The Swahili novel, a literary genre lately appeared in Tanzania, has undoubtedly found a brilliant and mature expression in the works of the Zanzibarian writer Said Ahmed Mohamed. His novel Utengano, published in 1980, is a unique work in the Swahili literary production of the Seventies and Eighties, with regard to both the themes treated and the very elaborated style of the author, who has given a dense and homogeneous quality to this genre, which is by definition open and composite, totally different from the short story, the organisation of different elements representing a challenge to the capacities of a writer in terms of composition. In this paper I will focus on a feature of Utengano which, in my view, points out to the good achievement of a novel, namely the author`s utterance of a leitmotiv or general abstract idea creating cross-references and symbolic relations between the different levels of a literary text. The leitmotiv I found in Utengano is the idea of dynamism, in other words motion, energy that produces changes, which permeates the whole work unifying the different levels of expression. These latter will be analysed separately to allow a clear exposition, but the dialectical relationship between the `what` and the `how´ represents the key to the reading of this novel.

Aujourd'hui, la politique européenne incite les industriels de l'automobile à concevoir des véhicules "propres", ainsi des normes de plus en plus contraignantes visant notamment à réduire les émissions de gaz à effet de serre ont vu le jour. Les ingénieurs sont donc amenés à envisager des solutions innovantes basées sur le contrôle des écoulements, en particulier celui des décollements puisqu'ils ont généralement des effets délétères sur les performances aérodynamiques. En effet, les phénomènes de décollement, inhérent aux corps épais, sont à l'origine de l'augmentation de la traînée et par conséquent de la consommation de carburant. Les travaux présentés dans ce mémoire sont dédiés au contrôle d'écoulement en vue de la réduction de traînée sur un modèle générique de véhicule automobile appelé "Corps de Ahmed" par une combinaison d'actionneur de type jets ynthétiques. Le mémoire s'articule autour de deux axes principaux. Le premier a permis la caractérisation d'actionneurs de type jets synthétiques, les fréquences et amplitudes optimales au regard de différents critères ont ainsi été identifiées et analysées. Le second a été consacré à étudier la réponse des structures décollés à des perturbations périodiques localisées afin de poursuivre la compréhension de la physique impliquée dans le contrôle de la traînée aérodynamique.

Happiness is often considered our ultimate goal in life. This essay explores the political im- plications of this view, through the critique of happiness found in the works of Simone de Beauvoir and Sara Ahmed. Ahmed and Beauvoir consider happiness to be harmful as a po- litical goal, since it tends to diminish dimensions of power and conflict in favor of harmony, and is not compatible with a political philosophy based on freedom or liberation. Happiness is often confused with the ethical Good, but this essay argues that happiness does not ne- cessarily entail good things. Indeed, happiness can be used to justify oppression and unjust political systems.

A paranoid and shameful reading of Inger Christensens novel Azorno.The contagious feelings of paranoia and shame played a vital part in my first reading of the novel Azorno, written by the Danish poet Inger Christensen. In this essay, I’m letting those emotions direct the ‘understanding’ and analysis of the novel. In earlier research the focus has been to comprehend what the novel ‘really is about’, and even though it has been mentioned that the form probably is a way to make the reader a visible constructer of  the novel’s ‘meaning’ the understanding has never been created by the affects that occurs during the reading. In doing so, I mean, a new and more subversive ‘understanding’  of Azorno is possible. Azornos is a quite peculiar novel which form builds upon an ambivalence, where the reader never can distinguish true from false, fiction from reality. This ambivalence is caused through the change of narrator that takes place in each chapter. The Chapters are first shaped as letters, where four women discuss who is the one that really knows Azorno, and then as notes, that seem to come from a diary and concerns the writing of a novel. The uncertainty increases when the earlier narrator is accused by the next one of being a liar, something that happens in every letter. In the notes the first narrator is told to be the pseudonym of the next one and so it continues. Thus the reader get the feeling of not knowing who the true narrator is – or if there is one. The accusations of lying and the paranoid attitude are contagious to the reader who gets the feeling that the text and its narrators are not to be trusted. Another affect shaping the text is shame, caused by the text’s seductiveness. The reader is held in the violence of the text by constantly searching for the truth but also repeatedly being deprived the delightful taste of it. At the same time, the reader is also starting to shamefully enjoy the feeling of being fooled by the text. In the article, I will use the theory of paranoia offered by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. Sedgwick understands paranoia as nothing different from knowledge per se and as a feeling that, when it’s shared, can be a useful in theories aiming to understand and deconstruct power. The positive consequences of acknowledging paranoia while reading is according to Sedgwick understood as something that, if it is taken seriously,  also can be a way to move towards possibilities and reparation. By embracing the strong and negative feeling of paranoia, the reader, I argue, has the opportunity to, together with the text, construct another narrative about the seducer Azorno – which is the name of the main character of the novel– and, the perhaps five, women who might be his mistresses.  When adding the acknowledgment of shame and using the theory of shame as a emotional power of keeping ’things in it’s ”right” place’, but also a feeling that – if it is shared – can work in opposite direction, since shame seen as a important experience also can make normative ideas visible. By admitting and sharing the shame sensed during the reading of Azorno, normative ideas regarding the relationship between the reader and the text, as well as standard ideas about mistresses and seducers, becomes visible and therefore also brought to a possible change. Thus, in the ending of the novel a new affect – more exultant – is achieved in the relationship between the reader and Azorno.

No description available.

This thesis has two purposes: (1) to analyze the emptiness in Blodbok by Christine Falkenland, and (2) to analyze my own reading of the same book. I have chosen to focus on how emptiness is expressed through the body, the language and the place in Blodbok, because of the deep impact these seem to have on the emptiness. The thesis discusses what kind of emptiness that is described, what it does to me as a reader, and how it is connected to other works by Falkenland. Cultural politics of emotions by Sara Ahmed, Uses of literature by Rita Felski and Pouvoirs de l’horreur by Julia Kristeva together form the theoretical framework. Blodbok is a poetry collection, about the loss of a mother. The first part of the thesis shows how emptiness is connected to the borders of the body. When the borders of the body are solid, emptiness is expressed trough the I’s will to pass these borders, to become a part of the mother or at least less lonely. When emptiness surround the I her body becomes indistinct and borderless, which makes the emptiness take place both inside and outside the body. The indistinctness of the body also leads to confusions between the body of the mother and the body of the daughter (the I), which also implies an uncertainness about the limit between life and death. This uncertainness becomes ‘sticky’, and I experience my own body being more borderless than before, and threatened by the death in the same manner as the bodies in the book. Emptiness also takes place as a part of the language in Blodbok, because of its inability to describe the feelings of the I. Though, in what I have called the simple language, for example clichés, the I find a way to express some of the despair, loss and fear that she feels. As a reader I find it very releasing when the I manage to express the emptiness in words. Even if loss is described I feel satisfaction while reading, because I recognize myself in the feelings of the I. I find the text being a witness to a horrible feeling and by functioning as a witness the poem moves the feeling from inside of me, to the outside. The place in Blodbok is connected to emptiness by being the place where life meets death. It is in this place the I circulate, and the emptiness and death is described again and again through the circulation. The place becomes the centre of the book, it is at the same time the beginning and the end. The thesis also shows how the emptiness in Blodbok corresponds to emptiness in other works by Falkenland. The emptiness is Blodbok isn’t empty; it is filled with death, horror, loneliness, love, mourning and loss. This emptiness ‘sticks’ to me as a reader. By picturing an in many ways indescribable emptiness, Blodbok manages to give me a feeling of satisfaction, a feeling of being filled.

Makala haya yanachanganua ishara na uashiriaji kama mbinu ya kimtindo ya kuwasilisha maana na kukuza uhusika na maudhui katika riwaya ya Nyuso za Mwanamke (2010) ya Said Ahmed Mohamed. Nimechanganua aina tatu za ishara ambazo ni ishara bia, ishara za kaida na ishara za kifasihi kama zinavyoainishwa na Frye na wenzake (1985). Lengo kuu ni kuchanganua na kubainisha jinsi ishara zinavyowasilisha maana na itikadi za jamii katika matini husika. Ishara hizi pia husaidia kukuza maudhui, ploti na kuongeza ujumi katika matini za kifasihi. / This article analyses symbols and symbolism as stylistic devices of communicating meaning and as a technique of characterisation and theme development in Nyuso za Mwanamke (The Faces of a Woman, 2010) written by Said Ahmed Mohamed. I analysed three types of symbols which are natural symbols, conventional symbols and literary symbols following Frye et al. (1985). This study aims at showing how symbols are used in literary works to communicate meaning and the ideology of the society depicted in the text. Symbols also help to build the theme, the plot and adding aesthetic value in literary texts.

I would like to present the latest novel by Said Ahmed Mohamed, Babu alipofofuka (\'When Grandfather came to life again\'), published at the end of the last year. The mine will be only a first, preliminary and very inadequate attempt as, I am sure, this work will challenge us for quite a few years. In fact, after five realistic novels the author has adopted a new technique, turning to magic realism as he himself defines his work, but perhaps it is a too limitative definition. He depicts our world in a near future, when Tanzania and other African countries will have already undergone the process of globalization. The results are disastrous: impoverished and dulled masses are governed by a handful of immensely rich, powerful and arrogant persons mostly of foreign origin, deprived of all human qualities, who have thrown away any inhibition and deliberately sunk in all sorts of physical and moral debasement; nothing embarrasses nor frightens them anymore as they feel unpunishable.

I would like to present the latest novel by Said Ahmed Mohamed, Babu alipofofuka (\''When Grandfather came to life again\''), published at the end of the last year. The mine will be only a first, preliminary and very inadequate attempt as, I am sure, this work will challenge us for quite a few years. In fact, after five realistic novels the author has adopted a new technique, turning to magic realism as he himself defines his work, but perhaps it is a too limitative definition. He depicts our world in a near future, when Tanzania and other African countries will have already undergone the process of globalization. The results are disastrous: impoverished and dulled masses are governed by a handful of immensely rich, powerful and arrogant persons mostly of foreign origin, deprived of all human qualities, who have thrown away any inhibition and deliberately sunk in all sorts of physical and moral debasement; nothing embarrasses nor frightens them anymore as they feel unpunishable.

The Swahili novel, a literary genre lately appeared in Tanzania, has undoubtedly found a brilliant and mature expression in the works of the Zanzibarian writer Said Ahmed Mohamed. His novel Utengano, published in 1980, is a unique work in the Swahili literary production of the Seventies and Eighties, with regard to both the themes treated and the very elaborated style of the author, who has given a dense and homogeneous quality to this genre, which is by definition open and composite, totally different from the short story, the organisation of different elements representing a challenge to the capacities of a writer in terms of composition. In this paper I will focus on a feature of Utengano which, in my view, points out to the good achievement of a novel, namely the author`s utterance of a leitmotiv or general abstract idea creating cross-references and symbolic relations between the different levels of a literary text. The leitmotiv I found in Utengano is the idea of dynamism, in other words motion, energy that produces changes, which permeates the whole work unifying the different levels of expression. These latter will be analysed separately to allow a clear exposition, but the dialectical relationship between the `what` and the `how´ represents the key to the reading of this novel.