Publications & Seminar Papers

A Question of Power by Bessie Head is a fictional autobiographical novel that deals with power relationships among characters in a pattern of a binary system. The theory of binary oppositions views that one word exists as a supreme authority of power and another word represents a powerless opponent in a pair of binary words. This idea suggests that the position of power is unchangeable but this notion of the binary theory is questioned and challenged in the novel. The concern of this paper is to demonstrate how the position of power is transformed and interchanged and how a dominated or powerless opponent can take over the place of authority in a binary pair of words. So, this paper’s thesis is not only proving that the position of power switches but also to claim that a victim of powerful authority can achieve power living in powerlessness or in oppression.

Bessie Head’s A Question of Power is an African literary narrative that considers the theme of mental illness via the female protagonist, Elizabeth. For readers, it is often challenging to cope with the traumatic situations Elizabeth encounters because she herself battles to cope with her inner anxieties. These inner anxieties exist within Elizabeth because of the two internal figures, Sello and Dan, who represent God and Satan and further affect her mental illness. Elizabeth’s isolation from the entire world, her poverty and the extreme violence of Sello and Dan eventually force her to suffer mental illness. Though on a superficial level, it seems that Elizabeth’s insanity gives her nothing except mental and physical trauma; her illness brings freedom and peace for her at the end of the novel. This paper analyzes the impact of the state of insanity to prove that Elizabeth’s mental illness strengthens her power to understand social and political issues which ultimately leads to the reconciliation of her body and soul.

An evaluation of Nova Scotia’s provincial carbon pricing mechanism under the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act (GGPPA). Examines the friction between provincial industrial competitiveness and federal benchmark stringency within Canadian environmental federalism.

A critical discourse analysis investigating how cinematic language and policy documents securitize environmental displacement at the US-Canada border.

Explores psychological and geopolitical confinement in apartheid South Africa, analyzing how literary narratives document institutional isolation and internal survival.