Manning the Nation. Father Figures in Zimbabwean Literature and Society

Justincox

Description

Gender studies in Zimbabwe have tended to focus on women and their comparative disadvantages and under-privilege. Assuming a broader perspective is necessary at a time when society has grown used to arguments rooted in binaries: colonised and coloniser, race and class, sex and gender, poverty and wealth, patriotism and terrorism, etc. The editors of Manning the Nation recognise that concepts of manhood can be used to repress or liberate, and will depend on historical and political imperatives; they seek to introduce a more nuanced perspective to the interconnectivity of patriarchy, masculinity, the nation, and its image. The essays in this volume come from well-respected academics working in a variety of fields. The ideals and concepts of manhood are examined as they are reflected in important Zimbabwean literary texts. However, if literature provides a rich vein for the analysis of masculinities, what makes this collection so interesting is the interplay of literary analysis with chapters that provide a critical examination of the ways in which ideals of manhood have been employed in, for example, leadership and the nation, as a justification for violent engagement, in the field of AIDS and HIV, etc. Manning the Nation: Father figures in Zimbabwean literature and society sets the stage for a fresh and engaging discourse essential at a time when new paradigms are needed.

Sujets

• Literary Criticism

Informations

• Publié par: Weaver Press
• Date de parution: 15 janvier 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781779221315
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Manning the Nation: Father figures in Zimbabwean literature and society

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Manning the Nation: Father figures in Zimbabwean literature and societ y

edited by

K IZITO Z. M UCHEMWA AND R OBERT M UPONDE

Published by Weaver Press, PO Box A1922, Avondale, Harare. Zimbabwe. 2007 www.weaverpresszimbabwe.com

Published in South Africa by Jacana Media (Pvt) Ltd PO Box 2004, Houghton, Johannesburg, 2041 www.jacana.co.za

© Each essay the author. This collection Robert Muponde and Kizito Z. Muchemwa

Typeset by Weaver Press Cover Design: Heath Manyepa, Harare. Printed by: Fingerprint Co-operative, Cape Town.

Weaver Press would like to express its gratitude to Hivos for their support in the develop- ment of their fiction and outreach programme.

All rights reserved. No part of the publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmit- ted in any form by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise – without the express written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978 1 77922 069 1 (Weaver Press) ISBN: 978 1 77009 500 7 (Jacana Media)

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Chapter9 : It couldn’t be anything innocent: Negotiating gender in patriarchal-racial spaces Ane M. Orbo Kirkegaard

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Chapter4 : ‘Sins of the Fathers’: Revealing family secrets in Mungoshi’s later fiction Pauline Dodgson-Katiyo

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Acknowledgements About the contributors

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Chapter7 : Mai Mujuru: Father of the nation? Lene Bull Christiansen

Chapter2 : Killing fathers Robert Muponde

Chapter6 : Fatherhood and nationhood: Joshua Nkomo and the re-imagination of the Zimbabwe nation Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni

Chapter3 : Of fathers and ancestors in Charles Mungoshi’s Waiting for the Rain Neil ten Kortenaar

Introduction : Manning the Nation Kizito Z. Muchemwa and Robert Muponde

Contents

Chapter1 : ‘Why don’t you tell the children a story?’: Father figures in the Zimbabwean short stories Kizito Z. Muchemwa

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Chapter5 : The strong healthy man: AIDS and self-delusion Lizzy Attree

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Chapter8 : Masculinities, race and violence in the making of Zimbabwe Jane L. Parpart

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Chapter10 : ‘Boys’: Performing manhood in Zimbabwean drama Praise Zenenga

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Chapter11 : ‘A man can try’: Negotiating manhoods in colonial urban spaces in Dambudzo Marechera’s The House of Hunger and Yvonne Vera’s Butterfly Burning Grace A. Musila 142

Chapter12 : The nature of fatherhood and manhood in Zimbabwean texts of pre-colonial and colonial settings Mickias Musiyiwa and Memory Chirere

Chapter13 : Intricate space: The father-daughter relationship in Zimbabwean literature and culture Anna Chitando and Angeline M. Madongonda

Bibliography

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This book is dedicated To all our fathers whose stories have not been told To all children who have spent their lost years Looking for lost fathers in graves and prisons of memory

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Acknowledgements

First and foremost, the editors would like to express thanks to each other for manfully broaching the subject of manhood at a time when much of the enthusiasm about ‘real men’ has been depleted by the current crisis in Zimbabwean nationalism and patriarchy. Our tentative probing of the sub- ject in August 2004 at the Zimbabwe Book Fair grounds, amid the noises of bees and hailers, and subsequent intellectual exchanges on the subject, have convinced us that the book has a place in the current struggles in Zimbabwe. Recent events have also convinced us that entrenched interests in Zimbabwean politics do get unsettled with good books, as even a mere biography by Edgar Tekere, one of the fathers of the nation, elicited hostile responses from a sterner father of the nation, Robert Mugabe: ‘The machin- ery is not biographies, the people who vote for us are the ordinary people of Zimbabwe’. (He imagined the book as a missile aimed to unseat him from power!) We want to thank Irene Staunton of Weaver Press, for her patience with the editors and contributors. With deadlines constantly shifting, some writers dropping out at critical stages in the development of the book, she did not give up. We must also thank Irene and Murray for their constant search for newer subjects, and the sacrifice this entails. May they live to be more than ‘8 plus 3’ years! Kizito would like to thank his colleague Robert Muponde, a tireless communicator who has managed to establish links across three continents on this book project. Robert thanks Kizito for his very stimulating insights and critical passion and a positive stubborn spirit without which he would not have been able to survive his life-threatening workplace and the depri- vations associated with hostile anti-intellectual cultures. It was Kizito’s idea to start collaborative research on the subject of ‘fathers and fathering of sto- ries’ in Zimbabwe. Our greatest indebtedness goes to the contributors who believed in the project. We thank them for their excellent essays, their time and energy, as well as for the contribution they have made to this growing field of study. Last but not least, we thank our families in allowing us to invest so much of their valuable time into a project that we hope will turn us into better men and kinder fathers.

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