Showing papers in "Journal of Literary Studies in 1994"
12 citations
TL;DR: The conceptual apparatus that is becoming familiar in the New Literacy Studies, and some of the problems it has raised, has been outlined in this paper, and the implications of viewing literacy in this way for some current issues in South Africa, notably the debate over mother tongue literacy, the role of literacy in education courses and the issue of access to dominant literacy.
Abstract: Summary This paper relates some of the developments, in what has come to be called the “New Literacy Studies” in recent years, to some of the debates currently taking place regarding the role of literacy and education in the new South Africa. The conceptual apparatus that is becoming familiar in the New Literacy Studies, and some of the problems it has raised, will be outlined. The paper will then consider the implications of viewing literacy in this way for some current issues in South Africa, notably the debate over mother tongue literacy, the role of literacy in Education courses and the issue of access to dominant literacy.
11 citations
10 citations
TL;DR: This article traced the rise in critical status of Sol Plaatje's Mhudi, with the connections between the changing political conditions and the (increasingly generous) receptions of the novel sketched.
Abstract: Summary The rise in critical status of Sol Plaatje's Mhudi is traced, with the connections between the changing political conditions and the (increasingly generous) receptions of the novel sketched. Brief comparisons to canon construction in Roman, English, and United States literatures provide a basis for the argument that a conservative aesthetic is likely to prevail in the new South Africa, with writing “too angry”, “not literary enough”, and “not truly South African” marginalised. Brief suggestions are given as to how such an aesthetic might be resisted.
8 citations
TL;DR: In this article, Durban worker poetry is analysed and situated in contemporary debates around ethnicity and violence in Natal and it is argued that worker poetry can be seen as one example of the ANC and Cosatu's mobilisation of traditional cultural forms, commonly associated with Zuluness and ethnic identities.
Abstract: Summary Durban worker poetry is analysed and situated in contemporary debates around ethnicity and violence in Natal. It is argued that worker poetry can be seen as one example of the ANC and Cosatu's mobilisation of “traditional” cultural forms, commonly associated with Zulu‐ness and ethnic identities. The common association of Inkatha with Zulu nationalism and the ANC with non‐racialism is, therefore, challenged as misleading, being as it is primarily based on official discourse. An analysis of events where the poetry was performed, is used to suggest that “Zulu” cultural forms (and implicitly ethnic identities) have often been demanded and mobilised “from below”, by organisational membership. The apparent contradictions between this and the ANC's professed non‐racialism can only be explained by acknowledging the power and persistence of various forms of “ethnic consciousness”. The paper goes on to explore another widely held notion, that of the “militarism of Zulu culture”. Focusing again on worker poe...
8 citations
TL;DR: The authors assesses these views in relation to a Northern Transvaal case study and conclude that oral tradition far from waning thrives on fragments, and that its producers are like bricoleurs who go to work with material originally intended for another purpose.
Abstract: Summary This article attempts to raise some issues in relation to the broader question of oral tradition as a phenomenon that changes in time. Common‐sense views on this topic have tended to posit an evolutionary model in terms of which oral forms wither in the face of “stronger” literate forms. By contrast, other views hold that oral tradition ‐ far from waning ‐ thrives on fragments, and that its producers are like bricoleurs who go to work with material originally intended for another purpose. This article assesses these views in relation to a Northern Transvaal case study.
5 citations
TL;DR: This article explored constructs of identity and difference in various South African texts of the nineteenth and early 20th century by relating these texts to the development of print, economic transformations and historical events.
Abstract: Summary This paper explores constructs of identity and difference in various South African texts of the nineteenth and early twentieth century by relating these texts to the development of print, economic transformations and historical events. Investigating constructs of identity and difference is important because of the emphasis placed on these constructs by the discourse of apartheid.
4 citations
TL;DR: This article gave a critical overview of the development of literary historiography, "hard pressed between literature and history proper" and "stressed the catalytic impact of realism on historiogr...
Abstract: This article gives a critical overview of the development of literary historiography, “hard pressed between literature and history proper”. It stresses the catalytic impact of realism on historiogr...
4 citations
TL;DR: De Jong as mentioned in this paper, Ander Afrikaanse Letterkunde en sosiaalgerigte teksopvattings in Afrikaans. Pretoria: Raad vir Geesteswetenskaplike Navorsing
Abstract: 'n Ander Afrikaanse Letterkunde ‐ Marxistiese en sosiaalgerigte teksopvattings in Afrikaans. Marianne de Jong 1989. Pretoria: Raad vir Geesteswetenskaplike Navorsing
3 citations
TL;DR: The authors suggests a paradigm for the historiographical understanding of several culturally distinct but interrelated literatures of southern Africa, instead of regarding the literatures as discrete linguistic-ethnic entities, the comparative approach contextualized within the functioning of society questions conventional boundaries of language, race and genre.
Abstract: Summary The article suggests a paradigm for the historiographical understanding of the several culturally distinct but interrelated literatures of southern Africa Instead of regarding the literatures as discrete linguistic‐ethnic entities, the comparative approach contextualised within the functioning of society questions conventional boundaries of language, race and genre In seeking to delineate a “single story”, translation refers broadly to the activity of making the insights of one culture accessible to the other, the aim being to respect difference while identifying points of common concern in a democratic enterprise
3 citations
TL;DR: A survey of Afrikaans prose works for the completely revised edition of a well-known text, Perspektief en profiel as mentioned in this paper, was given at a SAVAL miniconference on literary historiography during March 1993.
Abstract: Summary This essay reflects the verbal report on the progress in writing of a new Afrikaans literary history, given at a SAVAL miniconference on literary historiography during March 1993. The author was asked to contribute a survey of twentieth century Afrikaans prose works for the completely revised edition of a well‐known text, Perspektief en profiel. Taking into consideration the ongoing debate about the nature and limitations of and expectations for a history of literature in a multicultural and multilinguistic South Africa, the theoretical and actual framework chosen and drawn up for this specific project, is discussed. The placing of Afrikaans literature within the larger system of South African cultural expression, and the interpretation of the literary text as an integral part of socio‐political reality, characterize the author's approach to the writing of the new text. Problems concerning canonization of texts, authors and literary periods are discussed. The fact that the final product should be ...
TL;DR: The authors argues that people yearn to return to an Africa based on the written accounts of colonialists and travellers because the Africans themselves had been incapable of writing in the strictest sense of the word, negating the significance of drawings as a form of writing.
Abstract: Summary This paper argues that people yearn to return to an Africa, not as it actually was, but as it should have been. An Africa based on the written accounts of colonialists and travellers because the Africans themselves had been incapable of “writing” in the strictest sense of the word ‐ a contention negating, for example, the significance of drawings as a form of “writing”. The African anger at a loss of origin because the past is inaccessible, is understandable, for the past can neither be denied, but nor should it be regarded as having been akin to Paradise. The privilege of writing and possessing information was confined to the select few until the advent of oral and visual media catering for the illiterate masses. Whereas the original poet/narrator commanded respect and enjoyed a captive audience within his closed community which exacted the accurate retelling of an event, the media of today babble incessantly, also repetitively, but the signifier is of no consequence in the eternal quest for the ...
TL;DR: Coetzee and Coetzee as mentioned in this paper discuss the politics of writing in South Africa and the Politics of Writing in the South Africa of the 1970s and 1980s, and discuss the following:
Abstract: J.M. Coetzee. South Africa and the Politics of Writing. David Attwell 1993. Johannesburg: David Philip
TL;DR: The authors identify the aesthetic criteria that resulted in the valorisation of Olive Schreiner's Story of an African Farm over her earliest completed novel Undine, and hope to distinguish the literary values which have informed the construction of the South African literary canon as a whole.
Abstract: Summary This article seeks to establish the aesthetic criteria in terms of which certain texts gain access to the South African literary canon while others are excluded. I have attempted to identify the aesthetic which has resulted in the valorisation of Olive Schreiner's Story of an African Farm over her earliest completed novel Undine, and hope, thereby, to begin to distinguish the literary values which have informed the construction of the South African canon as a whole.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate the genealogy of South African literatures, the creation of a nation, and various possibilities have to be taken into account in the writing of a history of South Africa Literature.
Abstract: Summary Can one talk of a “South African (National) Literature”? Should the political construct of “one nationship” be extended to reading the various literatures in South Africa as one text? An epistemology will be necessary. The forms of knowledge identified by Michel Foucault for the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are relevant to the first texts created in South Africa by European writers. The concept nation and nation‐ness is investigated briefly, as well as the various language discourses present at the moment. Writing and the text, the signifying practices of signifier and representation, especially regarding travel writing and missionary texts can be seen as seminal. Can we find in these early writings the genealogy of South African literatures, the creation of a nation? Various possibilities have to be taken into account in the writing of a “History of South African Literature”, but especially Benedict Anderson's view that the creation of a nation is the narrating of a nation, and Homi K. Bh...
TL;DR: In this paper, the relationship between dramatic text and performance from the viewpoint of the role played by ostension in both is studied, and two aspects receive special attention in this regard: the aspect of physical representation; and the fictional contract (contrat theâtral) made with the spectator.
Abstract: Summary This article studies the relationship between dramatic text and performance from the viewpoint of the role played by ostension in both. Two aspects receive special attention in this regard, namely: the aspect of physical representation; and the fictional contract (contrat theâtral) made with the spectator. A short discussion is given of Pieter Fourie's Die Koggalaar (1988) to illustrate the working of ostension in this play.
TL;DR: The authors place Eliot's theory of the classic and of culture into historical context in order to show that Coetzee's recent concern with these issues uncritically repeats elements of a conservative aesthetic ideology.
Abstract: Summary I attempt to place Eliot's theory of the classic and of culture into historical context in order to show that Coetzee's recent concern with these issues uncritically repeats elements of a conservative aesthetic ideology. This ideology proposes a view of history that has political implications, and highlighting it allows us to glimpse the presuppositions that must be negotiated if literary history is to approach its subject without pre‐empting it.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the question whether, as Habermas claims, Jacques Derrida collapses the genre distinction between philosophy and literature by means of the (alleged) levelling effect of his notion of textuality.
Abstract: Summary The present article focuses on the question whether, as Habermas claims, Jacques Derrida collapses the genre distinction between philosophy and literature by means of the (alleged) levelling effect of his notion of textuality. More specifically, Habermas accuses Derrida of failing to respect the normative demands of argumentation that characterize philosophical, as opposed to literary‐expressive language, with the result that his deconstructive discourse is reduced to literature. According to Habermas, the price that Derrida has to pay in the process is the problem‐solving, consensus‐promoting capacity of philosophy. By way of a careful examination of relevant passages from Derrida's as well as from Habermas's work, and with the help of Norris's critical commentary on Habermas's reception of Derrida, it is demonstrated that the latter's literary style of writing is combined with a degree of argumentative rigour which places its philosophical significance above suspicion.
TL;DR: The role of the temporal dimension in difference is stressed: the process of signification cannot be realized without the play of retentions from the past as discussed by the authors, and the strategic objective of Derrida's statement that there is nothing outside the text, is to demonstrate that reality can be approached only by an interpretative experience.
Abstract: Summary Some critics of the French philosopher, Jacques Derrida, have labelled his work as ahistorical and apolitical. In this article Derrida's views on, among others, textuality, differance and metaphysics are scrutinized for the implications they may have for history: the strategic objective of Derrida's statement that there is nothing outside the text, is to demonstrate that reality can be approached only by an interpretative experience. The role of the temporal dimension in difference is stressed: the process of signification cannot be realized without the play of retentions from the past. Derrida problematizes the logocentric, metaphysical concept of history and suggests a plural, heterogeneous apprehension of history. Although Derrida's deconstruction does not include an extensive social theory, hardly any penetrating historical inquiry, whether literary or historiographical, can ignore Derrida's compelling challenge to history.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors and readers in John Miles's novel Kroniek uit die doofpot are discussed and the implications these have for the possible meaning of the novel are scrutinized.
Abstract: Summary In this article certain aspects of the relationship author‐character‐reader in John Miles's novel Kroniek uit die doofpot are discussed. The implications these have for the possible meaning of the novel are scrutinized. Miles took great care with the text‐internal discourse particularly between fictive author (author‐narrator) and fictive reader (reader‐character) in order to involve the implicit reader in an exceptionally explicit and frank manner, by which the engage‐perlocution of the novel is intensified. The following aspects are investigated: (a) universalizing by author and characters; (b) identification between author and character; (c) linguistic signals of identification among author, character and reader and; (d) the part played by “built‐in reader reactions”.
TL;DR: In this article, a discussion of the problems with a definition of genre and the shortcomings in the practice of traditional genre-criticism is carried out and the conclusion is reached that the concept has some practical use in the analysis and interpretation of texts and also as a means of accounting for the socio-political grounds of a text.
Abstract: Summary After a discussion of the problems with a definition of genre and the short‐comings in the practice of traditional genre‐criticism, the conclusion is reached that the concept has some practical use in the analysis and interpretation of texts and also as a means of accounting for the socio‐political grounds of a text. Along with Bakhtin and Jameson it is argued that genre as a formal and social construct gives the opportunity to study the dialectics of text and context. In conclusion Jameson's methodology for a dialectics of genre by which both text and criticism can be regrounded, is briefly sketched.
TL;DR: In this paper, a group of thirteen early novels by white writers in which the Bambata Rebellion features significantly were examined. But the focus of the study was not on race, but on the extent to which white South African attitudes may have shifted towards, and perhaps beyond, the more enlightened responses to the Rebellion observed in the final set of novels.
Abstract: Summary The focus of this paper is a group of thirteen early novels by white writers in which the Bambata Rebellion features significantly. Discussed in turn are: (a) the novels tending to endorse white prejudice; (b) those which are ambivalent in terms of the sympathy shown to whites and blacks; and (c) those which involve some sustained questioning of white propagandist interests, and possibly even some empathy for the black cause. Underlying the study is a concern with the extent to which white South African attitudes may have shifted towards, and perhaps beyond, the more enlightened responses to the Rebellion observed in the final set of novels.
TL;DR: The authors argues that a mode of reading which has much in common with that which Althusser, in Reading Capital, calls "symptomatic" has proven to be one of the most productive but neglected textual procedures of our times.
Abstract: Summary This paper argues that a mode of reading which has much in common with that which Althusser, in Reading Capital, calls “symptomatic”, has proven to be one of the most productive but neglected textual procedures of our times. By way of a discussion of the reading practices of Althusser, Barthes, Bachelard and Foucault, it is argued here that these practices are connected, not only as regards parallel concerns and themes, but more important still concerning the figure of discontinuity which underpins all symptomatic readings. This discontinuity, the paper suggests, is not only of the conceptual or philosophical variety, but extends to the concepts of history in Foucault's archaeologies to that of the subject in Bachelard, and to representation itself in the work of both Althusser and Barthes.
TL;DR: The authors argue that neither the process of writing nor language holds a sufficiently privileged position within modernity that one is able to construct epistemologically valid statements on literature, should we presuppose a de facto relation of continuity between writing, language and literature.
Abstract: Summary This paper is initially concerned with a debate between Derrida and Deleuze and Guattari's accounts of “writing”, from which it proceeds to question the usefulness of these accounts within the field of literary “theory”. The paper argues that neither the process of writing, nor language, holds a sufficiently privileged position within modernity that one is able to construct epistemologically valid statements on literature, should we presuppose a de facto relation of continuity between writing, language and literature. The paper continues with an account of the literary narrative (as a form of literature constituted of “narrative elements” rather than words), as a text whose logic, and predisposition to pleasure, is a problem of reading rather than writing.