Between rites and rights
Subtitle: excision in women's experiential texts and human contexts
By: Chantal Zabus.
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Stanford, Calif
Language: eng
Number of pages: 324
ISBN-13: 9780804756877
Subjects: African literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism; Female circumcision in literature; African literature -- Women authors -- History and criticism; Female circumcision -- Africa; Women and literature -- Africa -- History -- 20th century; Literature, Experimental -- Africa -- History and criticism; Women in literature
Description: Modern African women writers have introduced a new autobiographical discourse around their experience of excision that brings nuance to the female genital mutilation debate. Spanning pharaonic times through classical antiquity to the onset of the 21st century, this study shows how this experiential body of literature - encompassing English, Arabic, and French - goes far beyond such traditional topics as universalism and cultural relativism, by locating the female body as a site of liminality between European and African factions, subject and agent; consent and dissent; custom and human rights.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.