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ABSTRACT This article explores the dialogic nature of spiritual and patriarchal discourses in Solomon Mutswairo's novel Chaminuka: Prophet of Zimbabwe and the extent to which they conform to Bakhtinian notions [...]

This article examines studies done on the use of the CA locally, in addition to insights from studies done abroad, as well as critically examining the nature of the CA and the language situation in Zimbabwe, to identify and discuss the main challenges associated with the use of this approach to the teaching of ESL in Zimbabwe and its implications for ESL teacher education. It explores the status of the CA as "imported technology", that has been grafted to address the teaching of English as a second language in the local context, necessitating its adaptation and the development of local versions of the approach. It argues that, to address these challenges, various stake holders such as teacher educators, material developers, examination bodies, and other relevant authorities such as the ministry of education should each play their part to ensure the success of the implementation of the CA.

Summary This article is a reading of Chenjerai Hove's poetry volume Red Hills of Home (1985) as a dystopia. It locates this text within the context of the evolving postcolonial [...]

This article examines intertextuality in Shimmer Chinodya's Chairman of Fools (Harare: Weaver Press, 2005), focusing on the novel's entanglement with earlier texts and its extra-literary context. It argues that the text exhibits generic, stylistic, and thematic entanglements with its precursor texts, particularly Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions (Harare: Zimbabwe Publishing House, 1988) and Dambudzo Marechera's Mindblast, or, the Definitive Buddy (Harare: College Press, 1984), and with the post-2000 Zimbabwean context, in ways that enrich and extend current and earlier understandings of these texts. It establishes that, besides generic and stylistic entanglements, Chairman of Fools dialogues with these precursor texts in the representation of the figure of the non-conformist artist, discourses of gender, and discourses of mental breakdown. It also engages with discourses of the post-2000 Zimbabwean crisis, inclusive of the "crisis of masculinity". The symbiosis of this intertextuality makes visible the non-hierarchical relationships that exist amongst these related texts, both literary and non-literary, and brings into focus the instability and permeability of the boundaries often used to order and create demarcations within and between these texts. The intertextuality also points at some of the literary continuities and discontinuities in the Zimbabwean literary canon—and hence its evolution—together with social and ideological shifts in Zimbabwean society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the representation of postcolonial marginalisation and adaptive/reactive models of masculinity in NoViolet Bulawayo's novel, We Need New Names. It focuses on the representations of masculinities in the text and their ramifications and entanglements at the global, regional and local levels. The analysis is mediated via a triangulation of the concepts of hegemonic masculinity, masculine (over)compensation and masculine hybridisation. It establishes that a culture of both hegemony and domination mediates and permeates masculine relations resulting in the enactment of reactive and adaptive responses in the form of both masculine (over)compensation and masculine hybridisation. These responses are mainly enacted by those subaltern masculinities who are at the receiving end of domination and hegemony. Additionally, these responses favour the enhancement of male domination and/or patriarchy as opposed to gender equality. They also do not favour the promotion of a culture of tolerance, democracy and/or human rights discourses that are central to the realities of much of the contemporary world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a reading of Sandra Braude's novel, Mpho's Search (1994), which is set in apartheid South Africa, in the context of race, nation and its status as a children's literature text. It argues that the trope of childhood and the trajectory of the life of the eponymous character in the text are entangled with the discourses of race, subjugation and national liberation and transformation. It explores how the narrative uses the journey motif, and appropriates and inverts the configured family trope of colonial and imperial discourses in order to imagine and re-configure the discourse of the nation in the search for emancipation and black majority rule in pre-1994 apartheid South Africa. The challenges of building the new nation from the ruins of the past are highlighted and the hope and optimism are embodied by the young characters in the text. In addition, the text's role in educating children about their past in general, and also conscientising them on the problems confronting street children are also highlighted. Equally important is its role in modelling young learners by helping then reconfigure old racially premised subjectivities and embrace new ones in line with the changed realities of the nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay is a contribution towards gaining conceptual clarity with regard to the task of understanding masculinities and femininities, especially in the Zimbabwean Shona context. Our argument is that masculinities and femininities in Zimbabwean Shona society have what we term in this essay a ‘supra’ dimension that is spiritual, and it is this supra dimension that we submit has not been given attention in critical discourses on masculinities and femininities, especially as exemplified by the concept of hegemonic masculinity. Contrary to the generalised conceptualisation of the human being as the centre of the universe and the source of knowledge, which is implied in most western social and cultural theories, Mutsvairo (1983) and Vera (1993), as this paper sets out to demonstrate, present us with an alternative view of the human being, which is in harmony with the Zimbabwean Shona cosmology. The Shona world view does not perceive the human being as the centre of the universe. The paper, therefore challenges this understanding and submits that spirituality as attested by Mutsvairo and Vera is a very important constituent of masculinities and femininities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]