Postcolonial Reading of Nineteenth-Century Missionaries’ Musical Texts
The Case of Lifela tsa Sione 1 and Lifela tsa Bakriste 2
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20209300 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Paul L Leshota (0000-0002-8714-7886, National University of Lesotho, corresponding author), Paul Leshota |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 139-160 |
| Publication date | 2014-08-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Black Theology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1476-9948 • E-ISSN: 1743-1670 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1179/1476994814z.00000000026 |
| OpenAlex | W1594366527 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 13 |
Using the refining optics of postcolonial hermeneutics, this paper is an attempt to show how missionary legacies, in the form of musical texts, have been and remain a talisman of imperialistic endeavors. They reflect, as it were, the superiority of the colonizing culture and religion while at the same time demonizing and promoting negative stereotypes about Africans (Mosotho) and their world. Specifically, this paper represents a reconstruction of the image of a colonial African (Mosotho) savage as depicted by the missionaries in their musical texts as contained in the Lifela tsa Sione and Lifela tsa Bakriste, in order to justify the necessity of Christianity as a superior form of life. The flipside of this reconstructive endeavor is the creation of space for the emergence of a voice that had been drowned out by Eurocentric ideological hegemony. The release of this voice provides an opportunity to re-label and re-define a Mosotho Christian’s identity through word and song
Aesthetics · Art · Christianity · Colonialism · Epistemology · Hegemony · Hermeneutics · Ideology · Linguistics · Literature · Musical · Orientalism · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Law · Philosophy · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies · Religious studies · South African History and Culture
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |