Feminist discourses on utu and heshima in selected works by Tanzanian women writers

Abstract

www.wuw.pl 1st Edition, Warsaw 2023 'My Honor' by Penina Muhando Mlama) and a novel (Mungu Hakopeshwi 'God Doesn't Borrow Time' by Zainab Alwi Baharoon). Applying feminist critical analysis, Izabela Romańczuk argues that the two works by Tanzanian women writers reconstruct the discourse on key moral concepts of Swahili ethics: utu (humanity, morality) and heshima (honor, respect, dignity). The Author shows how these concepts are intertwined with socio-cultural constructions of gender and patriarchal order, as well as with class hierarchies.The following text likewise touches upon literary issues, this time from the perspective of the lexicon characteristic of traditional Swahili poetry. Thomas J. Hinnebusch presents a report on a digitized, web-based project conducted at the University of California, Los Angeles, devoted to documenting the vocabulary used in the canon of classical Swahili poetry. The database contains a glossary, textual citations, bibliographic notes on Swahili poets, information on Swahili poetry, including annotated references, and other useful data. The Author's discussion of this ongoing project provides not only its detailed description but also encouragement for anyone interested in continuing the work.The subsequent two articles focus on specific aspects of the Swahili language usage. Beata Wójtowicz looks at the recent problem of the coronavirus pandemic and the terminological challenges associated with it. A list of COVID-19-related terms proposed by the Tanzanian National Kiswahili Council (BAKITA) is discussed and contrasted with the lexicon used in Swahili-language Kenyan and Tanzanian journalistic texts. After analyzing selected keywords and collocations, the Author finds a number of discrepancies between the official recommendations and actual language usage.