Implicit in the concepts Incarnation, narrative, Christology, Shona women of Zimbabwe today is the God who acts in human history and in the contemporaneity and particularity of our being. The Incarnation as the embodiment of God in the world entails seizing the kairos opportunity to expand the view and to bear the burdens of responsibility. A theanthropocosmic Christology that captures the Shona holistic world-view is explored. The acme for a relational Christology is the imago Dei/Christi and the baptismal indicative and imperative. God is revealed in various manifestations of creation. Human identity and dignity is the flipside of God's attributes. Theanthropocosmic Christology as pluralistic, differential and radical brings about a dialectic between the whole and its parts, the uniqueness of the individual, communal ontology and epistemology, the local and the universal, orthodoxy and orthopraxis, Christology and soteriology. God mediates in the contingency of particularity. Emphasis is on life-affirmation rather than sex determination of Jesus as indicated by theologies of liberation and inculturation. At the interface gender, ethnicity, class and creed, God transcends human limitedness and artificial boundaries in creating catholic space and advocating all-embracing apostolic action. Difference is appreciated for the richness it brings both to the individual and the community. Hegemonic structures and borderless texts are view with suspicion as totalising grand~narratives and exclusivist by using generic language. The kairos in dialogue with the Incarnation is seizing the moment to expand the view and to share the burdens, joys and responsibility in a community of equal discipleship. In a hermeneutic of engagement and suspicion, prophetic witness is the hallmark of Christian discipleship and of a Christology that culminates in liberative praxis. The Christology that emerges from Shona women highlights a passionate appropriation that involves the head, gut, womb and heart and underlies the circle symbolism. The circle is the acme of Shona hospitality and togetherness in creative dialogue with the Trinitarian koinonia. The Shona Christological designation Muponesi (Deliverer-Midwife) in dialogue with the Paschal Mystery motif captures the God-human-cosmos relationship that gives a Christology caught up in the rhythms, dynamism and drama of life. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / D.Th. (Systematic Theology)

Implicit in the concepts Incarnation, narrative, Christology, Shona women of Zimbabwe today is the God who acts in human history and in the contemporaneity and particularity of our being. The Incarnation as the embodiment of God in the world entails seizing the kairos opportunity to expand the view and to bear the burdens of responsibility. A theanthropocosmic Christology that captures the Shona holistic world-view is explored. The acme for a relational Christology is the imago Dei/Christi and the baptismal indicative and imperative. God is revealed in various manifestations of creation. Human identity and dignity is the flipside of God's attributes. Theanthropocosmic Christology as pluralistic, differential and radical brings about a dialectic between the whole and its parts, the uniqueness of the individual, communal ontology and epistemology, the local and the universal, orthodoxy and orthopraxis, Christology and soteriology. God mediates in the contingency of particularity. Emphasis is on life-affirmation rather than sex determination of Jesus as indicated by theologies of liberation and inculturation. At the interface gender, ethnicity, class and creed, God transcends human limitedness and artificial boundaries in creating catholic space and advocating all-embracing apostolic action. Difference is appreciated for the richness it brings both to the individual and the community. Hegemonic structures and borderless texts are view with suspicion as totalising grand~narratives and exclusivist by using generic language. The kairos in dialogue with the Incarnation is seizing the moment to expand the view and to share the burdens, joys and responsibility in a community of equal discipleship. In a hermeneutic of engagement and suspicion, prophetic witness is the hallmark of Christian discipleship and of a Christology that culminates in liberative praxis. The Christology that emerges from Shona women highlights a passionate appropriation that involves the head, gut, womb and heart and underlies the circle symbolism. The circle is the acme of Shona hospitality and togetherness in creative dialogue with the Trinitarian koinonia. The Shona Christological designation Muponesi (Deliverer-Midwife) in dialogue with the Paschal Mystery motif captures the God-human-cosmos relationship that gives a Christology caught up in the rhythms, dynamism and drama of life. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / D.Th. (Systematic Theology)

Bibliography: leaves 215-230 / This thesis uses a postcolonial framework to analyse the construction and representation of identities of Shona women in selected black and white Zimbabwean-authored fiction in English published between 1890 and 2015. The study traces meanings associated with Shona women’s identities as ascribed by dominant powers in every epoch to create narratives that reflect the power dynamics. The thesis argues that identities are complex, characterized by various intersections such as race, gender, class and ethnicity. Shona women have to negotiate their identities in various circumstances resulting in shifting multiple identities. The thesis focuses on how such identities are represented in the selected texts. Findings reveal that the colonial project sought to write the Shona women out of existence, and when they appeared negative images of dirt, slothfulness and immorality were ascribed to them. These images continued after independence to justify male dominance of women. However, the lived experience of women shows they have agency and tend to shift identities in relation to specific circumstances. Shona women’s identities are dynamic and multifarious as they aim at relevance in their socioeconomic and political circumstances. Representations of Shona women’s identities are therefore influenced by the aim of the one representing them. All representations are therefore arbitrary and must be interrogated in order to deconstruct meaning and understand the power dynamics at play. The works analysed are Olive Schreiner’s Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland (1897), Doris Lessing’s The Grass is Singing (1950), Yvonne Vera’s Nehanda (1993), Cythia Marangwanda’s Shards (2014), Valerie Tagwira’s The Uncertainty of Hope (2006), Violet Masilo’s The African Tea Cosy (2010), Eric Harrison’s Jambanja (2006), Dangarembgwa’s The Book of Not (2006), Christopher Mlalazi’s Running with Mother (2012) and Brian Chikwava’s Harare North (2009). / English Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (English)