Through a detailed analysis of the story “The Three Sisters” from Mia Couto’s collection O Fio das Missangas (“The Bead Necklace”) published in 2004, I reveal how Couto recreates a space where relational practices are at the forefront of existence. I analyse this specific story to reveal Couto’s relational practices and its accompanyin…[Read more]

. I demonstrate how The Book of Chameleons is replete with metaphors of what I call the “non-self,” or “supra-self,” or even “God,” which are commonly found in Zen Buddhist thought, classical African epistemological and ontological paradigms, and more specifically, the idea of African Personality as put forward by Léopold S. Senghor or even in s…[Read more]

As a continuation of my previous transcultural comparative project, the current study aims to unearth some other similarities that exist between African classical knowledge systems, as put forward in the writing of Mia Couto and the work of other Africanists such as Wole Soyinka, Jacob Olupona and Léopold Senghor— in respect to their links to po…[Read more]

The Nakba not only resulted in the loss of the homeland, but also caused the dispersal and ruin of entire Palestinian communities. Even though the term Nakba refers to a singular historic event, the consequence of 1948 has symptomatically become part of Palestinian identity, and the element that demarcates who the Palestinian is. Palestinian exile…[Read more]

The transfer of Saracen arms into Frankish ownership is a leitmotif of
many chansons de geste, but one whose significance for translatio imperii has yet to be
elucidated. In this essay, I focus on the Chanson d’Aspremont, a twelfth-century epic
set in Calabria that narrates the pre-history of Durendal, Roland’s sword of Song of
Roland fam…[Read more]

Reads William of Rubruck’s mission to Asia as an instance of premodern ethnographic representation and the shape of the precolonial European ethnographic gaze upon Asia.

The artist, collector, and critic Charles Ricketts (1866–1931) has often been characterised as a reactionary voice in early-twentieth-century debates about modern art. Although he responded conservatively to modern-art developments such as those embodied by the term ‘Post-Impressionism’, his work in book design and illustration exemplifies p…[Read more]

CFP for a special issue of the European Journal of Humour Research

This work addresses the question of how the patron saint festivities in San Germán, Puerto Rico assisted in the reconstruction of the Puerto Rican nation during the 1950s. Particularly, I focus on how community leaders reproduced ideas of nationhood based on hispano-centric, white, Catholic, and patriarchal parameters. I investigate how an…[Read more]

Detailed Syllabus and outline for a 7-week course in the history of the language and culture of Quebec.

The proliferation of TV fiction can be partly explained by TV producers attuning their products to draw audience’s attention. Narratives of love dominate the plots and almost always the good is pitted against the evil, rich against the poor – ultimately the good always wins. The formula may be clichéd, but in places where news of war, te…[Read more]

This paper argues that in The Farming of Bones, Edwidge Danticat seeks to historicize and memorialize the Parsley Massacre through the reframing of the historical event through Amabelle Désir’s fictional account. Through the conflation of historical artifact and literary imagination, the novel narrates, and therefore produces, a collective me…[Read more]

This paper analyses the measures, reactions, and consequences of the repression of the neo-Biafra movement in Nigeria using longitudinal qualitative research. To go about this, the paper looks at the political context within which the movement operates, it objectives, and its activities are described. The movement started in September 1999 in…[Read more]