Cette étude de la littérature kenyane, qui concerne principalement des auteurs féminins, a comme ... more Cette étude de la littérature kenyane, qui concerne principalement des auteurs féminins, a comme postulat que les écrivaines du Kenya, bien que prolifiques, ont été pendant très longtemps négligées par la critique littéraire et souvent étudiées dans le cadre de la littérature feminine du soi-disant “tiers monde.” Leur spécificité était ainsi occultée. Cette étude entreprend de remédier à cette situation en faisant une analyse détaillée de quelques romans représentatifs tout en utilisant le genre romanesque comme document social reflétant la position de la femme dans la société kenyane. Le roman, qui est ici le document principal, est donc examiné en tant qu’outil culturel. Etant donné le nombre élevé de romans écrits par des auteures kenyanes, cette étude utilise une méthodologie orientée vers des cas, sélectionnant les romans les plus représentatifs de la littérature féminine kenyane. Ces textes recouvrent une longue période allant des premières publications romanesques dans les an...
Ever since Professor G.D. Killam of the University of Guelph edited The Writings of East and Cent... more Ever since Professor G.D. Killam of the University of Guelph edited The Writings of East and Central Africa (1984), and the conferences that lead to the changes in the English syllabi of Secondary Schools, nothing has brought the writers, booksellers, librarians, literary critics, journalists, and intellectual property lawyers of the region together more than book fairs which take place annually in Harare, Zimbabwe, and Nairobi, Kenya. Names like Ali A. Mazrui, Njabulo Ndebele, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, David Rubadiri, Charles Mungoshi, Chenjerai Hove, Micere Githae Mugo, which one sees on book covers suddenly stick into one’s mind as one meets their owners at either the Zimbabwe or Nairobi International Book Fairs. During the years under review (2000–4), Jared Angira, the internationally known Kenyan poet and chairman of the Kenya Organization of Writers Association (KOWA) could be seen with Dr. Jack Mapanje, the famous Malawian linguist and poet, at the international book fair almost every day. At the meetings of the National Book Development Council of Kenya, one met the stakeholders in the book production and book marketing industry meeting under the aegis of the East African Book Development Association (EABDA), a consortium comprising of the National Book Development Councils of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. As constituent bodies, these councils and the organizers of the book fairs in Nairobi and Harare argue that the challenges facing all the stakeholders of the books is the fight against the monster of illiteracy. A nation that has to operate satisfactorily in the twenty-first century has to be a reading nation. It must celebrate the book. Central and East Africa – A Personal Overview
Cold-formed Channel-and Z-sections subject to both flexure and torsion may undergo distortional b... more Cold-formed Channel-and Z-sections subject to both flexure and torsion may undergo distortional buckling where the flange and lip rotate about the flange/web junction. This mode of failure is prevalent in purlin sections when lateral deformation of the section is prevented and when the sections are manufactured from high strength steel. In an attempt to prevent distortional buckling, some manufacturers have added additional return lips to the flange lips to produce complex edge stiffeners. The AustralianlNew Zealand Standard for Cold-Formed Steel Structures includes design rules for determining the distortional buckling strength of cold-formed beam and column sections. These design rules require the computation of the elastic distortional buckling stress. Appendix D of ASINZS 4600 provides design rules for computing the elastic distortional buckling stress of general channels in compression, simple lipped channels in compression and simple lipped Channel-and Z-sections in bending about an axis perpendicular to the web. The paper describes general formulations for computing the elastic distortional buckling stresses of sections with return lips including those with sloping lips and return lips. The accuracy of the formulations is compared with the results for a large range of section geometries using a finite strip buckling analysis which can be regarded as providing accurate solutions for distortional buckling stress. Explicit expressions are presented in the paper for the flange properties.
Introduction In a 1965 symposium on “East Africa’s Cultural Heritage” held in Nairobi, Okot p’Bit... more Introduction In a 1965 symposium on “East Africa’s Cultural Heritage” held in Nairobi, Okot p’Bitek made the following observation “The first step in vernacular literature is not a step. The first step is to open ears. Listen to the birds’ songs and the talk of the monkeys” (“Future of the Vernacular Literature” 24). p’Bitek—who had by that time already published two novels in the Acoli language and had been working on the manuscript of his Acoli song Wer pa Lawino (1969), whose translated version Song of Lawino (1966) would be published the year following this symposium—thus highlighted the importance of a writer’s being attuned to their natural environment, as one of the key ingredients of vernacular literature from East Africa. Another speaker at the same symposium, Gerald Moore expressed similar sentiments, albeit in regard to literature in English expression coming out of East Africa at the time, by observing that writers such as Jomo Kenyatta, James Ngugi (Ngugi wa Thiong’o), ...
Cette etude de la litterature kenyane, qui concerne principalement des auteurs feminins, a comme ... more Cette etude de la litterature kenyane, qui concerne principalement des auteurs feminins, a comme postulat que les ecrivaines du Kenya, bien que prolifiques, ont ete pendant tres longtemps negligees par la critique litteraire et souvent etudiees dans le cadre de la litterature feminine du soi-disant “tiers monde.” Leur specificite etait ainsi occultee. Cette etude entreprend de remedier a cette situation en faisant une analyse detaillee de quelques romans representatifs tout en utilisant le genre romanesque comme document social refletant la position de la femme dans la societe kenyane. Le roman, qui est ici le document principal, est donc examine en tant qu’outil culturel. Etant donne le nombre eleve de romans ecrits par des auteures kenyanes, cette etude utilise une methodologie orientee vers des cas, selectionnant les romans les plus representatifs de la litterature feminine kenyane. Ces textes recouvrent une longue periode allant des premieres publications romanesques dans les an...
In looking back over the historical period from the 1950s to the early 1980s, Chris Wanjala ("The... more In looking back over the historical period from the 1950s to the early 1980s, Chris Wanjala ("The Growth of a Literary Tradition in East Africa") identifies the various approaches that had by then emerged in the East African region in regard to creative writing and the study of literature. In so doing, Wanjala examines how a literary tradition that is particular to the region was established. From Wanjala's study, the first thing that becomes evident is that the approaches that were used in the early stages of developing a tradition in regard to the production and the study of East African literature were formulated within the English Departments of the University of East Africa, which was by then a brand-new formation to the region. The University of East Africa had been established in 1963 as a federation of colleges from the three countries that comprised East Africa after independence, namely, Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya (Hyslop). The three constituent colleges that made up the federal unit of the University of East Africa had distinct histories, with Makerere College having the longest. Indeed, it was developed from Uganda Technical College, which was founded in 1922, and then transformed into Makerere University College in 1949, which would exist as an affiliate of the University of London. University College Nairobi, on the other hand, was developed from The Royal Technical College of East Africa, which was founded in 1951. This college was converted from a technical college into a university college in 1961, becoming the Royal College, Nairobi. Dar es Salaam was the youngest of the three, having been established in 1961 as a university college. With the establishment of the University of East Africa, by 1965 University College Nairobi had joined its sister unit in setting up an English Department, with a curriculum that was similar to that in use at Makerere. This, together with an increased student and staff mobility across the region, led to the birth of what we refer to today as East African literature. Wanjala goes on to describe how the first of the three English Departments of East Africa that was established at Makerere University College created a platform that generated the foundation of writing and criticism in East African literature. He refers to it as the Makerere School of English. The approach to literature within this school was that of liberal humanism, and the "literary education of [students from this school] was based on the writings of the English tradition" ("Growth" 125). This was evidently due to the fact that the students were taught by expatriate lecturers from the metropole, and also because the curriculum at the time was based on an education that was somewhat similar to that being offered at the University of London at the time. It was thus steeped in the tradition of the Cambridge school of criticism whose leading lights were I. A. Richards and F. R. Leavis. The duo is known for engaging in the methodology of practical criticism of literary texts as a mode of teaching literary criticism. Although Leavis did not himself write essays on his cogent philosophical thought, he is known to be the most influential British critic of the 20 th century through his work as a professor at Cambridge, his editing of the literary journal Scrutiny for twenty years, and especially for his numerous essays on English literature. Leavis displayed the influences of T. S. Eliot and Matthew Arnold in his thought and writing. The text that Leavis is most famous for is The Great Tradition (1948) through which he establishes a literary canon of Western writers that he finds worthy of study. These writers are Jane Austen, George Eliot, Henry James, and Joseph Conrad who Leavis perceives as having written texts that could be seen as representative of a founding tradition in the past, and D. H. Lawrence who Leavis perceives as the only contemporary writer that is worthy to stand for a continuity with that past. It is evident, therefore, that Leavis' critical ideology strives to suspend contemporary or modern culture and thought in an effort to preserve a tradition that he finds may have
The essays collected in Uncommon Wealths in Postcolonial Fiction “follow the money” to illuminate... more The essays collected in Uncommon Wealths in Postcolonial Fiction “follow the money” to illuminate literature’s keen awareness of the multiple and often conflicting meanings of wealth and commons in formerly colonized spaces.
This article seeks to study how Mary Okurut narrates the Ugandan nation through her novel The Inv... more This article seeks to study how Mary Okurut narrates the Ugandan nation through her novel The Invisible Weevil while at the same time exploring how the author centers upon women in her imagination of the new nation. The arguments in this article are derived from concepts proposed by Benedict Anderson and Homi Bhabha, among other scholars, on nationalism. These are arguments that explore the question of identity formation in nations and what holds these nations together in terms of their cultural standpoints and even at times a desire for a better nation for future generations. Through a close textual analysis that focuses on elements of narratology, the study explores the issue of nationalism in the novel. Of interest to this study is how Okurut as a contemporary writer engages history in the novel to narrate the nation and the challenges it faces as it evolves through different and tumultuous leaderships. The narration is undertaken through the viewpoint of various characters who d...
Cette étude de la littérature kenyane, qui concerne principalement des auteurs féminins, a comme ... more Cette étude de la littérature kenyane, qui concerne principalement des auteurs féminins, a comme postulat que les écrivaines du Kenya, bien que prolifiques, ont été pendant très longtemps négligées par la critique littéraire et souvent étudiées dans le cadre de la littérature feminine du soi-disant “tiers monde.” Leur spécificité était ainsi occultée. Cette étude entreprend de remédier à cette situation en faisant une analyse détaillée de quelques romans représentatifs tout en utilisant le genre romanesque comme document social reflétant la position de la femme dans la société kenyane. Le roman, qui est ici le document principal, est donc examiné en tant qu’outil culturel. Etant donné le nombre élevé de romans écrits par des auteures kenyanes, cette étude utilise une méthodologie orientée vers des cas, sélectionnant les romans les plus représentatifs de la littérature féminine kenyane. Ces textes recouvrent une longue période allant des premières publications romanesques dans les an...
Ever since Professor G.D. Killam of the University of Guelph edited The Writings of East and Cent... more Ever since Professor G.D. Killam of the University of Guelph edited The Writings of East and Central Africa (1984), and the conferences that lead to the changes in the English syllabi of Secondary Schools, nothing has brought the writers, booksellers, librarians, literary critics, journalists, and intellectual property lawyers of the region together more than book fairs which take place annually in Harare, Zimbabwe, and Nairobi, Kenya. Names like Ali A. Mazrui, Njabulo Ndebele, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, David Rubadiri, Charles Mungoshi, Chenjerai Hove, Micere Githae Mugo, which one sees on book covers suddenly stick into one’s mind as one meets their owners at either the Zimbabwe or Nairobi International Book Fairs. During the years under review (2000–4), Jared Angira, the internationally known Kenyan poet and chairman of the Kenya Organization of Writers Association (KOWA) could be seen with Dr. Jack Mapanje, the famous Malawian linguist and poet, at the international book fair almost every day. At the meetings of the National Book Development Council of Kenya, one met the stakeholders in the book production and book marketing industry meeting under the aegis of the East African Book Development Association (EABDA), a consortium comprising of the National Book Development Councils of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. As constituent bodies, these councils and the organizers of the book fairs in Nairobi and Harare argue that the challenges facing all the stakeholders of the books is the fight against the monster of illiteracy. A nation that has to operate satisfactorily in the twenty-first century has to be a reading nation. It must celebrate the book. Central and East Africa – A Personal Overview
Cold-formed Channel-and Z-sections subject to both flexure and torsion may undergo distortional b... more Cold-formed Channel-and Z-sections subject to both flexure and torsion may undergo distortional buckling where the flange and lip rotate about the flange/web junction. This mode of failure is prevalent in purlin sections when lateral deformation of the section is prevented and when the sections are manufactured from high strength steel. In an attempt to prevent distortional buckling, some manufacturers have added additional return lips to the flange lips to produce complex edge stiffeners. The AustralianlNew Zealand Standard for Cold-Formed Steel Structures includes design rules for determining the distortional buckling strength of cold-formed beam and column sections. These design rules require the computation of the elastic distortional buckling stress. Appendix D of ASINZS 4600 provides design rules for computing the elastic distortional buckling stress of general channels in compression, simple lipped channels in compression and simple lipped Channel-and Z-sections in bending about an axis perpendicular to the web. The paper describes general formulations for computing the elastic distortional buckling stresses of sections with return lips including those with sloping lips and return lips. The accuracy of the formulations is compared with the results for a large range of section geometries using a finite strip buckling analysis which can be regarded as providing accurate solutions for distortional buckling stress. Explicit expressions are presented in the paper for the flange properties.
Introduction In a 1965 symposium on “East Africa’s Cultural Heritage” held in Nairobi, Okot p’Bit... more Introduction In a 1965 symposium on “East Africa’s Cultural Heritage” held in Nairobi, Okot p’Bitek made the following observation “The first step in vernacular literature is not a step. The first step is to open ears. Listen to the birds’ songs and the talk of the monkeys” (“Future of the Vernacular Literature” 24). p’Bitek—who had by that time already published two novels in the Acoli language and had been working on the manuscript of his Acoli song Wer pa Lawino (1969), whose translated version Song of Lawino (1966) would be published the year following this symposium—thus highlighted the importance of a writer’s being attuned to their natural environment, as one of the key ingredients of vernacular literature from East Africa. Another speaker at the same symposium, Gerald Moore expressed similar sentiments, albeit in regard to literature in English expression coming out of East Africa at the time, by observing that writers such as Jomo Kenyatta, James Ngugi (Ngugi wa Thiong’o), ...
Cette etude de la litterature kenyane, qui concerne principalement des auteurs feminins, a comme ... more Cette etude de la litterature kenyane, qui concerne principalement des auteurs feminins, a comme postulat que les ecrivaines du Kenya, bien que prolifiques, ont ete pendant tres longtemps negligees par la critique litteraire et souvent etudiees dans le cadre de la litterature feminine du soi-disant “tiers monde.” Leur specificite etait ainsi occultee. Cette etude entreprend de remedier a cette situation en faisant une analyse detaillee de quelques romans representatifs tout en utilisant le genre romanesque comme document social refletant la position de la femme dans la societe kenyane. Le roman, qui est ici le document principal, est donc examine en tant qu’outil culturel. Etant donne le nombre eleve de romans ecrits par des auteures kenyanes, cette etude utilise une methodologie orientee vers des cas, selectionnant les romans les plus representatifs de la litterature feminine kenyane. Ces textes recouvrent une longue periode allant des premieres publications romanesques dans les an...
In looking back over the historical period from the 1950s to the early 1980s, Chris Wanjala ("The... more In looking back over the historical period from the 1950s to the early 1980s, Chris Wanjala ("The Growth of a Literary Tradition in East Africa") identifies the various approaches that had by then emerged in the East African region in regard to creative writing and the study of literature. In so doing, Wanjala examines how a literary tradition that is particular to the region was established. From Wanjala's study, the first thing that becomes evident is that the approaches that were used in the early stages of developing a tradition in regard to the production and the study of East African literature were formulated within the English Departments of the University of East Africa, which was by then a brand-new formation to the region. The University of East Africa had been established in 1963 as a federation of colleges from the three countries that comprised East Africa after independence, namely, Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya (Hyslop). The three constituent colleges that made up the federal unit of the University of East Africa had distinct histories, with Makerere College having the longest. Indeed, it was developed from Uganda Technical College, which was founded in 1922, and then transformed into Makerere University College in 1949, which would exist as an affiliate of the University of London. University College Nairobi, on the other hand, was developed from The Royal Technical College of East Africa, which was founded in 1951. This college was converted from a technical college into a university college in 1961, becoming the Royal College, Nairobi. Dar es Salaam was the youngest of the three, having been established in 1961 as a university college. With the establishment of the University of East Africa, by 1965 University College Nairobi had joined its sister unit in setting up an English Department, with a curriculum that was similar to that in use at Makerere. This, together with an increased student and staff mobility across the region, led to the birth of what we refer to today as East African literature. Wanjala goes on to describe how the first of the three English Departments of East Africa that was established at Makerere University College created a platform that generated the foundation of writing and criticism in East African literature. He refers to it as the Makerere School of English. The approach to literature within this school was that of liberal humanism, and the "literary education of [students from this school] was based on the writings of the English tradition" ("Growth" 125). This was evidently due to the fact that the students were taught by expatriate lecturers from the metropole, and also because the curriculum at the time was based on an education that was somewhat similar to that being offered at the University of London at the time. It was thus steeped in the tradition of the Cambridge school of criticism whose leading lights were I. A. Richards and F. R. Leavis. The duo is known for engaging in the methodology of practical criticism of literary texts as a mode of teaching literary criticism. Although Leavis did not himself write essays on his cogent philosophical thought, he is known to be the most influential British critic of the 20 th century through his work as a professor at Cambridge, his editing of the literary journal Scrutiny for twenty years, and especially for his numerous essays on English literature. Leavis displayed the influences of T. S. Eliot and Matthew Arnold in his thought and writing. The text that Leavis is most famous for is The Great Tradition (1948) through which he establishes a literary canon of Western writers that he finds worthy of study. These writers are Jane Austen, George Eliot, Henry James, and Joseph Conrad who Leavis perceives as having written texts that could be seen as representative of a founding tradition in the past, and D. H. Lawrence who Leavis perceives as the only contemporary writer that is worthy to stand for a continuity with that past. It is evident, therefore, that Leavis' critical ideology strives to suspend contemporary or modern culture and thought in an effort to preserve a tradition that he finds may have
The essays collected in Uncommon Wealths in Postcolonial Fiction “follow the money” to illuminate... more The essays collected in Uncommon Wealths in Postcolonial Fiction “follow the money” to illuminate literature’s keen awareness of the multiple and often conflicting meanings of wealth and commons in formerly colonized spaces.
This article seeks to study how Mary Okurut narrates the Ugandan nation through her novel The Inv... more This article seeks to study how Mary Okurut narrates the Ugandan nation through her novel The Invisible Weevil while at the same time exploring how the author centers upon women in her imagination of the new nation. The arguments in this article are derived from concepts proposed by Benedict Anderson and Homi Bhabha, among other scholars, on nationalism. These are arguments that explore the question of identity formation in nations and what holds these nations together in terms of their cultural standpoints and even at times a desire for a better nation for future generations. Through a close textual analysis that focuses on elements of narratology, the study explores the issue of nationalism in the novel. Of interest to this study is how Okurut as a contemporary writer engages history in the novel to narrate the nation and the challenges it faces as it evolves through different and tumultuous leaderships. The narration is undertaken through the viewpoint of various characters who d...
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