As close to their bodies as their own perplexed and curious minds can endure: understanding how trauma works in African women’s fiction

Whitley, Rebekah Lea (2012). As close to their bodies as their own perplexed and curious minds can endure: understanding how trauma works in African women’s fiction. University of Birmingham. M.Phil.

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Abstract

Part one presents the first topical overview of treatments of trauma in African women’s fiction in English and French (100 Anglophone and 40 Francophone texts plus several translated from Afrikaans, Arabic, German, Portuguese), from 1960 to 2010, examining: depictions of traumas of war and state violence in 13 nations (Algeria, Cameroon, Congo, Kenya, Mali, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Uganda, Zimbabwe), depictions of factors enabling domestic violence and personal trauma or mental illness (poverty, family structure, supernatural, traditional or religious gender bias, lack of reproductive resources and control, modernization and Western influence, drugs and alcohol, poor education, censorship, corruption and legal biases, incarceration, lack of solidarity), and depictions of traumatic life events (clitoridectomy or female genital mutilation, incest and child sexual abuse, rape, prostitution, abortion and infanticide, physical abuse, murder, and suicide). Part two examines the way formally complex texts like Yvonne Vera’s The Stone Virgins can mimetically perform how trauma (and post-traumatic stress disorder) works. I argue: more detailed, medically and psychologically accurate depictions of PTSD validate women’s experiences, help others understand PTSD, facilitate healing, and contribute more powerfully to collective memory. Mine is the longest and most in-depth analysis of trauma in Vera’s work to-date.

Type of Work:	Thesis (Masters by Research > M.Phil.)
Award Type:	Masters by Research > M.Phil.
Licence:
College/Faculty:	Colleges (2008 onwards) > College of Arts & Law
School or Department:	School of History and Cultures, Centre for West African Studies
Funders:	None/not applicable
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman P Language and Literature > PL Languages and literatures of Eastern Asia, Africa, Oceania P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General)
URI:	http://etheses.bham.ac.uk/id/eprint/7608

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