The world errant and the creolization of Africa
Item
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Title
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The world errant and the creolization of Africa
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:89dc8d75a375:09984
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identifier
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10099
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Creator
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Galvagni, Katherine Farley,
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Contributor
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Edouard Glissant
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Date
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2009
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Modern language | African literature | Abdourahman A. Waberi | Africa | Creolization | Edouard Glissant | Fatou Diome | Soukous
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Abstract
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This dissertation demonstrates how Glissant's theory of Relation is imagined within the contemporary African novel. Particular attention has been paid to novels by Abdourahman A. Waberi and Fatou Diome which highlight themes of errantry, migration, identity and belonging. These examples provide awareness for Glissant's theory and his oeuvre. This theory is applied as a counter discourse to hegemonic forces of globalization and zenophobia that are described within the narratives, and also as a means to respond to the need, or calling, to subvert archaic views of Africa, views that are articulated by Mudimbe in his theoretical work on the Western will to power that have traditionally controlled Africa from a Western perspective.;According to Glissant, the theory of Relation cannot be proven, thus to claim to provide evidence of his theory is disingenuous. However, the theory of Relation is a sense of multicultural belonging that lives in the imaginary and is in the process of becoming. Glissant explains that although Relation lives in the imaginary, creolization lives in the reel. This world in creolization is the Tout-Monde and it is expressed here as the world errant, a world unabashed by walls and borders. An annual literay festival, The Time of the Writer, taking place in Durban, South Africa is in its eleventh year. Glissant's attendance at the first festival, and the subsequent attendance of many contemporary African writers within the past decade, provides a point of departure with which to measure the growth of the Tout-Monde on the African continent.;Finally, this dissertation takes the example of Congo music, Soukous in particular, to describe how creolization is taking place on the African continent. Congo music adds a new dimension to a traditional literary application of Glissant's theory. The analysis of the creolization process that brought African rhythm first to the Caribbean, then back to Africa, and finally into the Tout-Monde, as an element of the new genre, World Beat, is an indispensable one in creating an encompassing view from inside Africa, as a continent whose participation in the Tout-Monde can now be recognized.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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French
