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Of Masquerading and Weaving Tales of Empowerment: Gender, Composite Consciousness, and Culture-Specificity in the Early Novels of Sefi Atta and Laila Lalami

De La Cruz-Guzman, Marlene
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1417002139

Abstract Details

2014, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, English (Arts and Sciences).
This dissertation explores the development of a risky but empowering culture-specific women's consciousness by the protagonists of Sefi Atta and Laila Lalami's early novels. My insertion of Jameson's primacy of the national situation in the development of a woman's composite consciousness allows the reader to gain an understanding of women's marginalization and subsequent empowerment in a specific setting such as Casablanca, Morocco or Lagos, Nigeria. The composite factor is essential to understand the lived experiences of people in specific cultures within the postcolonial nation, for it acknowledges the importance of traditional resources but also the modern liberation tools available to the women. This study places Atta and Lalami's characters squarely in their cultural milieu so that they are read in their social, economic, political, racial, ethnic, and religious contexts. Just as Abouzeid argued that progress in studying women must be centered on women's social and political milieu because it is there that women's agency and oppression can be localized and contextualized, this study argues that women's empowerment is, in fact, grounded on what it means to be a woman in her particular society with its cultural expressions and norms. This approach focuses on a very practical and empowering experience for women as it ties them even more closely to their communities, even as they advocate for more options than were previously available to them. This culture-specificity empowers these characters to function even more efficiently as women who continually change and improve their communities in Nigeria and Morocco. Atta and Lalami's use of the concept of the composite consciousness in the frame of the local tradition serves as a unifying metaphor for each novel. This composite consciousness approach has the potential to answer Chandra Talpade Mohanty's call for a paradigm that is culture-specific yet creates solidarity across subjectivities and across the globe without erasing difference.
Joseph McLaughlin, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
Mara Holt, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Nicole Reynolds, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Julie White, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
219 p.
African Literature; African Studies; Comparative Literature; Folklore; Gender; Islamic Studies; Literature; Womens Studies
Sefi Atta; Laila Lalami; African literature; Nigerian novel; African novel; composite consciousness; Chandra Talpade Mohanty; feminism; womens studies; Moroccan literature; Nigerian literature; Morocco; Nigeria; storytelling; masquerade; gender studies

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • De La Cruz-Guzman, M. (2014). Of Masquerading and Weaving Tales of Empowerment: Gender, Composite Consciousness, and Culture-Specificity in the Early Novels of Sefi Atta and Laila Lalami [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1417002139

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • De La Cruz-Guzman, Marlene. Of Masquerading and Weaving Tales of Empowerment: Gender, Composite Consciousness, and Culture-Specificity in the Early Novels of Sefi Atta and Laila Lalami. 2014. Ohio University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1417002139.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • De La Cruz-Guzman, Marlene. "Of Masquerading and Weaving Tales of Empowerment: Gender, Composite Consciousness, and Culture-Specificity in the Early Novels of Sefi Atta and Laila Lalami." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1417002139

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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This open access ETD is published by Ohio University and OhioLINK.