Ignatius Mabasa Makes History…Writes First-Ever ChiShona PhD Thesis at Rhodes University
Ignatius Mabasa Writes First-Ever ChiShona PhD Thesis at Rhodes University. Award-winning novelist, children’ s writer, dub poet and musician Ignatius Tirivangani Mabasa has made history after he wrote the first-ever ChiShona PhD thesis at Rhodes University. He will be awarded his Rhodes University doctorate later on this month.
Ignatius Mabasa Writes First-Ever ChiShona PhD Thesis at Rhodes University
Award-winning novelist, children’s writer, dub poet and musician Ignatius Tirivangani Mabasa has made history after he wrote the first-ever ChiShona PhD thesis at Rhodes University.
The multi-talented writer who writes mainly in ChiShona was a PhD student in the African Language Studies Section in the School of Languages and Literatures at the South African university.
He will be awarded his Rhodes University doctorate later on this month. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the graduation ceremony will be virtual.
Mabasa’s thesis is titled “CHAVE CHEMUTENGURE VHIRI RENGORO: HUSARUNGANO NERWENDO RWENGANO DZEVASHONA. The folktale in confrontation with a changing world: a Shona storyteller’s autoethnography.”
Speaking on why he chose to write the PhD Thesis in his mother tongue, Mabasa said:
According to Mabasa, his use of ChiShona also acts as a challenge to gatekeeping in academia where research and the language it uses marginalises certain classes, creating dangerous dominant narratives and pseudo-realities.
In his thesis, Ignatius Mabasa makes use of autoethnography, which is a methodology that deliberately seeks to make research and knowledge accessible.
Mabasa’s thesis was supervised by Professor Chimhundu, a well-known ChiShona scholar from Zimbabwe, and Professor Russell Kaschula, NRF SARChI Research Chair for the Intellectualisation of African Languages, Multilingualism and Education and Professor of African Language Studies at Rhodes University.
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