African migration novels offer interesting views on gender, but scholarly analyses of these texts have not always adopted masculinity in their critical approach. Although immigrant tales are now receiving more attention, studies have overlooked the masculine as gendered, as something socially constructed and individually re-enacted. For this reason, I propose a reading of the novel Behold the Dreamers (2016), by Cameroonian author Imbolo Mbue, that aims to interrogate the masculine struggle of the character Jende Jonga. I use the term ‘relational masculinities’ to explore how the character’s manhood is dependent on his relations with others. I will also include the concept of ‘respectability’ studied by Dominic Pasura and Anastasia Christou (2018) to underline that Jonga’s masculinity relies heavily on his success as an African immigrant and father. This article argues that the protagonist’s performance of masculinity hinges both on his ability to exert control within his inner circle and on his efforts to cultivate a respectable image in extended social circles. However, the pressures of migration within a white neoliberal context generate profound emotional strain, and the systemic obstacles he encounters ultimately thwart these aspirations. This study exemplifies how interdisciplinary approaches —drawing from literary analysis, gender theory and postcolonial critique— can enrich our understanding of new African diasporic fiction and open new possibilities for academic research.
Like its 2016 breakthrough predecessor, The North Water, The Abstainer (2020), Ian McGuire’s latest novel, is set in Victorian England. It features a serial killer, a flawed detective protagonist in pursuit of the villain and a final thriller-like encounter between them. However, the genre of its narration differs —revolving around a police detective chasing a criminal— and so do the psychological profiles of the pursuer and the pursued, the motivation behind their acts and the mood of the story’s resolution. Moreover, the employment of central adversaries who are, to some extent, similar to each other challenges a clear-cut borderline between good and evil, right and wrong. This article thus argues that, by subverting the generic schemes of the Victorian detective novel, raising ethical questions concerning the gulf between Self and Other, and addressing concerns relevant to present-day readers’ sensibility, The Abstainer represents a noteworthy contribution to the body of contemporary Neo-Victorian crime fiction.
Pese a la atención limitada que se le otorga a la pronunciación en el aula de inglés como lengua extranjera, lograr una pronunciación inteligible constituye un elemento esencial para una comunicación eficaz. En este sentido, una producción precisa de la mayoría de fonemas consonánticos del inglés resulta clave para la inteligibilidad (Jenkins 2000), lo que subraya la necesidad de implementar en el aula actividades innovadoras y motivadoras para desarrollar la competencia fonológica. Este estudio analiza la eficacia de actividades de doblaje intralingüístico didáctico, una modalidad de traducción audiovisual didáctica, para la mejora de la producción del fonema /ʃ/ en estudiantes españoles de inglés. Se siguió un diseño cuasiexperimental en tres fases (pretest, intervención-doblaje y postest), con una muestra de estudiantes del Grado en Educación Primaria (n = 71), divididos en un grupo de control (n = 34) y un grupo experimental (n = 37), recabando datos relevantes para su posterior análisis mediante pruebas estadísticas no paramétricas. Los resultados evidencian una mejora estadísticamente significativa en la producción del fonema /ʃ/ en el grupo experimental tras la intervención, lo que sugiere que el doblaje didáctico favorece la toma de conciencia fonética y contribuye a mejorar la inteligibilidad en el aula de EFL.
This article explores the representation of different Spanish natural and urban landscapes in George Borrow’s travel book The Bible in Spain (1843). The study focuses on the author’s allusions to the aesthetic category of the sublime and to melancholy, an emotion associated with the experience of sublimity in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. The principal objective is to examine the way in which Borrow appreciates the diversity of different regions of Spain through his interpretation of the Spanish landscape as melancholic and sublime. The traveller’s descriptions of the solitude and melancholy of Salamanca and the plains of Castile contrast dramatically with his vision of Seville as a paradise where melancholy cannot be felt. Moreover, Borrow portrays the Castilian plains and the valleys of El Bierzo as sublime, but he claims that the Leonese landscape resembles the English countryside and lacks the cheerlessness that characterises Castile. Lastly, the traveller emphasises the harshness of the sublimity of Cape Finisterre and associates this quality with the essence of Spaniards. Therefore, this article demonstrates that Borrow does not picture Spain as a homogeneous country because he distinguishes between different landscapes and regions through the concepts of melancholy and the sublime.
