https://cris.library.msu.ac.zw//handle/11408/26 2026-04-10T20:53:53Z 2026-04-10T20:53:53Z Moyo, Tafara https://cris.library.msu.ac.zw//handle/11408/2658 2022-06-27T13:49:05Z 2015-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Narrating selves: Alterity and Simultaneity In Lutanga Shaba’s Secret of a Woman’s Soul, Peter Godwin’s Mukiwa: A White Boy In Africa, Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk To Freedom And Barack Obama’s Dreams From My Father Authors: Moyo, Tafara Abstract: This study is an analysis of auto-biographical narratives reinterpreted as auto-heterobiography to open space to an exploration and interrogation of alterity. Analysis of these narratives operated via postmodernist, postcolonial and philosophical discourses.The problem of narrating traumatized, political and hybrid or cosmopolitan selves was sited as resident in the primordial polytropos of the human experience which exposes narratives as aporetic and incomplete once postured as closed or as metanarratives.This study concluded that narratives ultimately assume a paradoxical stance which neither opposes nor accedes to auto-heterobiographical narratives as possible or impossible.The narratives analysed posed the human experience as marked by ambiguity, heteroglossia, polyphony and ambivalence, thus compelling the conclusion that no experience is knowable via a single version of narration.This study posed alterity as both an affirmation and a question of the question of originary, unified and coherent selves.

2015-01-01T00:00:00Z Moyo, Tafara Mkandla, Sikhululekile https://cris.library.msu.ac.zw//handle/11408/2138 2022-06-27T13:49:05Z 2015-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: ‘Remaining a man…’ representations of the constructions of men and masculinities in contemporary Zimbabwean literature: an analysis of Tagwira’s The uncertainty of hope (2006); Chikwava’s Harare north (2009) and Nyota et al’s Hunting in foreign lands (2010). Authors: Mkandla, Sikhululekile Abstract: This study focuses on the crisis of masculinity during Zimbabwe’s post year 2000 socio-economic and political degeneration. Through a masculinist re-reading of Tagwira’s The Uncertainty of Hope (2006), Chikwava’s Harare North (2010) and Nyota et al’s Hunting in Foreign Lands (2010) I seek to show the difficulties men face in sustaining the normative masculine roles as providers and protectors of families, communities and the nation within a context of political insecurity, job uncertainty, high unemployment, hyper-inflation, paralysis of basic services and scarcity of basic commodities. These crises undermined the legitimacy of patriarchal power by eroding men’s capacity as providers, a factor upon which their dominance of women has traditionally been premised. Already empowered by the global movement for their emancipation, women resolutely rose to fill the provider gap in ways that displaced men from an ages-old authority that hinged on women’s dependent status. I argue therefore that with this marked emergence of feminine masculinities, the crisis experiences inevitably fostered a new gender order within which it proved difficult to “…remain a man” within the confines of normative masculinity. The study is theoretically grounded in post-colonial theory and social constructionism, both theories which enable the tracing of the changes that have affected the homogenizing authority of patriarchal ideology upon which male supremacy is based. It is evident that not all men benefit from the assumed patriarchal privilege as they are unequally positioned on the patriarchal hierarchy. The post-colonial lens also enables an analysis of the entwinement between national and masculine identity to show how national instability disrupts men’s ability to meet their normative masculinity roles as providers and protectors while by drawing from social constructionism I also show how both national and male identity are not cast in stone but are unstable and subject to societal shifts and contingent imbalances. There is evidence in the selected texts of the entangled relationship between man and nation with both being in an unhealthy state of crisis, with their grand narratives subject to question and necessitating the re-envisioning of new orders. Through this study I have depicted that masculinity as identity is not as simple and linear as patriarchal ideology often conditions us to believe.

2015-01-01T00:00:00Z Mkandla, Sikhululekile Mhiti, Timothy https://cris.library.msu.ac.zw//handle/11408/357 2022-06-27T13:49:05Z 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Selves in the making: a critical analysis of Barack Obama's ascendancy to power Authors: Mhiti, Timothy Abstract: The research was designed to explore how Barack Obama constructs his self identities which enable him to get to power. This construction is reflected in his self life-writings including Dreams from My Father: A story of Race and Inheritance, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the AmericanDream and Change We Can Believe In: Barack Obama’s Plan to RenewAmerica’s Promise. Postcolonial theories on identity construction were used for the reason that they reflect the multiple nature of individual identities. Theories of narratology were also used in a bid to highlight the politics that inheres in self life-writing. The dissertation’s thrust therefore was on how Obama deploys narrative that suits his purpose-being the President of the United States of America. It was therefore concluded that autobiography, through narrative, can play a critical role in constructing individual identities

2013-01-01T00:00:00Z Mhiti, Timothy Maidza, Peter https://cris.library.msu.ac.zw//handle/11408/256 2022-06-27T13:49:05Z 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Ideology and the representation of black male characters in selected african american literary texts: Bontemps’s Black thunder; Wright’s Black boy; Walker’s The third life of Grange Copeland and Morrison’s Song of Solomon Authors: Maidza, Peter Abstract: The study explores the enactment of black masculinities as represented across time in Black Thunder, Black Boy, The Third Life of Grange Copeland and Song of Solomon. Two theoretical frameworks have been used, namely Black Marxism and Connell’s masculinity theory. Male writers’ portrayal of black male characters has been analysed using both Black Marxism and Connell’s (1995) theory of masculinity. However, female writers’ representations of black males do not show elements of radicalism that can be linked to Black Marxism. What has been established is that ways of being a ‘man’ and how masculinities are negotiated differ according to history, race, age, culture among other variables. Coupled with ideology, various representations of black males are shown in the selected four African American literary texts. Given that the concept of masculinity has been explored from slavery to the post emancipation era, it has been noted that each different epoch has its own forms of masculinity. Claims of location are also responsible for spawning different masculine identities. Black masculinities exercised in the American Deep South are not necessarily the same as those performed in the North. Interestingly, African American female writers have also had their say on black masculinities, in their various representations of the American male of African descent. These female writers have their different areas of convergence and divergence with male writers in their representation of black masculinities. The black male has been portrayed exercising violent and hyper sexual masculinities. The degree of black men’s misogyny highlighted in the two texts by female writers is unparalleled in Black Thunder and Black Boy. Such phenomena attest to the underlying imprints of ideology in the depiction of the African American male characters.

2013-01-01T00:00:00Z Maidza, Peter