https://hdl.handle.net/10646/120 Sun, 12 Apr 2026 07:54:25 GMT 2026-04-12T07:54:25Z https://hdl.handle.net/10646/518 A Critical Re-Engagement With Stultifying Gender Binaries in HIV and AIDS Related Shona Novelistic Discourses. Muhwati, Itai The paper is an exposition and a critique of selected novelistic voices in Shona whose subject matter also includes HIV/AIDS. Yet, the informing philosophy on Aids in the novels is gender difference as the modus operandi and sine qua non of social existence. Such a conceptual mode leads the writers to place both genders on a grading scale to see which poses the greatest danger to society. The unequivocal position that emerges in the novels is that women are largely responsible for the transmission of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. However, we argue that such a vision is ideologically vapid and pedagogically subversive and disempowering in the contemporary African world where the fight against HIV/AIDS has assumed legendary levels. Creative writers are part of the legendary battle and as such must not duck their social obligations by arguing that their works are mere fiction that has little or no impact on society. Literary creators who discourse on HIV/AIDS cease to be mere ‘writers in fiction’ because these are incontrovertibly matters of life and death. This paper was presented at a Seminar held in the Department of African Languages, University of Zimbabwe on 8 May 2006. Tue, 12 Sep 2006 09:40:17 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/10646/518 2006-09-12T09:40:17Z https://hdl.handle.net/10646/517 Perspectives From the Past, Technology of the Present and the Future: A Critical Appreciation of the Oral Aesthetic in Mapenzi (1999) and Masango Mavi (1998) Muhwati, Itai The paper critically analyses the contrastive use of Shona oral art forms in Chiwome’s Masango Mavi and Mabasa’s Mapenzi. It proceeds from realisation that the two writers identify with Shona people’s oral experiences, which are referred to as oral technology in this paper. We advance the argument that Mabasa uses Shona people’s oral technology in a manner that is ideologically and pedagogically empowering. This is consistent with the value thrust of Shona people’s epistemological assumptions. On the other hand, Chiwome adopts a revisionist and deconstructionist conceptual scheme with regard to Shona people’s oral technology. The paper comes to the conclusion that, of the two writers, therefore, Mabasa’s vision maintains the line between tradition and continuity. This paper was presented at a Seminar held in the Department of African Languages and Literature, University of Zimbabwe in 2006. Tue, 12 Sep 2006 09:24:59 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/10646/517 2006-09-12T09:24:59Z https://hdl.handle.net/10646/515 Mass Neurosis, Entrapment, Closure and the Race’s Race of Life in Masango Mavi(1998) and Mapenzi (1999). Muhwati, Itai This paper critically analyses the projection of the African image and the condition of the African race as depicted in Emmanuel Chiwome’s Masango Mavi (1998), and Ignatius Mabasa’s Mapenzi (1999) in the broad context of popular images in Zimbabwean literature written in Shona and English. The condition is that of a trapped people who are irretrievably wallowing in mass neurosis, closure and entrapment. We praise what is praiseworthy and dispraise what is not praiseworthy. In this connection, we advance the argument that, in as much as these works are concerned with highlighting the problems bedevilling Zimbabwean Africans today, the images they create are simultaneously subversive and disempowering. It is unfair for our writers to institutionalise pessimism and nihilism while condemning philosophies of motivation and futurism to the backseat. This paper was presented at a Seminar held in the Department of African Languages, University of Zimbabwe on 8 May 2006. Tue, 12 Sep 2006 08:35:29 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/10646/515 2006-09-12T08:35:29Z