درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Theorizing the roots of feminism in the specific African experience has been a quest by a number of prominent African female writers. They have avidly reflected on it in their various creative and critical outputs. The inherent ideological differences among these writers in their quest for an African variant of feminism, owing to the peculiarities of their respective sociocultural settings, has led to what critics have contentiously regarded as ‘voices’ in African feminism. Against this backdrop, on the one hand, Charles Nnolim (1994) [2010] argues that feminism in African literature is “a house divided”. On the other hand, Chioma Opara (2013), in contention with the former, posits that it is rather “a house integrated”. The present study thus establishes the two critical poles as wherein the entire gamut of critical and theoretical points of contentions in African feminism is largely subsumed. Neither of the two paradigms is discredited in favor or defense of the other, noting their huge critical substances. This paper rather attempts to strike a balance in-between, ultimately with a view to delineating its own critical perspective. By drawing instances from three prominent Nigerian female writings, the study moves away from the aforementioned established critical patterns to a novel paradigm which conceives feminism in African literature, with specific reference to the Nigerian context, as rather ‘a house of affirmations and denials.’.

Disability has an omnipresence in our daily lives, from our encounters with people with disabilities in real-life experiences to encountering them in novels, movies, and video games. After the Vietnam War was pursued by movements like Civil Rights and social discourses revolving around race, gender, and sexuality gained momentum in the 1970s, there was an urge for a civil rights-based model for disability. Previously, disability was considered a physical or mental deviance in the individual, an affliction to be cured or eliminated. This medical model gave its place to a social model, in which the social, political, and cultural environment rendered people with impairments disabled. Recently, some theorists have denounced drawing lines between the social and medical models and instead propose a liminal cultural model, believing that this mixed paradigm is the only model that does justice to the lived experiences of people with disabilities. The present study aims at analyzing John Steinbeck’s novella, Of Mice and Men. It investigates how Lennie, a person with a cognitive disability, is treated and the challenges he faces, grounded on Garland-Thomson’s cultural theorization of disability through three concepts of feminism, otherness, and disability.

Анализируются особенности композиции малой прозы Л. Улицкой (на примере рассказов «Бронька», «Счастливые», «Бедные родственники»). Особое внимание уделяется особенностям изображения времени в рассказах, прошлому, которое для понимания мотивов и характеров героев Л. Улицкой оказывается порой важнее настоящего и даже будущего. Герои Л. Улицкой живут прошлым, ее проза пронизана ностальгической интонацией. Во многом это обусловлено вниманием автора к ценностях ушедшего мира, миру старой московской интеллигенции и новой советской, их сравнением и противопоставлением. Особенности хронотопа утверждают домашний интимный характер ее прозы, заключенной в рамки частной жизни отдельного человека (семьи). Традиционным для Л. Улицкой является прием ретроспективного изображения, позволяющий расширить границы художественного времени – пространства (из настоящего в прошлое). Временной поток в ее повествовании прерывист и неоднороден, характеризуется вниманием к ключевым событиям сюжета и временными лакунами относительно менее значительных, с точки зрения автора, событий. Интимная атмосфера внутреннего мира ее героев и ностальгические интонации их переживаний создают неповторимое своеобразие малой прозы Улицкой.