Papers by gilbert ndi shang
Mouvances francophones, Mar 15, 2017
This paper examines the question of existentialism in Trois jours et le néant b... more This paper examines the question of existentialism in Trois jours et le néant by the Moroccan writer Youssef Wahboun. The novel constitutes a complex diagnosis of the social conditions of the characters evidently based in present day Morocco, according it the status of discourse on the Moroccan social reality. However, this article is premised on the argument that through the use of language pregnant with multiple strata of meanings, the novel delocalizes its imaginative space, stretching its significance beyond its visible contextual borders. In other words, the text addresses the complexity of the human condition in general. In another dimension, the inevitable passage of time posits as the central element of the inscrutability of the human condition, the quest for meaning and self-realisation in the society. The article focuses on the portrait of characters, especially the protagonist as a symbol of the existentialist human angst, caused both by his immobilism and his restlessness in space and time. Wahboun’s narrative technics and his naturalistic portrayal of characters’ interiority grant the reader access to their daily worries, their spaces of interaction and the motifs behind their (in)actions. If the criticism of postcolonial novel has oftentimes been limited to the political and less on the human dimension, Wahboun’s novel constitutes an invitation for an alteration in this disposition that sometimes obscures and limits the universal dimension and depth of African literature.Cet article aborde la question de l’existentialisme dans Trois jours et le néant de l’écrivain marocain Youssef Wahboun. Le roman opère une diagnose complexe des conditions sociales des personnages tirés du contexte marocain actuel, ce qui lui accorde sa pertinence comme discours sur le social de cet espace précis. Néanmoins, le présent article repose sur le postulat que, par l’usage d’un langage imbu de multiples paliers de significations, le roman délocalise l’horizon de son imaginaire, poussant ainsi sa signification au-delà de la frontière nationale. C’est un roman qui traite de la complexité de la condition humaine en général. D’autre part, dans ce roman, le passage inévitable du temps devient l’élément central de l’inscrutabilité de la condition humaine en quête du sens de la vie et de son épanouissement dans la société. Cet article se focalise donc sur la peinture de personnages, surtout le personnage principal, comme symbole de l’inconfort existentialiste humain, cause à la fois de son immobilisme et de son errance dans l’espace et dans le temps. L’esthétique narrative de Wahboun et la peinture naturaliste de l’intériorité de ses personnages nous permettent de sonder au fond de leurs soucis quotidiens, leurs espaces d’interaction et les motifs de leurs (in)actions. Si la critique du roman postcolonial a toujours favorisé le politique sur l’humain, le roman de Wahboun, est une invitation à réviser cette tendance qui à la limite appauvrit cette littérature, limitant par ailleurs son universalité
International Journal of English and Literature, 2020
This paper examines the relationship between visuality, knowledge and power in the postcolonial A... more This paper examines the relationship between visuality, knowledge and power in the postcolonial African novel. With examples from selected texts of Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Sony Labou Tansi, it argues that visual culture, usually employed in the analysis of cultural images and material iconographies in media studies, can aptly be employed in textual analysis given that postcolonial novels are primarily engaged with the undoing of dominant visual regimes. Against the background of hegemonic regimes based on instrumentalist and subjectifying surveillance of the subject, Ngugi wa Thiong'o and Labou Tansi build their texts on visual tactics and practices that subvert the capacity of the state apparatus to see, hence to know the subject. Bordering on humour, parody, graffiti, bricolage and surrealist representation, the two authors "play" with the state Panopticon, creating avenues for countervailing meanings that elude the dominant regimes of vision, knowledge and power. The subversive visual practices are inscribed within a conception of literary textualities that is based on plurivocality, heteroglossia, dialogism and the non-transparent text. Through the deconstruction of dominant visual architecture, both authors open up spaces for democratic conception of power that takes account of inter-subjectivity and non-hegemonic participation in the postcolonial public sphere.
Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory, 2018
The turn of the current century has witnessed the re-negotiation of materiality and the growing a... more The turn of the current century has witnessed the re-negotiation of materiality and the growing ascendancy of the virtual, the immaterial over the real or tangible. Though it would be presumptuous to claim that the virtual has totally assumed control over the real, it can be asserted that the figure of the wall as a transfusion between the real/virtual and the self/other has emerged between the two. Based on constructions of textuality articulated by theorists such as Roland Barthes and Friedrich Nietzsche, and a pastiche format that mimics the functionality of the wall of scription, this article brings together multiple enactments of mural scriptions that include the concrete, textual, textile, vegetative and the virtual in order to articulate the Dionysian property of wall-effects. It traces successive actualisations of the wall, analysing how the virtual Facebook wall assimilates and re-dynamizes the traits of the tangible walls through an array of intertextual/inter-medial modalities.
Journal of African Cinemas, 2016
Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 2015
The) African) novel) is) one) of) the) prescient) prisms) through) which) social,) cultural) and)... more The) African) novel) is) one) of) the) prescient) prisms) through) which) social,) cultural) and) political)transformations)on)the)continent)can)be)apprehended.)As)such,)it)is)not)merely) a)site)of)reflection)on)the)society,)but)a)pole)of)constructive)imagination)on)the)intricate) link)between)the)past)and)the)present,)the)global)and)the)local,)the)ephemeral)and)the) enduring.) In) this) paper,) we) examine) artistic) representations) of) "moments) of) change") and)historical)progression)in)Ngugi's)Wizard)of)the)Crow)and)Kourouma's)En)Attendant) le)Vote)des)Bêtes)Sauvages.)Through)diverse)narrative)techniques,)characterization)and) thematic) articulations,) we) examine) how) the) two) novels) expose) the) 'disturbed) movement') of) ) historical) "progression"in) the) postcolony) wherein) the) new) era) of) hope) often) carries) shades) of) the) past) and) seeds) of) future) disillusionment.) Transitions) therefore) become) instances) where) past) practices) are) embedded) and) complexified) in) the)present.)However,)despite)the)tendency)towards)historical)determinism)in)the)two) novels) whereby) any) moment) of) change) is) fictionalized) as) a) repetition) of) history,) both) authors,)through)different)artistic)forms)and)with)different)intensity,)expound)an)openM ended) and) equivocal) future) where) hope) is) juxtaposed) with) despair) and) optimism) contrasted)with)uncertainty.) ! Key)words:)temporality,!subversion,!memory,!progress,!transition! The!African!novel!is!one!of!the!prescient!and!memorial!prisms!through!which!social,!cultural! and!political!transformations!on!the!continent!can!be!apprehended.!As!such,!it!is!not!merely!a! site! of! reflection! on! the! society,! but! a! pole! of! constructive! imagination! on! the! intricate! link! between!the!past!and!the!present,!the!global!and!the!local,!the!ephemeral!and!the!enduring!as! far! as! African! cultures,! politics! and! histories! are! concerned.! This! article! discusses! creative! representations!and!interrogations!of!transitional!moments!in!the!works!of!African!authors!in! the!light!of!the!aesthetic!of!change,!that!is,!recurrent!forms!of!narration!that!are!noticeable!in! artistic!renditions!of!political!change!in!Africa.!In!this!regard,!the!present!article!analyzes!the! dialectical! relationship! between! the! text! as! an! aesthetic! project! and! its! transfiguration! of! political!reality!into!its!structures!of!meaning.! ! Before!analyzing!the!artistic!narrations!and!interrogation!of!notions!of!progress!in!the!texts!of! Ahmadou! Kourouma! and! Ngugi! wa! Thiong'o,! it! is! necessary! to! underline! some! of! the! fundamental!considerations!within!"postcolonial"!theory!with!regard!to!temporal!connotations! of! the! notions! of! progress! and! progression.! In! other! words,! it! is! important! to! examine! the! implications! of! the! term! 'post'coloniality! as! a! marker! of! progress! beyond! colonialism.! The! prefix! 'post'! as! a! semantic! fragment! refers! to! the! surpassing,! aftermath,! distancing! from! a! process,!phenomenon!or!event!that!is!characteristic!of!the!past.!The!major!anxiety!around!the! terminology!is!its!simplistic!division!of!time!along!a!linear!horizontal!paradigm!of!past,!present! and!future.!The!prefix!"post"!prima!facie!denotes!the!presumption!of!"temporally!coming!after! and! ideologically,! supplanting"! colonialism! (Loomba! 1998:7).! Loomba! asserts! that! it! is! the! Shang,'G.'N. '(2015). 'Disoriented'Temporalities:'Narrating'postclolnial'Progress'(ions)'in'the'Novels'of'Ngugi'wa'Thiong'o'and'Ahmadou'Kourouma.' Advances)in)Social)Sciences)Research)Journal,)2(2),)139B149.
This paper examines the question of existentialism in Trois jours et le neant by the Moroccan wri... more This paper examines the question of existentialism in Trois jours et le neant by the Moroccan writer Youssef Wahboun. The novel constitutes a complex diagnosis of the social conditions of the characters evidently based in present day Morocco, according it the status of discourse on the Moroccan social reality. However, this article is premised on the argument that through the use of language pregnant with multiple strata of meanings, the novel delocalizes its imaginative space, stretching its significance beyond its visible contextual borders. In other words, the text addresses the complexity of the human condition in general. In another dimension, the inevitable passage of time posits as the central element of the inscrutability of the human condition, the quest for meaning and self-realisation in the society. The article focuses on the portrait of characters, especially the protagonist as a symbol of the existentialist human angst, caused both by his immobilism and his restlessnes...
Since 2007, BIGSAS has been part of the highly competitive 'Excellence Initiative' by the German ... more Since 2007, BIGSAS has been part of the highly competitive 'Excellence Initiative' by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the German Council of Science and Humanities (WR). This honour was further anchored by the renewal of BIGSAS in 2012 for another five years. The basic aims of BIGSAS are to bring together excellent young African and non-African scholars to work jointly in the field of African Studies and to offer a centre of creative and innovative PhD training and research. BIGSAS has more than 100 junior fellows from 25 African, American, Asian and European countries. BIGSAS builds on this experience and offers a multi-and interdisciplinary research environment based upon three clearly defined general Research Areas which are: A. Uncertainty, Innovation and the Quest for Order in Africa B. Culture, Concepts and Cognition in Africa: Approaches through Language, Literature and Media C. Concepts and Conflicts in Development Cooperation with Africa and Coping with Environmental Criticality and Disasters in Africa. The Research Areas allow for challenging theoretical studies sensitive to emerging basic problems; they also take into account practical questions and problems of the African continent. Thus, the BIGSAS Research Areas encompass basic, strategic and applied research. BIGSAS also contributes to the creation of an African universities' network. It brings together African and European networks and fosters partnership not only between the University of Bayreuth and universities in Africa but also between the universities in Africa themselves. Six African Partner Universities, namely the
This chapter examines the revolution in self-representation across the cyber-space engendered by ... more This chapter examines the revolution in self-representation across the cyber-space engendered by the advent of new interactive social medias. It argues that in the attempt to face the challenges of self-imaging in everyday life and in an era where discourses of “identities in flux” have become the norm, photographic trends on Facebook usage seek to portray a sense of coherence of the self through popular media practices. In this dimension, the new media spaces have provided a propitious space of autobiographic self-showing-narrating through a mixture of photos/texts in a way that deconstructs the privileges of self-narration hitherto available only to a privileged class of people. The self (and primarily the face) has thus become subject to a dynamic of personal and amateurish artistic practices that represent, from an existentialist perspective, the daily practices of self-making, un-making and re-making in articulating one’s (social) being.
The primacy of the novel as representation of the social, economic and political transmutations i... more The primacy of the novel as representation of the social, economic and political transmutations in postcolonial Africa can be explained through its propensity to assimilate other modes of artistic representation, turning it into an appropriate medium of generic fusion. Through the analysis of Sony Labou Tansi's L'Etat honteux and Ngugi wa Thiong'o's Wizard of the Crow, this article seeks to examine the generic configuration novels undergo as they attempt to represent extreme social conditions and the paradoxes of the post-colonial political space. With close regard to their narrative structures, this paper argues that although these texts are primarily known as "novels", they make recourse to corporal and theatrical forms that broaden their possible modes of apprehension beyond that of the novel. Tansi transforms the novelistic genre to express inhuman political violence while Ngugi's theatrical bodies expose the sham of postcolonial politics. In anothe...
The phenomenon of violence constitutes a universal human scourge. Even in contexts with a certain... more The phenomenon of violence constitutes a universal human scourge. Even in contexts with a certain level of historical, political and social advancement, violence threatens to overturn what society has taken considerable time to realize. Due to its complexity and the fact it is underlined by a distension of motifs, its representations in painting, plastic arts, poetry and fictional narratives encounter immense ethical and esthetic challenges. This study examined the question of the representation of human violence in Sony Labou Tansi’s L’Etat Honteux (The Shameful State), a post-independence African dictatorship novel. The central investigation concerned the violent transfiguration and dispossession of the subject’s body by political technologies of death. Our analysis was related to Achille Mbembe’s concept of ‘necropolitics’ whereby sovereignty degenerates into the division of subject bodies into those who have to live and those who must die. The textual analyses led to a number of...
Muiraquitã - Revista de Letras e Humanidades
Palavras-chave: Mario Vargas Llosa, Colonialidad
Muiraquitã - Revista de Letras e Humanidades
Palavras-chave: Mario Vargas Llosa, Colonialidad
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Papers by gilbert ndi shang