Date of Award

2018

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

Submission Date

October 2026

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Quesada, Carmen

Abstract

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz join a world-wide tradition of authors throughout history such as Boëthius of Rome, Louis de Althusser of France, Fyodor Dostoyevsky of Russia, and Angela Davis of the United States, who have been imprisoned for their political writings, or better said, imprisoned for the subversive political implications of their writings. Sor Juana wrote in New Spain in the 1600s, during the Spanish Inquisition (1478-1834). In the literary calendar relevant to this project, Ngũgĩ wrote during the 1970s in Kenya, under the scrutiny of a neocolonial state and its Vicepresident, Daniel Arap Moi. They both spent time in physical detention intended to silence their speech. Using the memoir, Detained: A Writer’s Prison Diary (1982) by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, and Sor Juana’s writings, in particular, her “Respuesta A La Muy Ilustre Sor Filotea De La Cruz,” and the theoretical lens of Michel Foucault, I examine the relationship between free speech (parrhesia) and political hegemony in the lives and works of these authors.

Comments

Includes bibliography.

Extent

36 p.

Identifier

FAUHT00035

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