Scripting shame in African literature / Stephen L. Bishop.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bishop, Stephen L., 1968- author.

Series:

Liverpool scholarship online.

Liverpool scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

African literature--History and criticism.

African literature.

Shame in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (280 pages).

Place of Publication:

Liverpool : Liverpool University Press, 2021.

Summary:

Shame is one of the most frequent underlying emotions expressed throughout sub-Saharan African literature, yet studies of such literature almost universally ignore the topic in favour of a focus on the struggle for independence & the postcolonial situation, encompassing a search for individual, national, & ethnic identities | questions of corruption, changing gender roles, & conflicts between so-called tradition & modernity. Shame, however, is not antithetical to these investigations &, in fact, the persistent trope of shame undergirds many of them. This book locates these expressions of shame in sub-Saharan African literature & shows how its diverse literary representations underscore shame's function as a fulcrum in the mutual constitution of subject & community on the continent.

Contents:

Cover

Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface - Negotiating Shame

Part I - The Many Faces of Shame

Chapter 1 - Differentiating Shame(s)

Shame versus Guilt

Shame's Complicated Relation to Humiliation

Shame and Its Others

Chapter 2 - Shame in Africa

The Shameful Absence of Africa

Akan Shame and Guilt - An African Communal Perspective

Three African Shames

Chapter 3 - Fanon's Shame

The Shameful of the Earth

Fanon's Shameful Guilt

Chapter 4 - Contemporary Views of Traditional Shame

Contemporary Research on Shame in Africa

The Non-event of Contemporary Research on Shame in Africa

Shame and a Sense of Community

Doing Shame versus Having Been Shamed

Traditions of Shame and Shaming

The Shameful and Shameless Role(s) of Tradition(s)

Part II - Penned in: Shame in the African Novel

Chapter 5 - Shaming Colonial Africa

Strident Shaming

Religious Shame

Chapter 6 - More of the Shame in Postcolonial Africa

Chapter 7 - Women's Virtue: Engendering Shame

Chapter 8 - Excess(ive) Shame and Shamelessness

"Nous ne lisons pas cette saloppe"

Sony Labou Tansi and the Discourse of Shame

"Laughing At" versus "Laughing With"

Chapter 9 - Naming and Shaming Violence and Corruption

Corrupting Shame

Chapter 10 - The Shame of Which We Shall Never Now Speak

Shame's Epilogue

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Also issued in print: 2021.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-80085-232-0

1-80034-549-6

OCLC:

1241558483