Religious Mapping, Epistemic Risk and Archival Adventure in Athambile Masola's Ilifa
In this essay, I offer a feminist reading of Athambile Masola’s award-winning debut collection of poetry, Ilifa, focusing on her use of religious imagination. I demonstrate how Masola’s repeated use of religious metaphor, language, and Christian location illuminates more than aspects of religious c...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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UJ Press
2023-07-01
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| Series: | African Journal of Gender and Religion (AJGR) |
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| Online Access: | https://journals.uj.ac.za/index.php/ajgr/article/view/2320 |
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| author | Pumla Gqola |
| author_facet | Pumla Gqola |
| author_sort | Pumla Gqola |
| collection | DOAJ |
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In this essay, I offer a feminist reading of Athambile Masola’s award-winning debut collection of poetry, Ilifa, focusing on her use of religious imagination. I demonstrate how Masola’s repeated use of religious metaphor, language, and Christian location illuminates more than aspects of religious community, piety, and belonging, important though these are. In Ilifa, specific appearances of religious language, as well as the rhetorical uses to which religious imagery and the disruption of Christian iconography are put, reveal the poet’s understanding of the making of transgenerational southern African feminist publicness. Her deployment of Christian vocabularies amplifies multigenerational African (women’s) contribution to (South) Africa’s intellectual and creative archives. While her religious references are not confined to Christianity, I limit myself to Biblical references to better tend to the intersections of feminist mapping, epistemic risk, and the poet’s engagement with two centuries of South African isiXhosa literary archive in print. Masola references these intellectual entries into publicness to negotiate her own admission into literary public life. I surface the context and conceptual landscapes of Masola’s own poetic project.
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| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-95b7d473fb064b789e52296d5e5740de |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2707-2991 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2023-07-01 |
| publisher | UJ Press |
| record_format | Article |
| series | African Journal of Gender and Religion (AJGR) |
| spelling | doaj-art-95b7d473fb064b789e52296d5e5740de2025-01-08T08:59:49ZengUJ PressAfrican Journal of Gender and Religion (AJGR)2707-29912023-07-0129110.36615/ajgr.v29i1.2320Religious Mapping, Epistemic Risk and Archival Adventure in Athambile Masola's IlifaPumla Gqola0Nelson Mandela University In this essay, I offer a feminist reading of Athambile Masola’s award-winning debut collection of poetry, Ilifa, focusing on her use of religious imagination. I demonstrate how Masola’s repeated use of religious metaphor, language, and Christian location illuminates more than aspects of religious community, piety, and belonging, important though these are. In Ilifa, specific appearances of religious language, as well as the rhetorical uses to which religious imagery and the disruption of Christian iconography are put, reveal the poet’s understanding of the making of transgenerational southern African feminist publicness. Her deployment of Christian vocabularies amplifies multigenerational African (women’s) contribution to (South) Africa’s intellectual and creative archives. While her religious references are not confined to Christianity, I limit myself to Biblical references to better tend to the intersections of feminist mapping, epistemic risk, and the poet’s engagement with two centuries of South African isiXhosa literary archive in print. Masola references these intellectual entries into publicness to negotiate her own admission into literary public life. I surface the context and conceptual landscapes of Masola’s own poetic project. https://journals.uj.ac.za/index.php/ajgr/article/view/2320religious imaginationliterary archiveisiXhosa literatureAfrican feminismSouth African women's poetry |
| spellingShingle | Pumla Gqola Religious Mapping, Epistemic Risk and Archival Adventure in Athambile Masola's Ilifa African Journal of Gender and Religion (AJGR) religious imagination literary archive isiXhosa literature African feminism South African women's poetry |
| title | Religious Mapping, Epistemic Risk and Archival Adventure in Athambile Masola's Ilifa |
| title_full | Religious Mapping, Epistemic Risk and Archival Adventure in Athambile Masola's Ilifa |
| title_fullStr | Religious Mapping, Epistemic Risk and Archival Adventure in Athambile Masola's Ilifa |
| title_full_unstemmed | Religious Mapping, Epistemic Risk and Archival Adventure in Athambile Masola's Ilifa |
| title_short | Religious Mapping, Epistemic Risk and Archival Adventure in Athambile Masola's Ilifa |
| title_sort | religious mapping epistemic risk and archival adventure in athambile masola s ilifa |
| topic | religious imagination literary archive isiXhosa literature African feminism South African women's poetry |
| url | https://journals.uj.ac.za/index.php/ajgr/article/view/2320 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT pumlagqola religiousmappingepistemicriskandarchivaladventureinathambilemasolasilifa |