1887
  1. Home
  2. e-Journals
  3. English Text Construction
  4. Volume 16, Issue 1
  5. Article
Volume 16, Issue 1
  • ISSN 1874-8767
  • E-ISSN: 1874-8775
USD
Buy:$35.00 + Taxes

Abstract

Abstract

Resistance to postcolonial oppressive ideologies assumes significance within Chinua Achebe’s (1987), portraying predicaments of a post-independence fictional African state of Kangan. Drawing on the Deleuze-Guattarian “ontology of becoming”, “rhizome”, “nomad thought”, distinction of “striated” and “smooth” spaces, their account of the “State Apparatus” and the “war machine”, and “assemblage”, the study demonstrates how Achebe entertains possibilities of convergence with their philosophy. It displays how the Kangan people, while engaging in “ontology of becoming”, strive to deterritorialise themselves from Sam’s State that attempts to define their subjectivity. Concurrently, Sam’s State implements varieties of schemes to re-subjugate its subjects under its territorial authority. The study concludes how the war machine’s menacing force eventually destabilises the whole “State Apparatus”.

© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/etc.21013.abb
2023-11-17
2025-04-20

  • From This Site

    /content/journals/10.1075/etc.21013.abb
    dcterms_title,dcterms_subject,pub_keyword
    -contentType:Journal -contentType:Contributor -contentType:Concept -contentType:Institution
    10
    5
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Achebe, Chinua
    1967 (1964) Arrow of God. New York, NY: John Day.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. 1983 The trouble with Nigeria. Enugu: Fourth Dimension.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. 1988 (1987) Anthills of the Savannah. London: Pan Books.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. 1989 (1978) The truth of fiction. InChinua Achebe (ed.), Hopes and impediments: Selected essays, 138–153. New York, NY: Doubleday.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Amadiume, Ifi
    1990 Class and gender in Anthills of the Savannah ― A critique. Okike: An African Journal of New Writing301. 147–157.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Bennett, Jane
    2010 Vibrant matter: A political ecology of things. Durham: DUP.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Bignall, Simone & Paul Patton
    2010 Introduction: Deleuze and the postcolonial: Conversations, negotiations, mediations. InSimone Bignall & Paul Patton (eds.), Deleuze and the postcolonial, 1–19. Edinburgh: EUP. 10.1515/9780748637010‑002
     https://doi.org/10.1515/9780748637010-002 [Google Scholar]
  8. Boehmer, Elleke
    1990 Of goddesses and stories: Gender and a new politics in Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah. Kunapipi12(2). 102–112.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Braidotti, Rosi
    1994 Nomadic subjects: Embodiment and sexual difference in contemporary Feminist Theory. New York, NY: CUP.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Bryden, Mary
    2007 Gilles Deleuze: Travels in literature. Hampshire: Palgrave.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Buchanan, Ian
    2000 Deleuzism: A metacommentary. Edinburgh: EUP.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. 2015 Assemblage theory and its discontents. Deleuze Studies9(3). 382–392. 10.3366/dls.2015.0193
     https://doi.org/10.3366/dls.2015.0193 [Google Scholar]
  13. 2017 Assemblage theory, or, the future of an illusion. Deleuze Studies11(3). 457–474. 10.3366/dls.2017.0276
     https://doi.org/10.3366/dls.2017.0276 [Google Scholar]
  14. 2021 Assemblage theory and method: An introduction and guide. London: Bloomsbury Academic. 10.5040/9781350015579
     https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350015579 [Google Scholar]
  15. Clifford, James
    1997 Routes: Travel and translation in the late twentieth century. Cambridge: HUP.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Colebrook, Claire
    2002 Gilles Deleuze. London: Routledge. 10.4324/9780203241783
     https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203241783 [Google Scholar]
  17. Collins, Patricia Hill
    1990 Black Feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. Boston: Unwin Hyman.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Das, Ranjana
    2010 Critiquing the postcolonial construct: A re-reading of Chinua Achebe’s major novels. Shillong: North-Eastern Hill University PhD thesis.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Deleuze, Gilles
    1998 Bartleby; or, the formula. InDaniel W. Smith & Michael A. Greco (trans.), Essays critical and clinical, 68–90. London: Verso.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Deleuze, Gilles & Claire Parnet
    1987 Dialogues. Hugh Tomlinson & Barbara Habberjam (trans.), London: Athlone Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Deleuze, Gilles & Félix Guattari
    1977 Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem & Helen R. Lane (trans.), New York, NY: Viking.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. 1987 A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. Brian Massumi (trans.), Minneapolis: UMP.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Eco, Umberto
    1984 Semiotics and the philosophy of language. Hampshire: Macmillan. 10.1007/978‑1‑349‑17338‑9
     https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17338-9 [Google Scholar]
  24. Foucault, Michel
    1977 Preface. InRobert Hurley, Mark Seem & Helen R. Lane (trans.), Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and schizophrenia, xi–xiv. New York, NY: Viking.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Gilley, Bruce
    2016 Chinua Achebe on the positive legacies of colonialism. African Affairs115(461). 646–663. 10.1093/afraf/adw030
     https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adw030 [Google Scholar]
  26. Gordimer, Nadine
    1995 Writing and being. Cambridge: HUP.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Granqvist, Raoul J.
    2008 Translation as an emancipatory act?InKerstin W. Shands (ed.), Neither East nor West: Postcolonial essays on literature, culture and religion, 29–41. Huddinge, Sweden: Södertörns högskola.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Hardt, Michael & Antonio Negri
    2000 Empire. Cambridge: HUP.
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Ibironke, Olabode
    2001 Chinua Achebe and the political imperative of the African writer. Journal of Commonwealth Literature36(1). 75–90. 10.1177/002198940103600106
     https://doi.org/10.1177/002198940103600106 [Google Scholar]
  30. Ikegami, Robin
    1991 Knowledge and power, the story and the storyteller: Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah. MFS: Modern Fiction Studies37(3). 493–507. 10.1353/mfs.0.0934
     https://doi.org/10.1353/mfs.0.0934 [Google Scholar]
  31. Kalpakli, Fatma
    2013 Postcolonialism and Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah. Conference of the International Journal of Arts & Sciences6(1). 177–180.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Kehinde, Ayo
    2010 Rulers against writers, writers against rulers: The failed promise of the public sphere in postcolonial Nigerian fiction. Journal of English Studies81. 73–102. 10.18172/jes.149
     https://doi.org/10.18172/jes.149 [Google Scholar]
  33. King, Bruce
    1988 Postcolonial complexities. Sewanee Review96(4). lxxxiv–lxxxv. Rev. ofAnthills of the SavannahbyChinua Achebe. 10.2307/27545949
     https://doi.org/10.2307/27545949 [Google Scholar]
  34. Koné, Klohinlwélé
    2016 Living and narrating the tensions of the postcolonial situation: Chinua Achebe between ambiguity and ambivalence. The International Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities Invention3(11). 2943–2956. 10.18535/ijsshi/v3i11.03
     https://doi.org/10.18535/ijsshi/v3i11.03 [Google Scholar]
  35. Kortenaar, Neil ten
    1993 “Only connect”: Anthills of the Savannah and Achebe’s trouble with Nigeria. Research in African Literatures24(3). 59–72.
     [Google Scholar]
  36. Li, Victor
    1995 Towards articulation: Postcolonial theory and demotic resistance. ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature26(1). 167–189.
     [Google Scholar]
  37. Magege, David
    2016 From Chinua Achebe to Fred Khumalo: The politics of black female cultural difference in seven literary texts. Pretoria: University of South Africa PhD thesis.
     [Google Scholar]
  38. Massumi, Brian
    1987 Translator’s foreword: Pleasures of philosophy. InBrian Massumi (trans.), A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia, ix–xv. Minneapolis: UMP.
     [Google Scholar]
  39. Maughan-Brown, David
    1990 Anthills of the Savannah and the ideology of leadership. Kunapipi12(2). 139–148.
     [Google Scholar]
  40. McLeod, John
    2000 Beginning Postcolonialism. Manchester: MUP.
     [Google Scholar]
  41. Mwinlaaru, Isaac Nuokyaa-Ire
    2014 Style, character, and the theme of struggle and change: Chinua Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah. Research in African Literatures45(2). 103–121. 10.2979/reseafrilite.45.2.103
     https://doi.org/10.2979/reseafrilite.45.2.103 [Google Scholar]
  42. Nail, Thomas
    2017 What is an assemblage?SubStance46(1). 21–37. 10.1353/sub.2017.0001
     https://doi.org/10.1353/sub.2017.0001 [Google Scholar]
  43. Nair, Supriya
    1993 The story and the struggle in Anthills of the Savannah. InBernth Lindfors & Bala Kothandaraman (eds.), South Asian responses to Chinua Achebe, 104–121. New Delhi: Prestige Books.
     [Google Scholar]
  44. Nnolim, Charles E.
    2004 The artist in search of the right leadership: Achebe as a social critic. InErnest N. Emenyonu & Iniobong I. Uko (eds.), Emerging perspectives on Chinua Achebe. Vol. 2. Isinka, the artistic purpose: Chinua Achebe and the theory of African literature, 225–235. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  45. Nwagbara, Chinyere
    2004 “A woman is always something”: A re-reading of Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah. InErnest N. Emenyonu (ed.), Emerging perspectives on Chinua Achebe. Vol. I. Omenka: The master artist: Critical perspectives on Achebe’s fiction, 343–352. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  46. Okolo, Mary Stella Chika
    2007 African literature as political philosophy. London: Zed Books. 10.5040/9781350218154
     https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350218154 [Google Scholar]
  47. Osborne, Thomas & Nikolas Rose
    2004 Spatial phenomenotechnics: Making space with Charles Booth and Patrick Geddes. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space22(2). 209–228. 10.1068/d325t
     https://doi.org/10.1068/d325t [Google Scholar]
  48. Perry, Petra
    1993 Deleuze’s Nietzsche. boundary220(1). 174–191. 10.2307/303181
     https://doi.org/10.2307/303181 [Google Scholar]
  49. Richards, Dona
    1980 European mythology: The ideology of “progress”. InMolefi Kete Asante and Abdulai S. Vandi (eds.), Contemporary black thought: Alternative analyses in social and behavioral science, 59–79. Beverly Hills, CA: SAGE.
     [Google Scholar]
  50. Rutherford, Anna
    1987 Interview with Chinua Achebe. Kunapipi9(2). 1–7.
     [Google Scholar]
  51. Singler, Gillian Renee
    2015 Goddess of the Savannah: Beatrice as Achebe’s sensible solution. Mankato, Minnesota: Minnesota State University MA thesis.
     [Google Scholar]
  52. Spencer, Robert
    2021 Dictators, dictatorship and the African novel: Fictions of the state under Neoliberalism. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave. 10.1007/978‑3‑030‑66556‑2
     https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66556-2 [Google Scholar]
  53. Strongman, Luke
    2002 The Booker Prize and the legacy of empire. Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi. 10.1163/9789004490574
     https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004490574 [Google Scholar]
  54. Virilio, Paul
    2001 Paul Virilio and the oblique: Interview with Enrique Limon. InJohn Armitage (ed.), Virilio live: Selected interviews, 51–57. London: SAGE.
     [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/etc.21013.abb
Loading
  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): Chinua Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah; Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari; the “State Apparatus” and the “war machine”; “assemblage”; “ontology of becoming”; “striated” and “smooth” spaces

Most Cited

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error