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Accepted Paper:
Rethinking trauma theory through African fiction
Thando Njovane (Rhodes University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper considers two ways in which African fiction intervenes in the imperative to decolonise trauma theory.
Paper long abstract:
Originating from interdisciplinary scholarship on the Holocaust in Euro-American academy, trauma theory has both been a useful conceptual tool for interrogating histories of subjection and the cause of much contestation with regards to postcolonial contexts. Responding to the call for decolonise trauma theory, I consider some of the ways in which modes of writing which would not necessarily be considered theory contribute to a more inclusive notion of the psychological subject in the African context. In so doing, I limit my attention to selected African texts in which children feature prominently as narrators/focalisers, in order to suggest that the imperative to decolonise trauma theory need not preclude the value of the scholarship that has come before. Instead, I argue for the inclusion of unofficial modes of theorising in order to reinvent this area of inquiry.
Decolonizing the knowledge linkages between Africa and the rest of the world [initiated by the University of Cape Town]
Session 1