This study examines the functions of objects in a selection of British colonial travel accounts about Africa. The works discussed were published between 1863 and 1908 and include travelogues by John Hanning Speke, Verney Lovett Cameron, Henry Morton Stanley, Mary Henrietta Kingsley, Ewart Scott Grogan, Mary Hall and Constance Larymore. The author argues that objects are deeply involved in the construction of pre-modern and modern spheres that the travelling subject moves between. The objects in the travel accounts are studied in relation to a contextual background of Victorian commodity and object culture, epitomised by the 1851 Great Exhibition and the birth of the modern anthropological museum. The four analysis chapters investigate the roles of objects in ethnographical and geographical writing, in ideological discussions about the transformative powers of colonial trade, and in narratives about the arrival of the book in the colonial periphery. As the analysis shows, however, objects tend not to behave as they are expected to do. Instead of marking temporal differences, descriptions of objects are typically unstable and riddled with contradictions and foreground the ambivalence that characterises colonial literature.

薩爾曼•魯希迪的《摩爾人的最後嘆息》運用想像與史實描繪出一個印度家族的故事。這個四代家族所經歷的時間橫跨整個二十世紀，一般說來在這個世紀前半部分大多數國家經歷了殖民統治與帝國主義，而在後半部分則面臨去殖民與國家主義的風潮。因此，書中論及的這些殖民與後殖民的經驗也引發了一些重要的議題，像是混雜、多元文化，和國家主義。霍米•巴巴提出‘閾限空間’這個概念有助於對這本小說做深入的評價與賞析，特別是能促進對以上三個議題更深入而具體的認知。霍米•巴巴將許多概念納入‘閾限空間’這個總括性術語的討論範圍，因此本論文將從中擷取三個概念來論述這本小說，分別是混雜、文化差異、及國家意識。 本論文的導論先闡釋霍米•巴巴‘閾限空間’這個概念並且發掘魯希迪這本小說中許多重要的後殖民議題。這些議題與‘閾限空間’ 這個概念的關係密不可分，因此這個概念所延伸論及的理論便可用於理解並賞析這本小說。接下來的三章將分別以混雜、文化差異、及國家意識來發掘並建立《摩爾人的最後嘆息》與‘閾限空間’這概念之間的關係。第二章將藉由霍米•巴巴對殖民者與被殖民者之間的矛盾關係的論述進而深入理解小說中意欲呈現的殖民混雜與後殖民混雜。這種矛盾的關係理論上與他者化的過程有關聯，在這過程中身分認同與主體化不論是在後殖民理論還是此本小說中都是值得商榷的議題。第三章利用霍米•巴巴的‘文化差異’來重新檢視並且重新定義所謂的多元文化。魯希迪在小說中巧妙地將現在的印度重疊在過去由摩爾人統治的西班牙之上，這種後殖民的羊皮紙影像便可藉由文化差異與多元文化的概念得到更具體的意義。此外，閾限空間也是一種不同文化的接觸地帶，這樣的中介地域也有助於理解魯希迪在流行文化與高等文化間所採的折衷主義。第四章則著重於探討霍米•巴巴如何發展閾限空間與國家意識的理論關係，還有國家與敘事之間的關係。此章也將利用國家與敘事的關係來理解魯希迪是如何在這本小說中運用許多文學技巧在小說世界中重構國家形象，尤其是文本互涉的材料與歷史的指涉這樣的技巧。 最後的總論將重申在本論文中提及的一些重要的論點，藉由重申這些論點來總結論文提及的一些重要概念的大意，並且讓魯希迪的《摩爾人的最後嘆息》與巴巴的‘閾限空間’這個文本與理論相互闡釋並佐證的關係更為清楚。 / Salman Rushdie’s The Moor’s Last Sigh delineates, fictively and historically, a family saga in India. The four-generation family approximately spans the twentieth century that, generally speaking, has gone through colonization and imperialism in the first half as well as de-colonization and nationalism in the second half. Accordingly, they bring forth a few significant issues, such as hybridity, multiculturalism, and nationalism. Homi Bhabha’s idea of ‘liminal space’ is conducive to the evaluation of the novel, and expressly to the discussion of the above three concepts in a more specific way. He subsumes a lot of ideas under the umbrella term ‘liminal space’, so this thesis is to extract three ideas—hybridity, cultural difference, and nationness—to elaborate on the novel. The introductory chapter expounds Bhabha’s idea of ‘liminal space’ and also explores a few post-colonial issues in the novel. The issues in question are related to Bhabha’s idea of ‘liminal space’, from which some key ideas are derived so as to appreciate the fictional world Rushdie constructs in the novel. The following three chapters are respectively based on the three liminality-related ideas, whereby to find the relation of the novel with Bhabha’s ‘liminal space’. The second chapter is to obtain a deeper apprehension of colonial and post-colonial hybridity through Bhabha’s argumentation concerning the ambivalent relationship between colonizer and colonized. The ambivalent relationship is theoretically associated with the othering process. In the process, identification and subjectification are moot questions not only in post-colonial theory but in the novel as well. The third chapter is intended to make use of Bhabha’s idea of ‘cultural difference’ to review and redefine what the word ‘multiculturalism’ is like. In turn, it helps to shed much more light upon Rushdie’s palimpsesting modern India over Moorish Spain. In addition, liminal space refers to a contact zone of cultural difference that elucidates Rushdie’s eclecticism between popular culture and high culture in the novel. The fourth chapter is to discuss the way Bhabha colligates liminal space and the idiolect ‘nationness’ and the way he relates the idea of nation to narration. The relationship between nation and narration is applied to the understanding of how Rushdie utilizes literary techniques, especially intertextual materials and historical allusions, for a re-construction of a nation in a fictional world. The conclusive chapter is to reiterate some important arguments that are germane to the above key concepts and to the reciprocal clarification between Bhabha’s ‘liminal space’ and Rushdie’s The Moor’s Last Sigh.

Until recently much of the literature recording the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the Eastern Cape focused purely on frontier conflict and missionary activity, ignoring the evolving culture of the colonized people. But as Somande Fikeni declares, “[i]t is important when celebrating the country’s heritage to look beyond battle sites, monuments and wars and to pay attention to South Africa’s intellectuals and knowledge producers” (quoted in Hollands 4). This is indeed the central purpose of my research. This thesis seeks to examine the influence of Christianity on early South African writing by Africans and the ambivalence with which Christianity is often treated in their work. In South Africa, as elsewhere in Africa, Christianity played a central role in the development of African literature through the influence of mission schools and printing presses. Thus from the outset the development of written literature was inseparable from the spread of Christianity. Nineteenth- and early twentieth-century writing by Africans reflects this: Christian idioms, biblical stories and images colour their work and yet are not employed unthinkingly. Each of the writers whom I will explore has a complex and at times ambivalent relationship with Christianity, and they use religious discourse for a variety of ends, some of them clearly at odds with their origins in the “civilizing mission” of Europe. According to Yunus Momoniat, “Their works . . . are the beginnings of an engagement not only with the world of words on a page, but also with the politics of literacy itself” (1). The subject of this research is three Xhosa writers from the Eastern Cape: the Reverend Tiyo Soga (1829-1871), the renowned novelist and “National Poet” S. E. K. Mqhayi (1875-1945), and the little-known poet Nontsizi Mgqwetho (Dates uknown, writings 1920-1929), who is described by Mbeki as “the most prolific woman Xhosa poet of the twentieth century” (6). The reason for focusing on the Eastern Cape is because the Xhosa “were the first Bantu people to be exposed to Christian proselytising and to receive a literate education” (Gerard 24). As a result much of the early literature in isiXhosa consisted of translations of the Bible and other Christian tracts, and such “improving” texts as Pilgrim’s Progress. In other words, it is in this work that the first roots of the influence of Christianity in southern Africa can be traced.

This qualitative study focuses on two questions: a) Do present-day Shona still subscribe to the world-view of their ancestors? b) How does this world-view relate to that of the modern (Western) world? Interviews were conducted with government representatives, chiefs in Masvingo Province and people in all walks of life. Virtually all interviewees, even when participating in the "modern" sector (including Christianity), still subscribe to the traditional system. Government, however, has adopted the model of the pre-Independence government, with some concessions to tradition. The traditional world-view (emphasising its key symbols, blood and soil) and the history of the two dominant tribes in Masvingo Province are outlined. A case study of a current chieftaincy dispute illustrates the dilemma. Conclusion: searching dialogue between the two belief systems is needed to resolve the potentially creative ambivalence. Some key issues are suggested as starting points for such dialogue. / M.A. (Religious Studies)

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.