Linda est avertie que son mari, Jim, est mort dans un accident de la circulation. L'esprit d'un champion ne meurt jamais Le hasard fait bien les choses: Face au danger, amis et ennemis vont devoir unir leurs forces comme jamais Et surtout au-dessus de leurs moyens. Ce grand appartement est le dernier paradis sur terre, plein de musique, de danses et de passion.
Le chaos est total! Pourtant, quelque part, un effroyable secret les attend. Aussi incroyable qu'authentique, voici la saga de cet homme qui trompa le monde entier et provoqua des remous jusqu'au sommet de l'Etat avec l'un des plus grands faux de l'Histoire John McClane a vieilli. Contre une prime qui peut sauver son ranch, Dan Evans s'engage dans l'escorte qui doit accompagner le dangereux criminel.
A 30 ans, Bruno, rock-star has been, vit toujours aux crochets de sa petite amie. Les temps sont durs Tigrou, le facetieux compagnon de Winnie l'ourson, deprime de n'avoir personne avec qui bondir comme il aime tant le faire. Il decide de partir a la recherche des autres tigres qui, il en est certain, doivent bien exister quelque part. Voila notre ami a ressort lance dans la plus grande aventure de sa vie, sur les traces des siens et d'un mysterieux arbre genealogique cache dans la foret des Reves bleus.
Voyant sa quete incertaine, les amis de Tigrou se deguisent en tigres pour essayer de lui faire croire qu'il a retrouve sa famille. Mais le stratageme echoue et Tigrou part aussitot.
Speech by Alumni President • Hwa Chong Alumni Association Youth Chapter
Un jour, celui-ci brise le flacon de sa dose et n'a pas le temps de s'en procurer une de rechange. Ray n'a pas le choix. Alaska, de nos jours. Car Kale n'a pas le droit de sortir de chez lui. Pongo et Perdy, superbes dalmatiens, vivent a Londres avec leurs maitres respectifs, Roger, concepteur de jeux video et Anita, dessinatrice de mode pour la maison de couture de Cruella d'Enfer.
Lorsqu'ils se croisent au parc, c'est le coup de foudre autant pour les chiens que pour les maitres. Et c'est ainsi que, quelques mois plus tard, les deux couples attendent un heureux evenement. Mais Cruella, obsedee par la fourrure, enleve Pongo et Perdy. Son pouvoir grandit, mais il a de moins en moins confiance en ceux qui l'entourent La saison n'est pas creuse pour tout le monde Depuis trois ans, il diffuse chaque jour des messages radio dans le fol espoir de trouver d'autres survivants. Mais Neville n'est pas seul. Ses innombrables ennemis lui en laisseront-ils le temps?
Alors que la police arrive sur les lieux du drame, l'inspecteur Rob Nunally a deux surprises: Barry Bee Benson n'est pas une abeille ordinaire: Dave, chanteur-compositeur venu proposer une de ses chansons, repart sans le savoir avec dans son sac les trois joyeux rongeurs Il leur compose alors une chanson. Aucun de ses amis n'a le temps de jouer et bondir avec lui. Pour Tom, la vie est belle.
Douce vengeance sous le ciel de Las Vegas Mais la chance ne suffit pas toujours lorsque l'on veut faire sauter ''The Bank'' Il n'y a aucun signe avant-coureur. Qu'est-ce qui provoque ce bouleversement radical et soudain du comportement humain? Et comment cette menace se propage-t-elle? Par l'air, par l'eau, ou autrement? Le disco est de retour! Mais aujourd'hui, par le jeu des remises de peine et pour bonne conduite, Subra sort de prison.
Philippe Abrams est directeur de la poste de Salon-de-Provence. Pour le recrutement, tous les moyens sont bons: On lui confie le dossier douteux d'une puissante firme agrochimique. Hors de question pour lui de laisser passer le seul amour de sa vie Les risques augmentent pourtant rapidement avec les mises, et les cartes ne restent pas longtemps son seul adversaire: Nous sommes en , en pleine Guerre Froide.
Le doyen Stanforth, qui est aussi un proche ami, se voit contraint de le licencier. A la sortie de la ville, Indiana fait la connaissance d'un jeune motard rebelle, Mutt, qui lui fait une proposition inattendue. Le chef de cette bande est la cruelle et somptueuse Irina Spalko. Indy n'aura jamais d'ennemie plus implacable Sa vie est en danger: Pour sauver la ville de la destruction totale, Bruce Banner va devoir faire appel au monstre qui sommeille en lui Un matin, il apprend la mort de son fils de 18 ans dans un accident de voiture. Un drame banal, conclut la gendarmerie.
Poursuites, agressions physiques, coups de feu, ils doivent prendre la fuite Avec l'aide de Diane, Kraft va quitter le monde simple qui est le sien pour celui du ''Nouveau protocole''. Une ombre immense se profile dans le ciel, un grondement sourd se fait entendre Au petit matin, Manhattan ne sera plus qu'un champ de ruines Son petit ami et elle quittent Londres pour passer un week-end romantique au bord d'un lac. A bout de nerfs, ces derniers leur demandent de baisser le son de leur radio.
Il devra bientot faire un choix entre sa famille d'adoption et ses ascendances humaines. Au lieu de cela, Max se voit assigner pour partenaire l'adorable mais redoutable agent Belisaire est heureux, mais Prudence s'ennuie. Coluche triomphe tous les soirs au Gymnase. Une insupportable question se pose alors: Heureusement, Volt va se trouver deux curieux compagnons de voyage: Ce que tous traduisent par ''plan social''. Bella tombe follement amoureuse de l'un d'eux, Edward Cullen. Au cours de ses recherches, Blomkvist se rend compte que la famille Vanger semble cacher bien des haines et des secrets.
Que contiennent les sacs? Qui est cette fille? Il a des parents qui l'aiment, une bande de chouettes copains avec lesquels il s'amuse bien, et il n'a pas du tout envie que cela change Il panique alors et imagine le pire: Je ne reviendrai pas. Sous sa forme d'avatar, Jake peut de nouveau marcher. Frank Bonneville et Albert Poussin.
Arthur est au comble de l'excitation: Folle de rage, Clochette empire la situation en brisant accidentellement la Pierre de Lune, la partie la plus noble du sceptre. Horton ne se trompe pas: Une nuit, ils font la connaissance d'un extra-terrestre qui atterrit dans le champ du Claude dit le Glaude. Contre toute attente, il ne va pas mourir Via une connexion satellite, un oeil dans le ciel surveille Ferris en permanence.
S'ils y parviennent, il pourrait s'agir du crime parfait. Air, Eau, Terre, Feu: Les vacances peuvent commencer! Ils ignorent alors que leur guide n'a pas mis les pieds dans la brousse depuis 30 ans Et qu'il a peur des animaux! Joseph a onze ans. De ceux qui ont eu confiance. De ceux qui ont fui. Il baptise le site Facemash. Wall Street, New York: Gru affectionne toutes sortes de sales joujoux. Sam Flynn, 27 ans, est le fils expert en technologie de Kevin Flynn.
La cpourse contre la montre peut commencer! Votre fille sort avec un sale type? Aujourd'hui, il existe une solution radicale, elle s'appelle Alex. En remontant les faits, son chemin croise celui de Sarah, une petite fille qui avait 10 ans en juillet Il suffit de se baisser pour trouver son repas Ce monde inconnu ne leur pardonnera aucune erreur Comment Po pourra-t-il triompher d'une arme plus forte que le kung-fu? Popper est un homme riche et puissant. Mais c'est aussi un homme seul: Mais lorsqu'un matin, M.
Tout va y passer: Il va devoir faire preuve d'imagination sans limite pour y parvenir Seuls et en fuite, les trois amis doivent plus que jamais compter l'un sur l'autre. Mais leurs essais ont des effets secondaires inattendus: Ultra professionnel et peu bavard, il a son propre code de conduite. Contre toute attente, Charlie et Max ont une chance, une seule, de faire leur grand retour….
On ne choisit ni ses parents, ni ses enfants! Bella a fait son choix: Eddie, Dov, Yvan et les autres Lorsque Nick Fury, le directeur du S. Ali se retrouve avec Sam, 5 ans, sur les bras. Jour de perte, veille de gain, le destin frappe au carreau! Les chevaux sont sous les ordres! Alex et Al Barad sont deux d'entre eux. Sullivan, dit Sulli, un vrai crack qui a un don naturel pour Terrifier. Ils vont aussi devoir convaincre la Schtroumpfette que sa place est bien parmi eux, et pas avec les Canailles…. Un jeune cocker se morfond dans sa cage.
Qui se ressemble s'assemble: Dink a eu le nez creux: Milan et Victor se connaissent depuis toujours. Mais le retour de Serki change la donne. Serki le dangereux psychopathe et sa cohorte de mauvais souvenirs. En permanence sur le fil du rasoir, seuls ses mensonges le maintiennent encore en vie. Mais il est hors de question pour lui de se conformer. Ariane Felder est enceinte! Ariane, qui ne se souvient de rien, tente alors de comprendre ce qui a bien pu se passer et ce qui l'attend Le vieux Irving Zisman, quatre-vingt-six ans, parcourt les Etats-Unis avec un improbable compagnon: Peu de gens reconnaissent Hasnat Khan.
Dans la banlieue de Boston, deux fillettes de 6 ans, Anna et Joy, ont disparu. C'est la rencontre d'un enfant solitaire et d'un chien sauvage. Peabody est la personne la plus intelligente au monde. Los Angeles, dans un futur proche. Les Expendables vont livrer leur bataille la plus explosive et la plus personnelle….
Recueilli par Kala, une femelle gorille, Tarzan est devenu un jeune homme fort et agile. Lambert, sex addict repenti, tente de se racheter une conduite en devenant… conseiller conjugal. Kolia habite une petite ville au bord de la mer de Barents, au nord de la Russie. Il a des projets. Although the rhythms of drumbeats are perceptible throughout these novels, at certain moments, the signifiers tambour the general French term for drum , ka a Creole term for drum , and tam-tam a French term for African traditional drums , as well as numerous interlinguistic synonyms, are explicitly evoked as a means of representing important social and symbolic functions of drums and drumming in a variety of historical and cultural contexts.
Although the sonority of drummed polyrhythms traverses each of these novels, the rhythmic presence of the drum adapts itself to the specificity of each text and of each context. Although each text resounds with prominent rhythmic and musical elements, each text reflects an individualized aesthetic that draws from a unique configuration of sociocultural, historical, linguistic, and aesthetic influences.
Beyond culture, beyond history, beyond language, their primary point of commonality lies in the trans of transpoetics and, as we will later explore, transculture. Through the salient incorporation of rhythmic and musical elements in their texts, these writers shatter the binary opposition that attempts to divide oral from written, thus creating an alternative relativizing universe in which identities can be autonomously re negotiated and re constructed.
In between and beyond the domains of oral and written, music occupies a fluid conceptual space that denies concrete definitions and sharply delineated boundaries. This is why, when contemplating contextualized musical phenomena—in texts, as recordings, or in performance—it is impossible to derive a precise series of fixed relationships in connection with the musical work. The universe of music, today, is a relative universe; I mean: For Boulez, music is important primarily because it changes the ways in which relationships are constructed and developed. Necessitating perpetual variability and forcing constant re negotiation, music prevents the establishment of definitively structured relationships, including those existing within the constraints of polarized systems as well as those determined by other inequitable or hierarchical modes of classification.
By toppling the power structures that impose the taxonomy of clearly defined relationships and fixed identity typographies, music becomes a powerful tool that relativizes everything, and, in doing so, challenges dominant modes of thinking by creating alternative autonomous spaces for identity negotiation and configuration. Insisting on the ambiguous trans or in-between spaces that defy precise and enduring definitions, music operates as a transpoetic mechanism in the frame of the novel, one that activates the text as a transpoetic space.
A place where poetic, aesthetic, and stylistic conventions are endlessly deconstructed and reconfigured, where identities and relationships are constantly called into question and re evaluated, the transpoetic space appropriates aesthetic and identificatory autonomy for writers and readers alike. In conceiving the text as a transpoetic space, the ubiquity of rhythm and music is instrumental for a number of reasons. First and foremost, music is not fixed in nature.
Rather, music relies on the singularity of performances, collaborations, and improvisations. Since performance production and participation conditions are inevitably variable, musical interpretations are never the same no matter how many times they are repeated, even when playing well-known songs or reading from established musical scores. Furthermore, listening conditions are equally unpredictable and changing.
The first, which deals with the nature of the writing itself, is also relevant to the exploration of narrative representations of musical phenomena: In signaling the problems and discrepancies common to visual representations of music, whether transcribed using texted linguistic elements or musical notations, Seeger emphasizes the inconsistencies involved in writing or writing about musical phenomena. Furthermore, music—or, more specifically, instrumental and drummed music, often referred to as absolute music—refuses to be contained within the limits of unyielding binary categories, most notably those that divide oral from written.
Resisting inclusion in either one category or the other, instrumental music occupies a space in between or even outside of the two poles. Keeping the cultural specificity of West African drumming traditions in mind and placing particular emphasis on his native Burkina Faso, Pacere explains why instrumental literature refuses alignment with oral and written categories: For this reason, he prefers the category of instrumental literature to describe instrumental or drummed musical texts.
According to Pacere, instrumental literature communicates its own messages, just as oral and written literature do, whether standing alone or serving as an accompaniment to oral genres or other performing arts such as theater or dance. In discussing the roles of the drums and drumming in West African cultural contexts, Pacere argues that the importance of music is manifest in its message, not its melody: Music is thus not melody but message; little does it matter if the ear complies with it or not; the only target interlocutors are the spirit and the heart, or even the body, in the event of the transmission of movements.
Favoring function in tandem with form, Pacere argues that, as far as the transmission of instrumental music is concerned, the hearing ear is not necessary. Preferring the spirit, the heart, and even the body as receptors, Pacere equates musical comprehension with the sensorial and physical experience of rhythm, much like Lefebvre does.
We will revisit these topics in addressing questions of tradition and cultural specificity in West African contexts, particularly in considering the works of Sembene, Kourouma, and Sow Fall in chapters 2 and 3. By breaking free of the limiting binary construct that succinctly separates oral from written, Pacere encourages approaches that deviate from Western philosophical and critical traditions. Doing so in a way that differs from such modes of thinking without directly opposing them, Pacere further neutralizes other polarized constructs, including those that attempt to separate Occidental from Oriental, Northern from Southern, and traditional from modern.
Whether standing alone, resonant as a sounding drum or any of its metaphorical equivalents including the sounds of heartbeats, footsteps, and those of people working , or serving as an accompaniment to vocal and instrumental performances, the drum serves as a fundamental transpoetic mechanism in the texts examined in this study. Drums, as instruments of musico-social performance, possess sonorities that burst the silent structure of the text, transfiguring it, and in the process, appropriating spaces in which alternative aesthetic and sociocultural conventions are negotiated and performed.
The drum symbolizes music, dance, and song. It remains present in all musical manifestations; even used as a simple instrument of accompaniment, it has its word to say. Even so, the ideas of both Niangoran-Bouah and Pacere can be expanded upon in exploring and comparing the traditions, languages, and practices of drums and drumming in African cultural contexts. The second primary difference results from the categories designated by the two theorists to characterize drumming languages and literatures.
Although Pacere takes care to distinguish instrumental literature and music from oral genres, Niangoran-Bouah allows instrumental and vocal categories to intermingle since, as he sees it, the drum is inherently manifest in music, dance, and song in West African performance and participatory practices. In fact bendrology and drummology contribute to the same vein, notwithstanding that Pacere reproaches the word drummology for its inauthentic and extroverted nature. In this respect, the fact that both concepts identify drums, drummers, and drumming as important objects of study in West African cultural contexts connects the two disciplines in a manner that renders their differences insignificant.
As Amoa points out, in presenting their respective theories of bendrology and drummology, both Pacere and Niangoran-Bouah insist on the importance of drums as communicative devices through which aesthetic, historical, and sociocultural information can be transmitted and shared. Moreover, drum languages offer operative alternatives to oral and written forms of expression, breaking free of binary categorical tendencies while affirming subjective autonomy and increasing aesthetic and functional possibilities.
In regarding the drum as a messaging mechanism, Niangoran-Bouah goes so far as to accord the drum its own subjectivity, suggesting that the drum is constantly communicating with listeners, regardless of whether it stands alone or accompanies other instruments. Resonant within West African geographical regions and sociocultural contexts, drums serve as powerful mechanisms charged with a variety of emblematic implications and social functions.
In his collection of African folktales La nuit des griots Night of the Griots , Kama Kamanda goes so far as to present the tam-tam as an omnipotent instrument—one that resonates with the power of pure possibility. Curious, the lumberjack retrieves the tam-tam, deciding to take up the musical craft.
As he begins to play, the lumberjack immediately recognizes the power of the tam-tam, manifest in its immense resonant potential. As he continues to play, the lumberjack-drummer is equally concerned with the aesthetic, spiritual, and philosophical implications of his art: As Kamanda describes, when played with good intentions, the tam-tam brings love, luck, and happiness to the drummer and the people for whom he plays. In this light, when he plays with a generous spirit and an open heart, the lumberjack-drummer experiences the realization of his dearest hopes and wishes.
Nevertheless, as an instrument of seemingly boundless possibility, the drum provides nefarious prospects as well as positive ones, particularly when the instrument is played with ill intentions. Beyond its capacities as a musical instrument, the drum represents a force in itself, serving as a medium for accessing realms of unknown possibilities. For this reason, as Kamanda illustrates, in many African traditions, it is important to respect the power and possibility of the drum, to approach the instrument with an open heart and good intentions.
This holds true for both drummers and their listeners. Not limited to aesthetic categories, drums allow for limitless possibilities in function and in form. For Niangoran-Bouah, who is primarily concerned with the sociological and historical aspects of drums and drumming, drums act in a multitude of capacities and also can serve as social leveling devices.
Omnipresent, their rhythms penetrate all levels and all aspects of society, as he affirms: The drum is neither at the top, nor in the middle, nor at the bottom, it is everywhere at once. Not limiting themselves to the drum languages and rhythms representative of a single geographic location or ethnic group, African drummers are using their knowledge of diverse rhythms as a means of bridging local and international divides. Similarly, in the Caribbean and the Americas, drummers are succeeding in negotiating the divides imposed by typographic aesthetic, sociocultural, geographic, linguistic, and gender-based categorical criteria.
As a result of their efforts and those of other like-minded musicians, we are witnessing an effacement of the categorical boundaries that attempt to separate drummers according to criteria including but not limited to nationality, ethnicity, social class, and gender. Furthermore, this investment in communication across aesthetic and sociocultural divides results in a reinvestment in and reevaluation of traditional music practices while nurturing hybrid and innovative musical styles.
Bayo Martins, a Nigerian musician and critic who concerns himself with examining the seemingly limitless roles of drums and drumming in African cultural contexts, embraces a similar approach in The Message of African Drumming. A drummer himself, Martins is cognizant of the multiplicity of social, political, linguistic, and aesthetic functions drums can fulfill for African peoples and global citizens, as are Pacere and NiangoranBouah. Whereas many critics focus on the collective dimensions of West African drumming practices, Martins is careful to insist on the importance of individual factors as well: Drums are used for praise and chanting, to console and soothe distress and to give joy to people.
They also serve as Ghanaian drummer Antoinette Kudoto is a prime example of a woman who has earned local and international acclaim as a master drummer. This assertion is significant for a number of reasons, primarily because it exposes the multifaceted nature of the drum as medium. Although Martins is primarily concerned with the prominence of the drum in West African cultural contexts, his ideas connecting the drum and the individual are applicable in a variety of geographical and cultural settings.
Even so, in considering the role of drums and drumming in Caribbean cultural contexts, it is often easier to find arguments that emphasize the importance of individual aspects rather than collective values in connection to locally produced music. Le tambour est un partage.
Son rythme est moins variable. Glissant —87 [In Africa, the drum is a language that is organized in speech: The drum is a sharing. Drummed orchestrations are rare, and never as complete nor total. Compared to the African, the Antillean drum gives me the impression of a net. Its rhythm is less variable. For Glissant, the drum becomes a solitary instrument once it is introduced into the Antillean context—one that is played by and speaks to individuals. It is therefore important to recognize that while the interests of the group and the individual appear to lie at opposite ends of a binary configuration, the two concepts are far from mutually exclusive.
As Martins adeptly illustrates in The Message of African Drumming, the drum can simultaneously address both players and listeners on group and individual levels, at least concerning drumming in multiple African cultural contexts. In terms of examining the role of the drum in Caribbean contexts, other critics, including anthropologist Kenneth M.
Bilby, argue similar points, accepting the coexistence of collective and individual values in Caribbean music. In The Caribbean as a Musical Region, Bilby traces the history of music and explores the multiple functions of music in Caribbean societies. At the heart of his discussion is the concept of creolization, which Bilby describes as a process by which diverse European, African, local, and other international influences intermingle to create distinct linguistic, aesthetic, and sociocultural products.
Rather, they result from an intricate process of communication, collaboration, and synthesis. Distinct in style and in functions, Caribbean music is innovative, interactive, and inventive, a creative integration of the diverse musical influences and cultural traditions that have contributed to its development. Addressing players and listeners on individual and collective levels, it creates a space in which people are free to negotiate relationships with themselves, each other, the world, and with the music they hear. Drawing from Caribbean cultures and culture at large, but also respecting individual originality and expressiveness, as Bilby and Glissant maintain, Caribbean music also plays an important role in creating spaces for autonomous identity negotiation and configuration.
In her work, Blou defines five relational spaces in which the collaborative performance of the music coincides with collective and individual identifications-in-process. Dance of resistance, of resilience, of adaptation: Grounded in the specificity of local aesthetic, historical, linguistic, and sociocultural criteria while open to international, multilingual, and transcultural influences, the gwo ka performance serves as a useful model for musically mediated identity negotiation and configuration.
For Blou, Caribbean performance traditions as innovations provide meaningful, productive forums in which identities are improvised, auditioned, performed, and re positioned by the community of participants and performers. As we will see, such relational strategies can also play out in the transcultural transpoetic space of the text.
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As with the trans of transpoetics, the trans of transculture insists on in-between conceptual spaces, calling attention to relationships between and among disparate cultural entities. The social organization of culture always depends both on the communicative flow and on the differentiation of experiences and interests in society. In other words, these perspectives are perspectives toward perspectives; and one may indeed see the social organization of a complex culture as a network of perspectives.
Fluid rather than fixed in nature, a culture is constantly shifting and transforming, which makes it difficult or even impossible to accurately describe a specific cultural group or to identify cultural absolutes.
Sounding off: rhythm, music, and identity in West African and Caribbean Francophone novels
When regarded in this light, the ambiguity of culture and cultures in themselves opens up a realm of pure possibility, a space in which a perpetual flow of communication, collaboration, and negotiation takes precedence over rigid characterizations and static descriptions. The history of a culture is that of its contaminations and its mutations. Every culture is intercultural. Nevertheless, in spite of these problems, in their respective models, Hannerz and Memmi create conceptual spaces for boundless possibility, specifically with respect to cultural change and transformation and to individual experience and identification.
It is in these blurry conceptual spaces that the nature of transculture reveals itself. A point of connection, communication, and exchange, the transcultural space allows for the negotiation of individual perspectives and collective value systems across geographical borders and historical epochs. Perpetually shifting, constantly changing, the transcultural space is particularly effective in the frame of the novel, a genre that lends itself to a multiplicity of possibilities in form and in function. In considering the novels selected for this study, this premise is of particular importance in determining how Francophone11 writers negotiate Although West African and Caribbean Francophone writers choose to write in French for a variety of reasons, most of them insist on shifting the balance of power in dealing with the French language and its prescribed culture and authority.
Oftentimes, this redistribution of power is achieved through the use of linguistic devices and stylistic techniques. Generally referred to as localization or indigenization strategies see Zabus , such techniques incorporate elements from local languages, oral genres, and literary traditions into the frame of literature written or performed in another, usually politically dominant, language. Even Kourouma, who consistently champions the countless possibilities for intercultural exchange and communication among members of the francophone community, acknowledges the difficulties of reconciling the poetics of African languages with those of standard French.
As Leclerc explains, Ivoirian languages and French tend to be used according to specific social criteria. I incorporate both spellings throughout the text, specifically as a way of emphasizing the political dimensions of language policy that Francophone writers deal with every day, but also as a way of considering the ways in which francophone writers deconstruct political authority in addressing members of an informal global community of French language readers and speakers.
Kourouma , [My first problem as a writer, as a Francophone writer, is thus first a question of culture. Of culture, because my religion, the base of which is animism, African animism, I fight in a great confusion of terms with the French expressions that I use. One would admit that there is, even so, a problem for us Black-Africans who have French as a national language.
Problem, because our national language does not have the precise words to name our God and our religion. In French, which is our national language and which is the administrative language, the terms used do not have the same meaning for the judge— who reasons in French—and the judged—who reasons in Black-African [languages]. Indicating problems in political, legal, religious, and cultural domains, Kourouma favors the designation and dissemination of localized varieties of French that correspond to the sociocultural and aesthetic While recognizing the dubious nature of French language dominance in postcolonial West Africa, Kourouma all the while acknowledges multiple possibilities for growth and creativity in African languages as they interact with and reappropriate French linguistic forms.
One could say that Black-African languages are in [a state of] perpetual creation; they adapt themselves, espouse the realities and sentiments that they are responsible for expressing. For Kourouma, the intermingling of quotidian West African expressive imaginaries and authoritative French language realities in Francophone West Africa opens spaces for invention and appropriation that operate in a multiplicity of sociocultural, political and aesthetic domains.
Writers in the Francophone Caribbean face similar linguistic challenges. A few days each year, it is little, one must admit. Although he deals primarily with Anglophone literary texts and contexts, Paul Gilroy has established a substantial body of critical work that deals with the importance of music in relation to identity, placing particular emphasis on the creation and perpetuation of autonomous identity constructs in black communities.
In The Black Atlantic: Inspired by the Atlantic Ocean—the vast divide that simultaneously separates and unites Europe, Africa, and the Americas—Gilroy breaks up the precise geometry of triangular and binary relationships, envisioning a mutable viscous space that blurs the linear connections and dominance configurations established by hegemony and hierarchy. In acknowledging the similarities between the transpoetic transcultural space and the Black Atlantic, the question arises: Why not simply refer to the transpoetic transcultural space as the Black Atlantic?
Although both the Rhizome and the Relation are considered more extensively in chapter 3, it is important to take a moment to elucidate why I insist on creating the designation of transpoetic transcultural space rather than opting to use preexisting terminology. As for the Relation, as an identificatory model, it represents a perpetual process that favors mobility and movement, one that is always open to transformation and innovation. Consisting of traces of movement, connection and communication, the Relation refuses the rigidity of fixed characterizations and generalizations.
Open to a domain of pure possibility, the Relation provides a vast and limitless expanse in which a multiplicity of elements intermingle, most notably languages and genres, both oral, written, and instrumental. It contradicts the comfortable assurances tied to the presupposed excellence of a language. A latent, open, multilingually intentioned poetic, caught up with all of the possible. Theoretical thinking, that targets the fundamental and the foundation, that resembles truth, gives way before these uncertain paths.
There are no absolutes in the Relation, no standard stereotypes, no stock generalizations. Everything in the Relation is incessantly changing, each moment ephemeral, which in turn perpetuates a constant process of negotiation. Hence, the designation of transpoetic transcultural space s. Method Abstract and ephemeral, music has the power to overcome not only the limits of language, but also those created by geographical borders, sociocultural norms, and aesthetic formats. By injecting the rhythms of music and everydayness in their novels, writers subtly subvert the authority of linguistic, aesthetic, and cultural conventions in favor of the unpredictable and the possible.
Open to cacophony, euphony, and all of the in-between aesthetic variants, drums and their percussive variants have the capacity address a variety of disparate rhythmic and musical sensibilities, to appeal to a multiplicity of diverse peoples and cultures, and to convey multiple meanings in the process. In examining the importance of rhythmic and musical phenomena in view of the performance and negotiation of social values, cultural traditions, and local aesthetic tendencies, it is necessary to acknowledge that not all readers are going to have the same amount of familiarity with or have access to the multiplicity of cultural, linguistic, and aesthetic elements an author chooses to include in his or her text.
Nevertheless, even uninitiated readers, those unfamiliar with the rhythms, the instruments, and the music of the texts, can derive meaning from these novels and arrive at some point of understanding, activated by an engagement with the transpoetic and transcultural elements of each text. Fampou , 42 [The complexity and the possibilities of communication are the principal characteristics of this music inaccessible even to uninitiated Africans. A music reserved for a few people of well-defined lineage and descent has no chance of becoming very popular.
Nevertheless, the purely complex aspect of the rhythm could have been accessible to everyone. Moreover, by asserting that the drummed music is inaccessible on certain levels, even to uninitiated African ears, Fampou breaks free of nationalizing or regionalizing tendencies that suggest that there are inherent geographically or culturally determined ways to interpret music i. By arguing that certain aspects of drummed music, in this instance its rhythmic complexity, are accessible to everyone, Fampou opens a space for negotiation in which listeners can independently appreciate rhythmic music and derive some sense of meaning from it.
As explained earlier, music functions in a similar fashion in the space of the novel. Although a reader may fail to recognize the sound and shape of a particular instrument or coherently understand its intended message or function in a localized context, he or she can still be moved by the rhythmic presence of music and sound in the text, and find therein an interpretive space in which meaning can be negotiated and constructed. A strong rhythmic and musical presence introduces an interesting set of variables and possibilities into the frame of the novel.
Often serving as the figurative pulse of the text, in many instances drums serve as metaphorical hearts, audibly quickening in moments of intense joy, fear, excitement, and anticipation. Similarly, drumbeats can also have soothing effects on their listeners. Their patterned drummed rhythms—comforting like the sure and steady heartbeat of a mother, a father, a friend, or a lover—have the power to dissipate anger, malice, frustration, and negativity.
Je demeurai immobile devant le tambour. Pluie et vent, —17 [I remained motionless before the drum. Seizing both sides of my dress, I began to turn about like a broken-down top, my back curved, my elbows raised above my shoulders, trying vainly to ward off the invisible strikes. Serving much like the pulse of the text, explicit texted representations of the rhythms of drumbeats and heartbeats often provide meaningful audible cues that foreshadow imminent changes and transformations.
In narrating the atrocities committed by warring rebel factions in Liberia and Sierra Leone in the s as experienced through the eyes of a twelve-year-old small soldier, Kourouma interweaves the noises of tam-tams and machine gunfire, resonantly framing a climate of intense emotions amid extreme chaos. The intercalation of drumbeats and gunfire is particularly apparent in one passage that describes the ambiance at the rebel camp after the death of one of their own, a ruthless child soldier named Captaine Kid.
Colonel Good Papa pointed the kalachnikov in the air and fired. All the child soldiers stopped and fired in the air like him. It made for a veritable fantasia. As they fire their guns into the air, the harsh sonorities of the raucous overlapping successions of shots audibly augment the madness and mayhem of their funerary celebration. Later on in the evening, long after the excitement of the machine gun symphony has faded, Kourouma evokes the rhythms of tam-tams.
It was her and not another that had eaten the soul of the brave child-soldier Kid. As demonstrated in the aforementioned passages from The Bridge of Beyond and Allah Is Not Obliged, drums and other percussive devices tend to serve as a signals of change or transformation, designating important turning points in the texts we will consider in this study.
Not exclusive to character development, texted representations of drums and drumming are also implemented to signal substantial shifts in plotlines. Received by the reader, the rhythmic variations create a climate of anticipation, suggesting inevitable yet often unforeseeable turns of events. In The Bow and the Lyre, Octavio Paz explains how transitions in rhythmic processes operate in fostering a sense of expectation, perceptible by readers and listeners alike: The succession of beats and pauses reveals a certain intentionality, something like a plan.
Rhythm provokes an expectation, arouses a yearning. If it is interrupted, we feel a shock. Something has been broken. If it continues, we expect something that we cannot identify precisely. It puts us in an attitude of waiting. We feel that the rhythm is a moving toward something, even though we may not know what that something is.
In this respect, for Paz, rhythm and, more precisely, rhythmic changes inherently function as signals of transition and transformation. On a practical level, drums function as important modes of communication that operate on multiple interpretive and aesthetic levels. As earlier suggested by Fampou, the communicative capacity of drums is almost limitless. In some instances, particularly in reference to many West African drumming traditions, drums can be used signals to communicate specific messages across vast distances using drummed languages.
In other instances, drums can serve as speech surrogates, imitating the rhythms, inflections, and tonalities of verbal languages see Nketia In other cases, the communicative capacity of drumming takes on more fluid and interpretive dimensions, as Martins suggests in his characterization of traditional drummers in The Message of African Drumming: Traditionally, through the drums, the drummer can monitor public conscience and act as its social critic.
Ideology therefore is a major aspect in traditional drumming. In describing the multiplicity of roles a traditional drummer can and should fulfill in African cultural contexts, Martins touches upon the dual importance of creativity and cultural authenticity in drumming. In this respect, a drummer not only preserves ties to important sociocultural traditions but also In characterizing West African drumming traditions, J. Kwabena Nketia has designated three distinct categories or modes: Not unique to African drumming and musical traditions, drums can also serve as expressive communicative mechanisms in Antillean cultural contexts.
Although Antillean drummers do not traditionally utilize drum languages to communicate complex messages from one location to another as some African drummers do, Antillean drumming genres can nonetheless function in ways that convey thoughts, feelings, and impressions to their listeners,15 while creating spaces for subjective improvisations and responses for performers and participant-spectators alike. Underlying a vibrant blend of musical tradition and innovation, drums communicate a wealth of information and emotions in Antillean contexts.
Perhaps Daniel Maximin says it best when he characterizes Antillean music as a language in its own right, one that rivals the expressive powers of spoken languages like French or Creole. Directly addressing each and every inhabitant of the Antilles using the singular informal French pronoun tu, Maximin affirms: Linguistically and aesthetically charged, music allows for the creation of sounding relational spaces in which individuals are called to re consider and re negotiate the ways in which they identify with and relate to one another in performance and extramusical contexts.
In both West African and Caribbean cultural contexts, drummed and instrumental music have the power to communicate ideas and emotions in a manner that transcends the limits of spoken and written language. In this way, the drum speaks without grammar and without words. The gwo ka musics convey the hope, sufferings and joys of the Guadeloupean people.
As they receive musical information, listeners acknowledge the music and respond to it by reacting in some way or another such as dancing in accord or in disaccord with the music , clapping, smiling, crying, or covering their ears. Even the act of hearing music and processing it as background noise engages the listener and qualifies as a response.
In recognizing the communicative capacity of drummed and instrumental genres, it is important to acknowledge the variable quality of the rhythmic information and messages transmitted through music. Dependent on multiple factors including location and time as well as the moods and mind-sets of both musicians and listeners, musical meaning is neither fixed nor limited to a series of set interpretations.
With music, this process is further complicated since musicians do not always write or compose the musical pieces they perform. In these types of situations, musical selections are doubly interpreted, first by the musician and then by the listener, which, in turn, increases the variable quality of music and what it communicates. In Sounds and Society, sociologist Peter Martin supports this premise, arguing that there are no authentic interpretations of musical selections: These labels are particularly troublesome when interpreted as prescriptive rather than descriptive.
An example of this tendency would be expecting African writers to write only about African problems and paradigms or for a Muslim woman writer to write only about the experiences and perspectives of Muslim women. I am afraid of labels. Literature is a land without walls. In view of labels and the expectations they perpetuate, similar assumptions are applied in anticipating how people will perform and receive music, or how people will read and interpret literary texts.
While the process of enculturation—through which people passively acquire local cultural information and behaviors as a result of being raised in a particular sociocultural setting—plays a role in shaping the metaphorical window through which one views the world, it does not establish static, culturally prescribed modes of thought, expression, or interpretation. Roland Louvel expresses similar sentiments in his text Une Afrique sans objets: Louvel , [What intellectual or moral authority could still tell us, in our day, what is truly Africa?
Who could still dictate to us what should be the right attitude towards it? To each his Africa. Students in the course learned about Ghanaian history, literature, politics, culture, music, ecology, and current events in a variety of locations and social settings through classroom discussions, cultural activities, site visit excursions, and service learning. Only one of the students had been to Africa before Kenya , and two of the students had never before traveled outside of the United States. Although the students adjusted to the environmental and sociocultural rhythms of the new location at varying speeds and in different ways, they often shared their perceptions of and reactions to day-today experiences and events with each other.
One way they communicated their observations and impressions was through a game they invented during the four-hour bus ride from Cape Coast to Kumasi. Although at first the game served as a way for students to acknowledge the challenges of adapting to life in a new cultural context and to make light of minor mishaps including transportation delays, energy shortages, and problems resulting from miscommunication , the game later became a technique students used to try to encapsulate the whole of their experience in Ghana.
In this respect, their answers became more profound. Rather than focusing on the cultural particularities of life in Ghana, students began to direct their gazes inward to themselves and to reflect on the personal changes they had undergone during the course of their journey. In doing so, began to reformulate their conceptions of identity, place, and relationality, in view of questions of what it means to be in the world. This brings us back to rhythm. Rhythmic phenomena are ever-present in our lives, shaping our individual and collective experiences, both ordinary and extraordinary, as we move through space and time.
Through rhythm, we negotiate our understandings of ourselves, each other, and the world around us. As we begin to contemplate the intricate dimensions of local and global identities through texted representations of rhythm, music, and sounds in their works, let us read with open eyes and open minds, and also endeavor to open our ears, our hearts, and our bodies to the rhythms and musics resonating therein. Serving as points of connection or commonality among diverse peoples, rhythm and music can function as powerful devices that unite people in their struggles against political, economic, and hegemonic authorities.
A creative, expressive form of pro-activity or pro-activeness, the power of music manifests itself in a multiplicity of ways, fostering a dynamic rhythmic force that connects and empowers individuals, affirms their autonomously constructed identities, and inspires them to question and to pro-actively resist repressive regimes and social agendas. Not exclusive to the domain of music, this power is also affirmed through transdisciplinary rhythmic phenomena as perceptible in linguistic, poetic, and biological forms among others. As Henri Meschonnic maintains: Ivoirian reggae artists Alpha Blondy and Tiken Jah Fakoly have emerged in recent years as prominent critics of European and American overinvolvement in African affairs.
In doing so, they have become vocal advocates for African autonomy and Pan-African unity. As the song begins, Blondy commands: Allez-vousen de chez nous. Get out of our home. We no longer want independence under high surveillance. Later in the song, Blondy proclaims: During one such air strike, nine French soldiers and an American aid worker were killed. Whether the strikes were accidental or intentional, the world may never know. As tensions mounted in the capital, anti-French protests in Abidjan were met with gunfire when French troops responded to days of protests and riots by firing on Ivoirian civilian protesters.
According to one source, seven Ivoirians were killed by French gunfire, and nearly two hundred others were injured in the attacks Leupp Although the French government maintains that the French soldiers responded with gunfire as a means of protecting French citizens against Ivoirian civilian attacks, many citizens, artists, and advocates disagree with this assertion, including Blondy. Although critics have accused Blondy of trying to incite violence through the video, Blondy argues that the purpose of the video is to document the tragic events of November and to discourage European overinvolvement in African affairs.
In their collection Women Writing Africa: West Africa and the Sahel, Esi Sutherland-Addy and Aminata Diaw provide transcriptions of traditional songs used by women to express unpopular or subversive viewpoints. As Sutherland-Addy and Diaw affirm, such musical pieces are traditionally performed in a social forum where the social critiques, challenges, and commentaries they offer will be received and considered by allies and opponents alike. In this respect, the aim of music is not to impose a single will or a single way, but to open the ears, the eyes, and the mind to multiple perspectives and to stimulate thoughtful consideration and discussion.
In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, African writers have found inspiration in the provocative strategies employed for centuries by vocal and instrumental musicians in Africa. Through the incorporation of prominent rhythmic and musical elements in their respective novels, Gods Bits of Wood and The Suns of Independence, Sembene and Kourouma create vibrantly sounding imaginative worlds that resonate from the space of the written page.
Most visibly manifest in the ever-present rhythms of drums and drumming, but also evoked through multiple representations of song and dance in both ritual and quotidian settings, the pronounced presence of rhythmic, musical, and otherwise noisy phenomena plays a significant role in each novel, connoting aesthetic, linguistic, sociocultural, and political implications. While exposing the hardships endured by the striking workers and their families, Sembene insists on the importance of the rhythms of language, music, and movement throughout the novel, particularly as they relate to questions of authority, autonomy, and identity in colonial and postcolonial West Africa.
Kourouma examines similar themes in The Suns of Independence, a novel that reveals social problems in West Africa in the early postcolonial era. Like Sembene, Kourouma masterfully weaves rhythmic and musical elements into his prose, celebrating the sonorities of everyday rhythmic and musical happenings as a means of exposing political inequalities, social problems, and linguistic conflicts.
In addition, we will discuss the significance of the decidedly resonant qualities of the texts in view of Sembene and Kourouma as socially committed writers. Language and the Language of Music For Sembene and for Kourouma, the decision to write in French is inescapably politically charged. Beyond the identificatory dimensions of language and, more specifically, the choice of language, French serves a practical communicative purpose for Sembene and Kourouma in that it allows them to reach global audiences with their writing.
In spite of its utility for communicating with readers around the world, the French language is nonetheless problematic in postcolonial contexts. Although Bambara is spoken as the primary vehicular language in Mali, French remains the official language. The choice of French as the official language also prevents a single ethnic or linguistic group from claiming a disproportionate amount of political power and authority by designating their mother tongue as the sole official language. Even so, the percentage of French speakers in each country is relatively low.
Recent estimates suggest that 40 percent of Ivoirians and 20 percent of Senegalese speak French as a second, third, or fourth language. In an interview with Sada Niang, Sembene points out two examples to illustrate the pragmatic challenges to the French official language policy in Senegal. In the first example, Sembene discusses how different ethnic groups have been unable to agree upon a Senegalese language alternative to French in government proceedings.
He describes one instance in particular when Wolof was proposed as the preferred language for Senegalese National Assembly meetings. The motion was rejected when members of minority language groups voiced their concerns that using the Wolof language would give an unfair advantage to the Wolof majority. Sembene explains his frustration with their decision, supporting the choice of Wolof as a pragmatic one since more people in Senegal speak Wolof than any other language: Even worse, according to Sembene, is the linguistic situation in Senegalese courtrooms and tribunals.
As the official language in Senegal, French is the language of law and justice, so all court proceedings are conducted in French, even if all of the witnesses, lawyers, and officials understand a common language like Wolof. Niang , 91 [When you go before the tribunal, the magistrates are Wolof and speak Wolof, the accused are Wolof and speak Wolof, but the people only speak through interpreters. What the accused says in Wolof, the president, the judges, the associates understand it perfectly, but in spite of everything, it must be translated to them in French.
There are also questions of linguistic barriers to educational institutions, economic opportunities, and social mobility, among others, which further complicate the discussion. Often referred to as a voice of the voiceless, Sembene was born in the Casamance region of southern Senegal in Although he was expelled from school as a teenager for disciplinary problems, Sembene nurtured his love of reading, writing, cinema, and storytelling.
After serving with the French army as a tirailleur, an African infantryman who helped to liberate the French army from the German occupation, Sembene returned to a Dakar ravaged by the political, economic, and social injustices of colonialism in Unable to find work in Senegal, Sembene returned to France, where he worked as a manual laborer on the docks of Marseille.
After spending over a decade in France, Sembene returned to Senegal following the declaration of Senegalese independence in Oh Country, My Beautiful People! As a young man, he completed his studies in Bamako, and later served in the French army before pursuing studies in math in Paris and, later, in Lyon. Like Sembene, Kourouma returned to his country in following Ivoirian independence. During his time in exile, Kourouma wrote his first novel, The Suns of Independence, in which he grapples with questions of identity, autonomy, and authority in postcolonial West Africa.
Although they choose to write their novels in French, Sembene and Kourouma are both hesitant to accept the label of Francophone writer, due in part to the political and sociocultural implications such linguistically prescribed labels convey. La langue est un produit de politique. In my opinion, all languages possess wealth. It depends on who uses them. In our schools, in Senegal, we teach all of the European languages. We also write in African languages and we have even translated the Bible and the Coran. Personally, I do not want people to confine us to the Francophonie. Viewing the label as a limiting constraint, always inevitably aligned with the trappings of French culture and politics, Sembene favors the designation of alternative monikers that also recognize the depth, versatility, and vitality of African languages.
Perhaps this is why Sembene so actively commits himself to introducing West African languages such as Wolof and Bambara to his public, both as a writer and as a filmmaker. In other instances, when introducing lexical elements from local languages, Sembene visually calls attention to Wolof, Bambara, and Arabic terms by presenting them in italicized print or accompanying them with explicatory footnotes.
In subsequent uses of these words and expressions, they often appear in the same nonitalicized typeface as the French text. Moreover, by incorporating elements from local lexicons into his French-language text, Sembene masterfully intercalates the rhythms of French, Wolof, and Bambara, creating polyphonic and polyrhythmic effects.
By infusing the rhythms of the French language text with the rhythms of Wolof and Bambara language and orality, Sembene denies the conventions and rhythms of prescribed language practices, instead crafting a text that resonates with the overlapping rhythms of multiple voices speaking multiple languages. Camouflaged in the black-and-white body of the French text and devoid of explicit clarification, the reader is left to his or her own devices— those of guessing, inferring, or remembering—to determine the meaning of the Bambara term one hundred pages and, later, three hundred pages after its initial use.
This is just one of the techniques Sembene uses to reorient or localize the French language, subtly transforming it to better reflect the rhythms of Senegalese and Malian linguistic and cultural realities and imaginaries.
Speech by Alumni President
An additional example of the significance of language choice takes place when Bakayoko, in an effort to unite diverse West African peoples in the struggle to resist colonial authorities in the critical moments preceding the end of the strike, delivers a decisive speech in Wolof, Bambara, Toucouleur, and French She also wonders why there are two expressions to describe the experience in Wolof and in French but only one in Bambara.
By challenging the authority of French language and cultural practices, Sembene subtly subverts their power, opening a space in which new expressive modes are developed and autonomous identity constructs are conceived and negotiated. Rejecting the notion that cultures and cultural systems are impenetrable, homogenous entities, Sembene clearly establishes a relationship among France, Mali, and Senegal that refuses the sharp divisions imposed by binary distinctions.
Bouraoui , 42 [If sometimes confrontation is necessary to stimulate the creative process, the fact remains that every game of hierarchical opposition must be absorbed by progressive successions of analysis and synthesis. In this sense, we do not want to suggest a rigid schema that risks freezing the Francophone contribution and its movements, but rather sketch a kind of economy of complementarity and not of polarity.
Preferring the dynamics of complementarity to those of polarity, Bouraoui argues for a fluid, interactive model that is transcultural in nature and emphasizes mobility, exchange, and inevitable growth. Much like Sembene, Kourouma succeeds in employing linguistic and stylistic devices as a means of creating a forum for negotiation and reappropriation in his novels.