Between Rites and Rights: Excision in Women’s Experiential Texts and Human Contexts

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. Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- Notes On Transliteration And Translation -- Introduction -- Part One The Cult Of Culture -- 1. Sexual Pre-texts -- 2. Kenyan Reactance: Kenyatta, Huxley, Wa Thiong'o -- 3. Kenyan Women's Texts: Njau, Likimani, Waciuma -- Part Two Speaking From Memory: Religion And Remembrance -- 4. In Passing And Other Circumspections: Nwapa, El Saadawi, Rifaat -- 5. On Spurious Geneses: -- 6. Spoken Autobiographical Acts: -- Part Three From Sealing To Opening Up: Sex, Exile, And Empowerment -- 7. The Sealed Condition: From The Beginnings To Freud And Herzi -- 8. Silence, Exile, And The Spectacle Of The Fashioned Body: -- 9 The Whole Woman And The Law: -- 10. The Exciser -- Conclusion: Between Rights And Future Rites -- Notes -- Select Bibliography -- Index Chantal Zabus. Bibliographic Level Mode Of Issuance: Monograph Includes Bibliographical References (p. [291]-314) And Index. English