BIROn - Birkbeck Institutional Research Online

    Cultural studies, power and the idea of the hegemonic in Wole Soyinka's works

    Msiska, Mpalive-Hangson (2013) Cultural studies, power and the idea of the hegemonic in Wole Soyinka's works. In: Lindfors, B. and Davis, G.V. (eds.) African Literatures and Beyond: A Florilegium. Cross/Cultures: Readings in the Post/Colonial Literatures in English 168. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, pp. 1-28. ISBN 9789042037380.

    [img] Text
    Mpalive Msiska 'Hegemony in Soyinka,' Davies and Lindfors ed 2013.pdf - Published Version of Record
    Restricted to Repository staff only

    Download (1MB) | Request a copy

    Abstract

    I have been thinking of the particular ways in which over the years Wole Soyinka has dealt with the question of power in both his creative and critical works. I have come to the conclusion that what emerges from his oeuvre is the representation of power as fundamentally adaptive, even as it is driven to absolutism. However, this ‘will to power’ as totality, though having a real and significant impact on both its perpetrators and its victims, is presented as incapable of saturating the whole political and social formation, as there are always countervailing forces beyond the ‘hegemonic power-formation’. These forces, whether conceived of in terms of class or other configurations of communal marginalization, do not have a pure autonomous existence outside the determination of the real exercise and experience of power.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Book Section
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Creative Arts, Culture and Communication
    Depositing User: Mpalive-Hangson Msiska
    Date Deposited: 16 Jun 2014 07:30
    Last Modified: 09 Aug 2023 12:35
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/9942

    Statistics

    Activity Overview
    6 month trend
    6Downloads
    6 month trend
    280Hits

    Additional statistics are available via IRStats2.

    Archive Staff Only (login required)

    Edit/View Item
    Edit/View Item