Languages, Literatures, & Cultures Theses and Dissertations
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Item SANNI KADDU : A LA REDECOUVERTE DU DISCOURS FEMINISTE AU SENEGAL(2011) Diop-Hashim, Aissatou N/A; Orlando, Valerie; French Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Senegalese feminism of today has started a very long an arduous debate. Some critics are theorizing that there is no feminist theory in Senegal. Others will go even further, stating that given the absence of a feminist theory, it would be difficult to speak of true feminism in Senegal. However, a fairly thorough search brings us to the following conclusion: Senegalese feminism is a hybrid. It is between the mainly Nigerian, African feminism and French or Western feminism of the 1970s. In the field of literature it is akin to post-colonialism. Aminata Ndiaye, a young Senegalese writer said in an interview with the women's journal Amina that in terms of feminism, Senegal is still fifty years behind France. This is quite shocking, but completely correct. In terms of progress and theories, Senegal is still under the French influence. In addition, the lack of more recent theories to which many Senegalese feminists can identify with causes them still to refer to Simone de Beauvoir. This dissertation intends to take a look at these findings; it also intends to shed a light on Senegalese traditionalist practices while going to the rediscovery of feminism in Senegal. During our research, we have found it necessary to rename Senegalese feminism that we named famillisme in so far as it invites both men and women to remedy a situation which is far from ennobling women. It is therefore an invitation to best love Senegalese women in order to enhance unity and family welfare. We have identified two groups of feminists in Senegal. The first group, mainly composed of illiterate people, is concerned with the revolutionary aspect, i.e. protest campaigns, propaganda and awareness campaigns. They were designed to "wake up" their sisters to come out of their torpor. Their movement is reminiscent of the French Revolution. The second group, which is the main focus of the second part of this study, is the heart of famillisme. It consists of the intellectual elite and their take on the theoretical aspects of feminism and the dissemination of information through writing. This group consists both of exiles like writer Ken Bugul who will be the subject of the first part of this thesis. Other writers like Aminata Sow Fall remained in Senegal. They deplore and denounce the injustices through their writings. Ken Bugul, because of her status as an exiled writer, seems less worried about censorship of the Senegalese society which requires a measure of restraint on the part of women. She uses madness as a feminist weapon to combat patriarchal traditionalism. Her speech is full of indecent assaults and devoid of the euphemisms that are found in the writings of Aminata Sow Fall which advocate a fair sharing of roles and tasks between men and women for an improved universal status of women. A quite singular aspect which appears to be unique to the famillisme is the active involvement of feminist men in the liberation of women from patriarchal domination. Sembène Ousmane, who is rather known as the father of African Cinema is the feminist par excellence. His movie Moolaadé appears to be a nod to the concept of male domination of Bourdieu but with women in power. In giving us an overview of female domination in his last film Moolaadé whose analysis will close this dissertation, Sembène takes us to night school through his cinema. He shows one of the most disturbing of cultural and Islamic traditions in Senegal: female genital mutilation. Excision is the main theme which highlights the takeover of an extraordinary woman against a domineering patriarchal traditionalist society. Our study will follow these three pioneers of the famillisme or feminist discourse and their feminist roles in Senegal where women - traditionally standing in a circle as spectators - patiently await that the group of men sitting under the palaver tree enables them to "throw their voice/sanni kaddu" once the debate has ended.++++++ Le féminisme sénégalais de nos jours a fait couler beaucoup d'encre. Certains critiques théorisent qu'il n'y a pas de théorie féministe au Sénégal. D'autres iront plus loin, déclarant qu'étant donnée l'absence d'une théorie féministe, il serait difficile de parler de vrai féminisme au Sénégal. Cependant, une recherche assez poussée nous amène à la conclusion suivante: le féminisme sénégalais est hybride. Il se trouve à cheval entre le féminisme africain, principalement nigérian, et le féminisme français ou occidental des années 1970. Sur le plan littéraire il s'apparente au postcolonialisme. Aminata Ndiaye, une jeune écrivaine sénégalaise constate dans une interview avec le journal féminin Amina qu'en matière de féminisme, le Sénégal est toujours cinquante ans derrière la France. Cette remarque est assez choquante, mais tout à fait correcte. Le wagon du Sénégal est toujours à la remorque de la locomotive française. En plus, le manque de théories plus récentes auxquelles elles peuvent s'identifier fait que beaucoup de féministes sénégalaises font toujours référence à Simone de Beauvoir. Cette thèse se donne comme but de jeter le regarder sur ces constats, d'y jeter la lumière tout en allant à la redécouverte du féminisme au Sénégal. Au cours de nos recherches, nous avons trouvé nécessaire de rebaptiser le féminisme sénégalais que nous avons nommé famillisme dans la mesure où il invite aussi bien les hommes que les femmes à remédier une situation qui est loin d'ennoblir la femme et de la mieux aimer afin de parfaire l'unité et le bien-être familial. Nous avons identifié deux groupes de féministes au Sénégal: les analphabètes qui s'occupent de l'aspect révolutionnaire, c'est-à-dire les campagnes de protestation, les propagandes et les campagnes de sensibilisations. Elles ont pour but de « réveiller » leurs soeurs afin de les sortir de leur torpeur. Elles ne manquent de nous rappeler les françaises de la Révolution. Le deuxième groupe auquel s'intéresse cette présente étude constitue le coeur du famillisme. Il est constitué de l'élite, les intellectuelles qui s'occupent de l'aspect théorique et de la dénonciation à travers l'écriture. Ce groupe est constitué à la fois d'expatriées comme l'écrivaine Ken Bugul qui sera l'objet de la première partie de cette thèse, d'écrivaines restées au Sénégal qui, comme Aminata Sow Fall, subissent les injustices qu'elles constatent, déplorent et dénoncent grâce à leur plume. Ken Bugul, du fait de sa situation d'exilée, semble moins se préoccuper de la censure de la société sénégalaise qui exige une certaine retenue de la part des femmes. Elle utilise la folie comme arme féministe de lutte contre le traditionalisme patriarcal. Son discours est dépourvu de la pudeur que l'on retrouve chez l'écrivaine du terroir Aminata Sow Fall qui suggère un partage équitable des rôles et des tâches et une amélioration du statut universel de la femme. Un aspect assez singulier qui semble être propre au famillisme est la participation active des hommes féministes à la libération des femmes du joug patriarcal. Sembène Ousmane, qui est plutôt connu comme le père du cinéma africain est le féministe par excellence. Il semble faire un clin d'oeil à La domination masculine de Bourdieu en nous donnant un aperçu de la domination féminine dans son dernier film Moolaadé dont l'analyse clôturera cette thèse. Sembène nous amène à l'école du soir qu'est le cinéma pour nous montrer une des tares de la tradition culturelle et islamique au Sénégal : les mutilations génitales. L'excision en est le thème principal qui met en exergue la prise de pouvoir d'une femme extraordinaire contre une société traditionaliste patriarcale dominatrice. Notre étude suivra ces trois pionniers du famillisme ou discours féministe et leurs oeuvres à la recherche du féminisme au Sénégal où les femmes --traditionnellement debout en cercle comme des spectatrices-- attendent patiemment que le groupe des hommes assis sous l'arbre à palabres leur permette de « jeter leur voix/sanni kaddu» une fois le débat terminé.Item LES VOIX DU VOLCAN : L'ECRITURE DU MAL-ETRE DANS LE ROMAN FEMININ DE L'ILE DE LA REUNION(2010) Rebourcet, Severine Marie-Francoise; Orlando, Valerie K.; French Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In my dissertation I examine how Creole women in the Reunion Island confront problems of racial and social oppression in their novels from the 1970s to the 1990s. I focus on their particular preoccupations with the haunting persistence of colonial racism in the lives of Creole individuals. Their autobiographical accounts represent a sample of Reunionese postcolonial literature and the range of issues their novels address also reflects the tragic history of the island. In their testimonies, the authors especially stress the struggle against cultural censorship, self-denial, racial discriminations and, above all, against the destructuration of Creole identity. Even though I concentrate my study on three novels, Anne Cheynet's Les Muselés (1977) Rose-May Nicole's Laetitia (1986), and Monique Boyer's Métisse (1992), I draw parallels with other women writers' works from the French Caribbean, Mauritius and the United States. Thus I demonstrate that this inferiority feeling looms over any societies that suffered the cruelties of slavery and injustices of colonialism as the past suffering and traumas are passed from generations on.Item Entre lettres et portraits: Madame Du Deffand, auteur?(2009) Zaghdoun, Eva; Benharrech, Sarah; French Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)My subject is about a famous woman who lived during the eighteenth century, Marie Du Deffand (1696-1780). During the eighteenth century, Madame Du Deffand was well known mostly because she was an important "salonnière". Her "salon" was one of the most frequented by the philosophers, and the scholars who wanted to be well seen in society. Also, during this century, letters were very important in the `'salon'' because they were both a way of social communication and a way for literary creation. In my thesis, I will show how Madam Du Deffand was a remarquable woman of the eighteenth century whose story needs to be told. In fact, even though she always refused to publish, her perceptive portraits of her contemporaries and her correspondence with Voltaire and Horace Walpole could be considered as work which distinguish her and give her the status of an author.Item Ciceronian Rhetoric and the Art of Medieval French Hagiography(2007-12-11) McKinley, Kathryn; Campangne, Herve T; Modern French Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In the lives of the saints, it is clear that medieval hagiography reflects the statement, "Antiquity has a twofold life in the Middle Ages: reception and transformation." The vernacular poems of the virgin martyrs (Clemence of Barking's The Life of St. Catherine and the anonymous lives of St. Agnes and St. Barbara) as well as the prose biographies of the Beguines (Jacques de Vitry's The Life of Marie d'Oignies and Philippine de Porcellet's The Life of Saint Douceline) are testaments to this process as they reveal medieval perspectives on such topics as pagan learning and religion. Hagiography from the 12th to the 14th centuries presents a privileged view of a society defining itself against the past. Medieval hagiography is a product of writers trained in or somehow familiar with the treatises of the Ciceronian rhetorical tradition that were the standard textbooks of the time. Although often dismissed for their similarities, these works should be carefully considered by students of French literature given their precise following of precepts that govern their structure and content. Simply put, rhetoric once represented the whole of literary criticism, and one cannot read these texts without an appreciation for this fact. A rhetorical analysis of these texts highlights their literary value and illustrates their role in the history of ideas.Item The Spanish Shahrazad and her Entourage: The Powers of Storytelling Women in Libro de los engaños de las mujeres(2004-11-24) Hancock, Zennia Désirée; Benito-Vessels, Carmen; Spanish Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: THE SPANISH SHAHRAZAD AND HER ENTOURAGE: THE POWERS OF STORYTELLING WOMEN IN LIBRO DE LOS ENGANOS DE LAS MUJERES Zennia Desiree Hancock, Doctor of Philosophy, 2004 Dissertation Directed By: Associate Professor Carmen Benito-Vessels Department of Spanish and Portuguese The anonymous Libro de los engaños e asayamientos de las mugeres (LEM) is a collection of exempla consisting of a frame tale and twenty-three interpolated tales. It forms part of the Seven Sages/Sindibad cycle, shares source material with the Arabic Alf layla wa layla (A Thousand and One Nights), and was ordered translated from Arabic into Romance by Prince Fadrique of Castile in 1253. In the text, females may be seen as presented according to the traditional archetypes of Eve and the Virgin Mary; however, the ambivalence of the work allows that it be interpreted as both misogynous and not, which complicates the straightforward designation of its female characters as "good" and bad." Given this, the topos of Eva/Ave as it applies to this text is re-evaluated. The reassessment is effected by exploring the theme of ambivalence and by considering the female characters as hybrids of both western and eastern tradition. The primary female character of the text, dubbed the "Spanish Shahrazad," along with other storytelling women in the interpolated tales, are proven to transcend binary paradigms through their intellect, which cannot be said to be inherently either good or evil, and which is expressed through speech acts and performances. Chapter I reviews the historical background of Alfonsine Spain and the social conditions of medieval women, and discusses the portrayal of females in literature, while Chapter II focuses on the history of the exempla, LEM, and critical approaches to the text, and then identifies Bakhtin's theory of the carnivalesque and Judith Butler's speech act theory of injurious language as appropriate methodologies, explaining how both are nuanced by feminist perspectives. A close reading of the text demonstrates how it may be interpreted as a misogynous work. Chapter III applies the theoretical tools in order to problematise the misogynous reading of the text and to demonstrate the agency of its female speaker-performers; the analysis centres on the Spanish Shahrazad, who represents a female subjectivity that transcends binary depictions of women and represents a holistic ideal of existence that is reflected in the calculated, harmonized use of both her intellect and corporeality.Item Alfonsina Storni: Analisis y contextualizacion del estilo impresionista en sus cronicas(2004-07-28) Mendez, Claudia Edith; Messinger Cypess, Sandra; Spanish Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Alfonsina Storni (1892-1938) was a seminal Argentinean author who had a deep influence both on her readers and other writers. Best-know for her poetic works, she also wrote poetry, theater, and works in prose. The purpose of this dissertation is to discuss her prose works, heretofore classified as articles, notes or essays, under the literary genre of chronicles, and analyze Storni's style in these works, which is best described as literary impressionism. The corpus studied in comprised of 35 brief chronicles published in the magazine La Nota and some 30 more published in the Argentine newspaper La Nación from 1919-1937. These two groups form the majority of Storni's chronicles. I also consider some chronicles which appeared in magazines such as Fray Mocho, Atlántida and Hebe. I addition I discuss two of her lectures, "Desovillando la raíz porteña" and "Entre un par de maletas a medio abrir y las manecillas de un reloj". Some of the important themes or these works are women in the labor market, the place of women in modern society, and literary creation. The first chapter is dedicated to the definition of "chronicle" and "literary impressionism." The second chapter surveys the critical literature on Storni in order to determine why her prose works have not previously been studied, and the third, fourth, and fifth analyze her chronicles and present an account or the historical circumstances in which they were produced. All of her chronicles, some 80 in total, are written in an impressionist style and maintain a coherence of form and consistency in the themes they address. Careful analysis of these chronicles leads to the conclusion that Storni's chronicles are an integral part of her literary opus, and that Storni was one or the most important literary creators in the history of Argentina, an original feminist and a painter of the modern life.