Affiliation and antimodernism in Margaret Laurence’s African writings
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12929969 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Carl Watts (0000-0002-7435-0666), C Arthur H Watts (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 1-21 |
| Publication date | 2018-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | British Journal of Canadian Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1757-8078 • E-ISSN: 0269-9222 |
| Publisher | Liverpool University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.3828/bjcs.2018.1 |
| OpenAlex | W2796716165 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 6 |
This article argues that Margaret Laurence’s writings about Somalia and Ghana offer a critical yet ideologically loaded conception of development, modernity, and affiliation. It contends that these writings anticipate Anthony Smith’s recognition of the way ethnic identities predate and underpin conceptions of the nation; in so doing, Laurence’s work challenges theorisations of nationalism such as those of Benedict Anderson. At the same time, Laurence’s writings employ a type of Eurocentrism in that they formulate an antimodernism that conceives of African cultures as having the potential to revitalise the West not by being immemorially pre-modern, but rather by existing at an earlier, pre-national phase in a Western model of social development. Her African writings both use and subvert a progress narrative in which Western experiences of modernisation are universal; accordingly, they highlight a shortcoming that is common to theorists such as Anderson and others whose more nuanced theorisations Laurence anticipates
Art · Emancipation · Epistemology · Ethnology · Eurocentrism · Humanities · Ideology · Literature · Modernity · Modernization theory · Narrative · Nationalism · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Foucault, Power, and Ethics · Gender Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,14 |
| Citation span | 2019 - 2019 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |