Open AccessA Critical Review of Ideological Trends in the Study of Zambian Literature in English
Author(s) -
Samson Kantini,
Cheela Chilala
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of law and social sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2226-6402
DOI - 10.53974/unza.jlss.4.1.386
Subject(s) - ideology , materialism , context (archaeology) , the renaissance , politics , sociology , social science , cultural materialism (cultural studies) , object (grammar) , history , epistemology , political science , law , linguistics , philosophy , art history , archaeology
Two ideologically divergent schools of thought have emerged in the study of Zambian
literature in English. The first one rooted in imperialist doctrines emerged in the early 1980s
and continues to influence many studies on Zambian literature to this day. The second one
with a clear object of the renaissance of world literatures like that of Zambia is recent.
It begun towards the end of the second decade of the 2000s and challenges the first one.
This paper gives a critical discussion of studies that constitute and mark these two trends.
It is a desktop research that employs the documental analysis informed by the historical
cultural materialism theory. It concludes that the imperialist school of thought overlook
and impoverish our understanding of the wider ideological and political context in which
Zambian literature in English has and is evolving and the world literary scene on which we
encounter it. Then, the renaissance school of thought does not just remedy this ideological
problem but creates an opportunity for us to study Zambian literature in English as a distinct
local realist tradition that is organically developing and in transition.