Volume 12 (2019): Edizione 2 (December 2019)

This article analyzes Lucy (1990) by Jamaica Kincaid in terms of the intercultural Bildungsroman basing on Mikhail Bakhtin’s characterization of the coming-of-age genre. Focusing on the relationship between the characters, it highlights the tension between contrasting feminist views. Seeking to emphasize how an intercultural vision contributes innovative perspectives on society, this paper argues that the eponymous protagonist of the novel has to find a way to reconcile the American culture with her Antiguan culture in her own feminist and postcolonial terms -an intercultural perspective. On the one hand, the relationship between Lucy and Mariah—her employer—reflects a tension between second-wave and third-wave feminism, which, the heroine eventually reconciles opening up the path for a unified vision of the feminist movement. Lucy’s postcolonial vision, in particular, is similar to that articulated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. On the other hand, the strain between Lucy and her mother is related to the heroine’s endorsement of second-wave feminist views as articulated by Betty Friedan and other feminist theorists of the 1960s and 1970s. In general, this novel develops an important vision for the global feminist movement.

The aim of the article was to analyse the policy of gender equality in Germany, here centered around the specifics of the function of (fe)male preschool teachers, which at its source was a profession directed exclusively at women, and as a result is now feminised. These circumstances, unchanged for almost 200 years, have their roots in disregard towards this professional group in the political discourse, apparent in it being treated as “invisible”. Current governmental policies aim at supporting the employment of men at the preschool educational level. The article analyses the federal government’s gender policy through the prism of centrally supported model projects implemented in Germany since 2010, taking into account the broad context of preconditions. General issues present in social debates (such as gender) have been linked in this article to the specifics of a particular professional group of ErzieherIn, such as the rise of the rank of early care and education combined with serious staff shortages hindering the implementation of political guidelines. As a result, these two groups of conditions intertwine, forming a very interesting image, in which tradition gives way to contemporary social expectations.

In my contribution I will discuss the folktales about the Tatras and their reference in children’s literature. I will focus mainly on the stories that appear in the textbook of Slovak literature for the 5th year of elementary schools. Specifically, the tale of Tatranská Kikimora, but also others are discussed. Through this and other individual stories, pupils can learn and get to know more about the environment in which they live.

Globally, breast milk has been recognized as the best nutrient for newborns and infants. It is also known to be very nutritious in providing all the necessary elements needed for infants’ health during the first six months of their lives and thereafter, essentially for their growth and survival. Recently, the high morbidity and mortality rates of babies and infants in Nigeria have re-awakened this interest of scholars; health practitioners as well as the general public who started the agitation for exclusive breastfeeding for babies at least for six months. While mothers play their part in providing breast milk to their babies, the role of men (fathers) role as one of the strongest influences on the success of breastfeeding among mothers has been overlooked. In Nigeria, it is still believed that breastfeeding is an exclusive responsibility of the nursing mothers alone. It has been found that father’s support has a strong influence on a mother’s decision to initiate and continue breast feeding in the developed countries. Though mothers recognize fathers as a primary source of support for the continuance of breast feeding in Nigeria; little is known about the nature of this support. This is because fathers are poorly informed and educated about the role they should play in successful breastfeeding of their children. There is need therefore; to document the extent their role can affect successful breastfeeding in their women in Nigeria. This paper describes the role men (fathers) should play in promoting successful breastfeeding in Nigeria. It suggests that men (fathers) should support their wives by providing assistance during pregnancy and after the baby is born. It also proposes that men (fathers) should encourage their pregnant wives to feed well, help in carrying babies while the mother is resting, look after the older children as well as providing assistance in domestic chores. The paper concludes that playing such supportive roles will go a long way in making breast-feeding campaign successful.

Beyond voice lies a sound laden with dread. Dread, as Heidegger points out, is encountered in a feeling of nothingness. But nothingness is not an automatic existent; it is built up through actions that gradually breed detachment of self from a whole. This paper explores the journey of self towards nothingness in Andreas’ The purple violet of Oshaantu and Adichie’s Purple hibiscus. This journey is undertaken by the characters, Kauna and Mama, as they communicate with their spirits—silence. The silence of these characters is so shrieking that its echo is strongly heard in the lives of those around them. But are these characters able to liberate themselves after identifying selves or did they drench further into the helpless state they were before discovering selves? This is one question this paper answers as it traces these characters’ journeys towards self-identification through nothingness.

Previous studies on ethnic, religious and political expressions and activities in Nigeria have examined issues such as religious and political intolerance between and among groups. In particular, the activities of pro-Biafra groups such as that of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), Biafra Zionist Movement (BZM), Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and Biafra Independent Movement (BIM) among others in real life and in online forums have also been studied by scholars from different ideological and theoretical standpoints. However, none of these studies examined the deliberate expression of ethnic, religious and political identities and otherness in the discourses that emanate from the arrest, detention and trial of Nnamdi Kanu, the separatist founder of IPOB, by the government of Nigeria. This study aims at unearthing the deep sense of exclusion that underlies the reactions that trail his arrest and trial in online platforms. A total of twenty online comments were purposively selected and analysed within the tenets of critical discourse analysis (CDA) in order to unearth the ethnic, religious and political ideologies that underlie them. This study gives an insight into how individual and group ideologies in online discourses can threaten the autonomous face wants of others and also that of the corporate existence of the nation. The theoretical orientation adopted for the study leads to the understanding that ethnic, political and religious sentiments underlie the use of language in crisis/conflict situations in the Nigerian context. This study significantly espouses the notion that there is the need for equity, social justice and mutual trust between groups in Nigeria.

Globalization, gender inequality and poverty render African women vulnerable to trafficking; this is explored by Darko and Adimora-Ezeigbo in their novels. From the feminist perspective, this article analyzes the authors’ portrayal of trafficking, factors and structures that sustain it, and the significance of the construction of self-narratives during victim’s rehabilitation. It also proffers preventive strategies and effective avenues for victims’ rehabilitation and reintegration into society.

A great majority of African cultures are patriarchal, which is to say that the male members of such societies are responsible for the perpetuation of family/blood lines. Cultural practices such as succession rites, female genital mutilation, hereditary, widowhood rites, polygamy, kinship, etc., aggregate to marginalize African women, thus conferring absolute power on men. The perpetuation of the ruses of patriarchy is also enabled through writing. Since literature is ideologically determined, it is created by/through discourse; writing becomes an avenue through which male writers sustain the status quo. One author whose works have sustained patriarchal values among the Igbo is Chinua Achebe. In Things fall apart (1958), Achebe presents a coherent Igbo society whose internal dynamics revolve around an established hierarchical social structure which excludes the woman from the phallic games of power. Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo’s The Last of the Strong Ones (1996) subverts the patriarchal structures which undermine Igbo women. This paper discusses the cultural constructs which confer ultimate power on the men in Achebe’s Umuofia. Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo’s response to Achebe’s male chauvinism is realized through a counter discourse which seeks to reconstruct the battered image of the Igbo woman. Female Self-determination, re-appropriation of the female body, and breaking of silences are all discursive strategies adopted by Adimora-Ezeigbo in her attempt to rescue the woman from the Achebean margins. Textual analysis informs the methodology of this work, while relying on deconstruction and discourse analysis as theoretical frameworks.