Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2000 22:07:34 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: Agbala


Dear Alpana, I alsoteach this text in the postgrad
class, and the exchange you've generated is very
pertinent. I have, from my location in the so-called
'post' colonial world, a few things to offer : first,
the ideologies of gender and he process of gendering
are centered upon patriarchal conceptual apparatus and
when we read post colonial gender practices and
ideologies in this light, themn i think we miss a
number of things . The current issue of West africa
Review that is on Gender contains a  very good essay
on this matter by Ngwezu, which I recommend. Secondly,
this whole business of being read by the other puts us
in a spot = I'm reading , perhaps, a text in English,
written about a culture that I don't know at first
hand, but would like to know ; if my access is through
English, then naturally, the conceptual apparatus that
underlies that language is going to influence my
understanding and reception. As a scholar working in
African Studies in India, I constantly faced and still
face thsi problem of how to frame the issues in the
coloniser's language, while reading a post colonial
text . The re needs to be much more thought and work
on this, and because you and your student have
provided occasion for it, I'm grtaeful Best wishes,
Ipshita--- Alpana Sharma <alpana.sharma-AT-wright.edu>
wrote:
> Hi all. In the postcolonial lt. class I'm teaching
> we just
> finished Achebe's Things Fall Apart and a student
> has grown
> very interested in the meanings of the term Agbala.
> It
> applies to the Oracle (the priestess Chielo chants
> "Agabala") but in the patriarchal system of the
> book, it
> also applies to a woman or a man who has taken no
> titles.
> This then appears contradictory. Any help? Much
> appreciative,
> 
> Alpana
> 
> 
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