3 décembre 2020
The ARIEL Residence (Author in International Residence in Lorraine), in partnership with the IDEA laboratory (InterDisciplinarity in Anglophone Studies, UR 2338), has been hosting a series of five weekly virtual seminars based on the literary production of the South African author Mohalé Mashigo, guest author this year at the University of Lorraine (Nancy). This series of seminars, which started on November 12th, is entitled "GENESIS, ILLUSTRATIONS, TRANSLATION AND LITERARY AWARDS". The third seminar was held on Thursday 26th November, with guest speakers Professors Lorena Rizzo and Cédric Courtois.
Lorena Rizzo, from Basel University introduced us to women, photography and orality in 20th -century Namibia. She focused on a set of photographs she and her team found when interviewing inhabitants of the so-called ‘Usakos old location’. Usakos was a Namibian township and railway centre which was moved in the 20th century as a result of Apartheid urban planning, because it was considered too close to the white part of the town. The 250 black-and-white photographs were kept and cherished by four female senior members of the community as a way to preserve and remember the past and what was lost when the inhabitants were forced to leave their houses and move to a new location. The photographs, which are mainly staged portraits of residents of the city and strangers, document the forgotten history of the town, and create an “intimate relationship with the past”. Moreover, they give an important role to orality: the people they portray are named, thus encouraging members of the community to tell the story of “those who are no more”. The collective project around Usakos Old Location still continues to this day and led to the establishment of a local museum in 2015, where the photographs can be seen.
Cédric Courtois’s talk was built upon three books, namely Daughters Who Walk This Path (2012) by the Nigerian author Yejide Kilanko, The Yearning (2016) by Mohale Mashigo and Becoming Unbecoming (2015) by Una. He presented a comparative study on the theme of trauma and gender violence. The life stories of the three main characters of the books, Morayo, Marubini and Una, provide a perfect description of the deep pain and distress that has given rise to a kind of endless torment, related to the notion of trauma. The talk was very instructive.
At the end of each talk, the comments and questions from the public posted via the discussion platform were relayed to the guests by the session chairwoman Marilyne Brun (University of Lorraine). The guests were then able to go into more detail about their subjects. Some abstracts were published on the ARIEL and IDEA social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram and Twitter), where you will also find highlights and summaries of the different talks.
The full seminar video is available on the ARIEL Youtube channel: https://youtu.be/j-PDrtSe20I
For more information on ARIEL residence and upcoming seminars, please see:
- ARIEL Residence: https://ariel.univ-lorraine.fr/mohale-mashigo/
- ARIEL YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEuBBQRXPsipKSrpkS9FWAA
- IDEA Research Unit: http://idea.univ-lorraine.fr
Noémie Didier, M2 traduction et Kossa Eraste, M1 Mondes Anglophones
