A Critical Review of Ideological Trends in the Study of Zambian Literature in English
Keywords:
Ideology, Imperialism, Renaissance, Zambian Literature
Abstract
Two ideologically divergent schools of thought have emerged in the study of Zambian literature in English. The first one rooted in imperialist doctrines emerged in the early 1980s and continues to influence many studies on Zambian literature to this day. The second one with a clear object of the renaissance of world literatures like that of Zambia is recent. It begun towards the end of the second decade of the 2000s and challenges the first one. This paper gives a critical discussion of studies that constitute and mark these two trends. It is a desktop research that employs the documental analysis informed by the historical cultural materialism theory. It concludes that the imperialist school of thought overlook and impoverish our understanding of the wider ideological and political context in which Zambian literature in English has and is evolving and the world literary scene on which we encounter it. Then, the renaissance school of thought does not just remedy this ideological problem but creates an opportunity for us to study Zambian literature in English as a distinct local realist tradition that is organically developing and in transition.References
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30. Siluonde, M. (2015) A Comparative Analysis of Narrative Technique and Plot Structure in two Zambian Novels: John Luangala’s The Chosen Bud and Malama Katulwende’s Bitterness. Master’s Thesis thesis. Lusaka: The University of Zambia. [online]. Available from: http://dspace.unza.zm:8080/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/4291/mwaka’s%20dissertation.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.
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2. Bakhtin, M. (1981) ‘Discourse and the Novel’, in Caryl Emerson & Michael Holquist (eds.) The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. pp. 259–422.
3. Casanova, P. (2004) The World Republic of Letters. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
4. Chapman, M. (1996) Chapman, M. Southern African Literatures. London: Longman.
5. Chen, L. & Li, S. (2011) The Entering of Ideology into the Literary Text: Relating realism with hypertextuality. International Proceedings of Economics Development and Research IPEDR. 5347–351. [online]. Available from: http://www.ipedr.com/vol5/no1/74-H00159.pdf.
6. Chilala, C. (2006) Analysis of Gender Issues in Zambian Literature in English. Master’s Thesis thesis. Lusaka: The University of Zambia.
7. Chilala, C. (2014) Anatomy of the Challenges facing Zambian Writers and Publishers of Literary Works. Journal of Southern African Studies. 40 (3), 593–606.
8. Chilala, C. (2019) Anglophone Zambian Prose Fiction: Tradition or Transition? Hybrid Journal Literary and Cultural Studies. 1 (1), 13–29. [online]. Available from: https://royalliteglobal.com/hybrid-literary.
9. Chileshe, J. (1983) Literacy, Literature, and Ideological Formation: The Zambian case. PhD thesis. Sussex: University of Sussex.
10. Chipungu, I. H. (1956) Uluse Lwalile Nkwale. London: Joint Publications Bureau of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland and Longmans.
11. Farrell, J. T. (1942) Literature and Ideology. College English. 3 (7), 611–623.
12. Gikandi, S. (2003) Christianity and Christian Missions Simon Gikandi (ed.). Encyclopedia of African Literature p.108–112.
13. Grant, R. (2003) Imagining the Real: Essays on Politics, Ideology, and Literature. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
14. Kaavu, E. A. (1949) Namusiya Kumikoti. London: Joint Publications Bureau of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland and Longmans.
15. Kamlongera, C. F. (1984) Problems of the Growth of a Popular Art Form: The Relationship Between Drama and Society in Malawi and Zambia. PhD thesis. Leeds: The University of Leeds. [online]. Available from: http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/8885/1/Kamlongera_C_English_PhD_1984.pdf (Accessed 5 February 2020).
16. Katulwende, M. (2005) Bitterness. New York: Mondal.Longwe, S. & Clarke, R. (eds.) (1998) Woman Know Your Place: The Patriarchal Message in Zambian Popular Song. Lusaka: ZARD.
17. Luangala, J. (1991) The Chosen Bud. Lusaka: Kenneth Kaunda Foundation.
18. Macola, G. (2005) Imagining Village Life in Zambian Fiction. The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology. 25 (1), 1–10. [online]. Available from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23820717 (Accessed 8 April 2019).
19. Masiye, A. S. (1951) Tiyeni Kumudzi. Macmillan. Lusaka: Joint Publications Bureau of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland and Macmillan.
20. Mbwayu, J. L. (1987) Craftmanship and Partisanship in Zambian Prose Fiction Since Independence: A Critical Evaluation of The Novels Of Mulaisho, Masiye, Saidi and Sibale. Master’s Thesis thesis. Lusaka: The University of Zambia.
21. Moriarty, M. (2006) Ideology and literature. Journal of Political Ideologies. [Online] 11 (1), 43–60. [online]. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1080/13569310500395875.
22. Mulaisho, D. (1971) The Tongue of the Dumb. London: Heinemann.
23. Muyendekwa, L. (2008) Images of women in Ticklish sensation, Tongue of the dumb and Cowerie of hope with the perspective of sex role sterotypes. Master’s Thesis thesis. Lusaka: The University of Zambia. [online]. Available from: http://dspace.unza.zm:8080/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/1119/limbali0001.PDF?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.
24. Primorac, R. (2018) Arrow of God at Fifty. Research in African Literatures. 49 (4), 85–106. [online]. Available from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/reseafrilite.49.4.07.
25. Primorac, R. (2014) At Home in the World? Reframing Zambia’s Literature in English. Journal of Southern African studies. 40 (3), 575–591.
26. Purcell, W. F. (2012) Witnessing to the Gospel: Pedro Arrupe’s Mission Theology and Dominic Mulaisho’s “The Tongue of the Dumb”. Christianity and Literature. 61 (3), 419–440. [online]. Available from: Available at https://www.thefreelibrary.com/ Witnessing +to+the+Gospel%3a+Pedro+Arrupe%27s+mission+theology+and+Dominic...-a0300343413.
27. Reed, J. (1985) ‘Zambian Fiction’, in Gordon Douglas Killam (ed.) The Writing of East and Central Africa (Studies in African Literature). London: Heinemann. p. 83.
28. Ricoeur, P. (1976) Ideology and Utopia as Cultural Imagination. Philosophic Exchange. 7 (1), 17–28.
29. Settles, J. D. (1996) The Impact of Colonialism on African Economic Development. Honours Thesis Projects thesis. Tennessee: University of Tennessee.
30. Siluonde, M. (2015) A Comparative Analysis of Narrative Technique and Plot Structure in two Zambian Novels: John Luangala’s The Chosen Bud and Malama Katulwende’s Bitterness. Master’s Thesis thesis. Lusaka: The University of Zambia. [online]. Available from: http://dspace.unza.zm:8080/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/4291/mwaka’s%20dissertation.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.
31. Sinyangwe, B. (2000) A Cowrie of Hope. Oxford: Heinemann.Stevens, G. A. (1934) The Aesthetic Education of the Negro. Overseas Education. V (2), 112–116.Watts, S. (1997) Epidemics and history: Disease, power and imperialism. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Published
2020-12-18
How to Cite
Kantini, S. and Chilala, C. (2020) “A Critical Review of Ideological Trends in the Study of Zambian Literature in English”, Journal of Law and Social Sciences, 4(1), pp. 14-27. doi: https://doi.org/10.53974/unza.jlss.4.1.386.
Section
Social Sciences