Language and Identity in Tsitsi Dangarembga's _Nervous Conditions_
Project by Polygence alum Mofaramade
Project's result
Published by Research Archive of Rising Scholars and slated to be presented during the Fall 2025 Rising Scholars' Symposium
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Summary
This research essay will explore the relationship between formal education and the learning of English within colonial structures in Tsitsi Dangarembga's novel Nervous Conditions (1988), focusing in particular on how the adult narrator's socio-cultural sensibilities guide her retrospective narration of her childhood and her journey to whom she ultimately becomes. In addition to reading and responding to literary criticism of the novel, possible research directions include examining the (postcolonial) Bildungsroman as a genre and and the novel's relationship to Frantz Fanon's psychoanalytic theory of the colonized subject in The Wretched of the Earth (1961), from which Dangarembga draws her title.
Caitlin
Polygence mentor
PhD Doctor of Philosophy candidate
Subjects
Literature, Languages
Expertise
Comparative Literature; Film Studies; Literary Analysis; Cultural Studies; Francophone, Anglophone and Arabophone Literature & Cinema; Postcolonial Theory
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Mofaramade
Student
Graduation Year
2026
Project review
“The mentoring sessions were interactive and hands-on, with qualitative analysis of my work carried out at every step which was important and contributed greatly to the essay's final state and with the resources available, completion of my project was made easily within my reach.”
About my mentor
“Caitlin is attentive and thorough. She makes useful suggestions based on the direction and strength of your work that help take it to the next level.”
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