Ethics and Human Rights in Anglophone African Women's Literature: Feminist Empathy

by Chielozona Eze

Overview

This book proposes feminist empathy as a model of interpretation in the works of contemporary Anglophone African women writers. The African woman’s body is often portrayed as having been disabled by the patriarchal and sexist structures of society. Returning to their bodies as a point of reference, rather than the postcolonial ideology of empire, contemporary
African women writers demand fairness and equality. By showing how this literature deploys imaginative shifts in perspective with women experiencing unfairness, injustice, or oppression because of their gender, Chielozona Eze argues that by considering feminist empathy, discussions open up about how this literature directly addresses the systems that put them in disadvantaged positions. This book, therefore, engages a new ethical and human rights awareness in African literary and cultural discourses, highlighting the openness to reality that is compatible with African multi-ethnic, multi-racial, and increasingly cosmopolitan communities.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783319822181
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	07/07/2018
Series:	Comparative Feminist Studies
Edition description:	Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 2016
Pages:	230
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

Chielozona Eze is Associate Professor of English and Cultural Studies at Northeastern Illinois University, USA. He has held fellowships including the UCLA Global Fellowship and the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies (STIAS).

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Ethical Turn in African Literature.- Chapter 1: Feminism as Fairness.- Chapter 2: Diary of Intense Pain: Postcolonial Trap and Women’s Rights.- Chapter 3: The Body in Pain and the Politics of Culture.- Chapter 4: Abstractions as Disablers of Women’s Rights.- Chapter 5: The Enslaved Body as a Symbol of Universal Human Rights Abuse.- Chapter 6: Human Rights as Liberatory Social Thought.- Chapter 7: The Obligation to Bear Testimony to Human Rights Abuses.- Bibliography.-

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“A remarkable work, both for its compassion and critical insights, Chielozona Eze’s Ethics and Human Rights in Anglophone African Women’s Literature: Feminist Empathy ‘liberates’ empathy from ideology and offers a focused way of reading literature within and across borders that also transcends limiting contexts.” (Dr. Maik Nwosu, University of Denver, USA)

“In a thus far unsurpassed “sharing of affect,” Professor Eze artfully deploys what he calls “feminist empathy” for third-generation Anglophone African women writers. In the wake of their foremothers’ rejection of the double yoke of colonialism and patriarchy, this millennial generation of women writers reclaims “a body of their own” and its unaccountable pain. Eze’s bold yet gentle gesturing towards these new female subjectivities makes him a male feminist, definitely a rare commodity on the Nigerian scene. His book is a high risk/high gain venture opening wide the portal of “human flourishing” for other African empathizers in the post-nation-state.” (Chantal Zabus, author of “Between Rites and Rights: Excision in Women's Experiential Texts and Human Contexts”, Université Paris 13 – Sorbonne Paris Cité)

“Eze deftly demonstrates how contemporary African writing by women deploys feminist empathy to link ethics and human rights in a fresh interpretation of ubuntu — the African philosophy of individual and community interdependence. With nuance and a rare attention to not only fiction but also poetry, essays and new media, Eze shows how recent works extending longstanding African feminist theories into new territory, proving Adichie and her sister-authors right: we should all be feminists.“ (Tsitsi Jaji, author of “Africa in Stereo: Modernism, Music and Pan-African Solidarity”)