young adults show themselves as unstable figures. They embody many ambiguities and contradiction. Qualitative in nature, this study employs data obtained from close reading of the selected literary texts. It therefore comes to a conclusion that the life of addict is presented as a life on the margins of society. They are either ignored or pitied by their surroundings, with rare occurrences of helpers, while the institutions prove to be ineffective and powerless. The unfortunate endings in the novels that portray addicts as vulnerable serve as a warning to young people to avoid drugs. These novels include, Moraa Gitaa’s The Shark Attack (2014), Meja Mwangi’s Kill Me Quick (1974), Elizabeth Kabui’s Was Nyakeeru My Father'(2014).
PubDate: 2022-09-11
DOI: 10.58256/hjlcs.v4i2.890
Issue No: Vol. 4, No. 2 (2022)
- Discussing the subject matter of the supernatural in African literature:
Old and new
Authors: Faith Ben-Daniels
Abstract: This essay sought to examine the supernatural as a matter in African literature discourses and the degree to which it manifests itself in the political, socio-economic, and cultural systems of Africa. In order to achieve this, the essay further investigated the significance of the supernatural in contemporary African societies thus attempting to answer the following questions: does African literature old and new (where old and new refers to the year of publication of the novels as well as setting in the novels with regard to time) make room for the supernatural subject matter' Is there a favorable or bad portrayal of supernatural belief in African literature' These questions are addressed by evaluating and interpreting selected writings (literary foreground) dealing with supernatural subjects. The essay concludes by discussing methods in which the supernatural could be portrayed in order to favorably impact African societies.
PubDate: 2022-08-25
DOI: 10.58256/hjlcs.v4i2.881
Issue No: Vol. 4, No. 2 (2022)
- ‘What a man can do a woman can do’: Gender and culture in
‘Coming 2 America’
Authors: Cosmas Rai Amenorvi
Abstract: This study has investigated how gender is constructed in Eddy Murphy’s 2021 movie ‘Coming 2 America’. Four major female and three major male characters are purposively sampled for the study. Employing the literary process of characterisation, explicit and implicit ways these characters project themselves are analysed with gender construction as the focus. Findings reveal that gender construction in ‘Coming 2 America’ does not project characters stereotypically by assigning only ‘masculine’ roles and traits to male characters nor ‘feminine’ roles and traits to female characters. The study has implications for movie industries, drama groups and social media content producers such as YouTubers to be cognisant of their consciousness or lack thereof as their construction of gender can contribute to the gender equality struggle or defeat it.
PubDate: 2022-08-25
DOI: 10.58256/hjlcs.v4i2.858
Issue No: Vol. 4, No. 2 (2022)
- Writing translation: On the question of ‘Writing Back’ in
post-colonial translation
Authors: Younes Aich
Abstract: Languages have many functional roles with regard to their social and cultural position. Hence, unless the contextualization of linguistic constructions is successfully processed, the cultural features of any community will remain inaccessible. Accordingly, many Indian and African writers have chosen the language of the colonizer as a medium of expression, for they wanted their voice to be heard outside the borders of their country and even because they are not competent enough to use their mother tongue in their writings. On this basis, their use of the colonial language is not considered as a manifestation of the French or English assimilation process which by definition stresses the superiority of the colonizer and his culture over the colonized. The purpose of this study is to show the extent to which the usage of the colonizer’s language reflects an act of translation, as it strives to make the experience of the local people known and readable for the colonizer. Said’s theory of orientalism allowed to explore the different mechanisms deployed by the colonizer to implant the idea of subordination in the minds of colonized people, especially through the imposition of his language.
PubDate: 2022-07-01
DOI: 10.58256/hjlcs.v4i2.840
Issue No: Vol. 4, No. 2 (2022)
- Racial interference in the justice systems in John Grisham’s A Time to
Kill (1989) and The Chamber (1994)
Authors: Gideon Kiplangat Too, Margaret Njoki Mwihia, Peter Muhoro Mwangi
First page: 1
Abstract: Premised on the tenets of intertextuality and structuralism, this study sought to examine how racism has influenced the administration of justice in the two selected texts of John Grisham, A Time to Kill, and The Chamber. It further sought to immerse the practice of law right inside the societal space where reality is supreme so that law is understood alongside human experiences and conditions. Law as it exists as written law is one thing; it is the other to juxtapose and read these set of rules together with the situations in real life. The main objective of this study was to carry out reading of legal representation in selected fiction of John Grisham and critically analyse the influence of legal fiction on law and justice. The study established that racism available within the judicial structures affected administration of justice in the selected texts. This paper after carrying out the study established that in the American society where John Grisham’s texts are set, administration of justice was at different levels in the judicial systems interfered by socials aspects such as racism, organized crimes amongst other aspects but this paper will focus on racism.
PubDate: 2022-09-28
DOI: 10.58256/hjlcs.v4i3.898
Issue No: Vol. 4, No. 2 (2022)
