Showing papers in "Journal of Literary Studies in 1998"
TL;DR: In this article, the contribution of Petronella van Heerden in the general context of feminist historiography and in the specific context of women's literary history is investigated.
Abstract: Summary This article investigates the contribution of Petronella van Heerden in the general context of feminist historiography and in the specific context of feminist literary historiography. This is followed by a discussion of the methodology of feminist historiography, which is an approach that focuses on the experiences and roles of women as told in diaries, autobiographies and oral sources, that have been neglected by traditional historiography. The emphasis of feminist literary historiography on a historical‐critical, rather than an aesthetic‐critical rediscovery of lost women's texts, is explored. In the light of this theoretical framework follows an exploration of the work of Petronella van Heerden ‐ a woman who, at the turn of the century, did groundbreaking work in the field of medicine and contributed significantly to the genre of Afrikaans women's autiobiographical writing. The theoretical exposition is followed by the life‐story of Petronella van Heerden with emphasis on her medical, cultural ...
7 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an overview of the oeuvre and indicate that the novels under discussion form part of a postcolonial discourse, and the links between ecocentricity and post-colonisation are explored and it is indicated how, in Imagings of Sand (1996), colony, coloniser and colonised fuse into one.
Abstract: Summary At the outset, the article briefly comments on the notion of “postcoloniality” and uses Boehmer's description as a working definition in order to trace some postcolonial tendencies in Andre Brink's prose oeuvre. The article provides an overview of the oeuvre and indicates that the novels under discussion form part of a postcolonial discourse. The analysis shows that the earlier postcolonial texts in the oeuvre, as litterature engagee are explicitly positioned against neocolonial oppression. The links between ecocentricity and postcoloniality in the oeuvre are explored and it is indicated how, in Imaginings of Sand (1996), colony, coloniser and colonised fuse into one. The concern with Africa itself is furthermore indicated as a link with the postcolonial novelists of Africa. The article shows how the later postmodernist texts in the oeuvre, instead of representing a flight from political dimensions, indeed support Hutcheon's view that there are strong links between postmodernism and postcolonialit...
6 citations
TL;DR: This article explored the connections between Langenhoven's literary position and his role in Afrikaner nationalist politics and suggested that central to the polemic is a battle over the definition of an identity for a new nation for which linguistic and racial exclusivity have become the primary marks of distinction.
Abstract: Summary The earliest public debate on pornography in South Africa was conducted on the pages of the Cape newspaper. Die Burger, at the beginning of 1930. This debate between C.J. Langenhoven, well‐known author, journalist and politician, and a young literary scholar, is considered by literary scholars to be merely a polemic among men of letters that reflects Langenhoven's conservative morality and his dislike of literary academics. However, cultural polemic involves much more than a controversy about artistic tastes or personal morality. Culture is a battleground on which various political and ideological causes engage one another and important social issues are debated. This article explores the connections between Langenhoven's literary position and his role in Afrikaner nationalist politics and suggests that central to the polemic is a battle over the definition of an identity for a new nation for which linguistic and racial exclusivity have become the primary marks of distinction.
5 citations
TL;DR: The authors relates the story of other people's stories about an indigenous woman Krotoa, renamed Eva, within South African history, keeping in mind that narrative itself is a temporal construction.
Abstract: Summary This article relates the story of other people's stories about an indigenous woman Krotoa, renamed Eva, within South African history. The narration of Krotoa is briefly reconstructed, keeping in mind that narrative itself is a temporal construction. The process of reconstruction becomes another version of the story of Krotoa, as well as a review of the nature of cultural remembrance. The ultimate aim is to assess the procedure whereby the story of Krotoa becomes a translation of the Real according to Lacan.
4 citations
TL;DR: According to as mentioned in this paper, during a world tour (1911-1912) which Dr Jacobs and Carleton Catt undertook with the aim of furthering the cause of women's suffrage, they made hardly any attempt to include black and Asian women in their awareness campaign in these two countries and the contention that this can be partially explained by Aletta Jacobs's allegiance to colonialist discourse.
Abstract: Summary The sections on Southern Africa and Indonesia in Dr Aletta Jacobs's travel journal, Reisbrieven uit Afrika en Azie (1913), are discussed with reference to conventions of travel literature and to the feminine voice in colonial discourse. The journal was written during a world tour (1911–1912) which Dr Jacobs and Ms Carrie Chapman Catt undertook with the aim of furthering the cause of women's suffrage. According to Dr Jacobs's travel journal they made hardly any attempt to include black and Asian women in their awareness campaign in these two countries and the article puts forward the contention that this can be partially explained by Aletta Jacobs's allegiance to colonialist discourse. This becomes especially apparent in her descriptions of people of mixed race in Southern Africa and of the Indonesian landscape.
4 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that Salman Rushdie creates a postcolonial discourse in Midnight's Children that seeks to replace the traditional structures of the nation and history with new constructs suitable to the conditions of the diaspora: a new condition of homelessness and lack of history.
Abstract: Summary This paper attempts to indicate that Salman Rushdie creates a postcolonial discourse in Midnight's Children (1995) that seeks to replace the traditional structures of the nation and history with new constructs suitable to the conditions of the diaspora: a new condition of homelessness and lack of history. This is done through the creation of an anti‐mimetic method of writing that reveals the nation and its history as artificial entities.
3 citations
TL;DR: This article explored the forgotten legacy of white labour and socialist culture from the first two decades of the twentieth century in South Africa, investigating the strikes, marches and processions in terms of carnival and an oral and public culture in which the trade union leader or party leader as orator, and The Red Flag as song and banner, played an important role.
Abstract: Summary This paper explores the forgotten legacy of white labour and socialist culture from the first two decades of the twentieth century in South Africa. It investigates the strikes, marches and processions in terms of carnival and an oral and public culture in which the trade union leader or party leader as orator, on the one hand, and the The Red Flag as song and banner, on the other, played an important role. The focus then shifts to the newspapers and the doggerel which appeared in the newspapers with special emphasis on the themes of empire, civilisation and reason. The paper concludes that much of the spontaneity which marked this popular movement, was destroyed because of the increasing centralised control by the Comintern and directives from Moscow.
3 citations
TL;DR: The authors investigates the use to which the categories of "work" and "text" are put in the later writings of Roland Barthes, and argues that despite Barthes's vehement repudiation of the foreclosing effects of a theoretical oeuvre, his later publications, including, inter alia, S/Z (1970), Empire of Signs ( 1970), The Pleasure of the Text (1973), Roland Barthees by Roland Barthhes (1975) and a number of anthologised essays, are linked by their overriding preoccupation with the central distinction between "
Abstract: Summary This paper investigates the use to which the categories of “work” and “Text” are put in the later writings of Roland Barthes. The paper proceeds to argue that despite Barthes's vehement repudiation of the foreclosing effects of a theoretical oeuvre, his later publications, including, inter alia, S/Z (1970), Empire of Signs (1970), The Pleasure of the Text (1973), Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes (1975) and a number of anthologised essays, are linked by their overriding preoccupation with the central distinction between “work” and “Text”. The paper then turns to an analysis of the metaphors selfconsciously employed by Barthes as a means of undermining the metaphysical imperatives of language in his elaboration of the Theory of the Text. Having outlined this extensive rhetorical system, however, the paper employs a close reading of Derrida's “White Mythology: Metaphor in the Text of Philosophy” (1982) in order to demonstrate the complex dynamic in which Barthes's use of metaphor in the Theory of the...
3 citations
Abstract: Summary In Imperial Eyes (1992), Mary Louise Pratt asserts that a “Linnaean watershed” may be identified in the eighteenth‐century discourse about South Africa. Before this watershed, a sympathetic depiction of contacts with the indigenes was to have been possible; afterwards, no longer. In this article I attempt to show, by reference to the work of Robert Jacob Gordon and Peter Kolb, that these assertions are difficult to defend, and that, in some respects, the opposite of what Pratt asserts is in fact the case.
3 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines the novels of Rosetta Loy and attempts to show how public "history" has insinuated itself into her individualistic re-evocations of the past, creating vibrant portraits of contemporary reality which transcend the regional context in which they are located.
Abstract: Summary For many contemporary women writers, the impulse to narrate is both natural and inescapable. Often their writing attempts to find “a solution to a problem of general human concern, namely the problem of how to translate knowing into telling, the problem of fashioning human experience into a form assimilable to structures of meaning that are generally human rather than culture‐specific” (White 1987: 1). This paper examines the novels of Rosetta Loy and attempts to show how public “history” has insinuated itself into her individualistic re‐evocations of the past. In the asphyxia of inner experience, Loy is able to explore more deeply what is “subjective” and what is “objective”, creating vibrant portraits of contemporary reality which transcend the regional context in which they are located. Particularly interesting is her representation of “negative” and “positive” time. The latter is a movement in the direction of “creative evolution”, time as the begetter of all things, the permanent possibility ...
2 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors criticise the representation of Afrikaans literature on which part of her argument is based, and show how writers that I categorise as nondissident, nonnationalist, have already given form to the kind of culture envisaged by Jolly.
Abstract: Summary This article criticises proposals made by Rosemary Jolly about the manner in which postapartheid culture in South Africa should be approached to advance the creation of a postcolonial future. Although I provisionally agree with her that binary thinking should be avoided, I criticise the representation of Afrikaans literature on which part of her argument is based. The most important objection is that Jolly can see a role for certain kinds of writers only, namely dissident ones. I show how writers that I categorise as nondissident, nonnationalist, have already given form to the kind of culture envisaged by Jolly.
TL;DR: The authors highlights a few notable features of African writing which formulate themselves into survival and narrative strategies not only on the parts of fictional personages and milieus but also those of literary traditions, conventions, and the storytellers themselves.
Abstract: Summary This article attempts to highlight a few notable features of African writing which formulate themselves into survival and narrative strategies not only on the parts of fictional personages and milieus but also those of literary traditions, conventions, and the story‐tellers themselves. Different aspects of the landscape, such as the road, river, forest, etc., are often of metaphysical and aesthetic value in the writing, and these elements are handled in an exciting manner by romantic, realist and magic‐realist writers such as Amos Tutuola, Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, and Ben Okri. This article draws attention to some of the general trends by illustrating with specific examples from a few of the authors mentioned above and others.
TL;DR: In this paper, the signs of the mercantilists of the VOC (Dutch East India Company) for exchange and trade transactions from the first descriptions of encounters with the indigene raise the question of contact between one system of representation with another.
Abstract: Summary Through representations in their travel texts Europeans possessed the new worlds. Representation in the seventeenth century was more than just descriptions of the other; there was a relationship to order and knowledge; and a coherence between representation and language, nature, wealth and value. The signs of the mercantilists of the VOC (Dutch East India Company) for exchange and trade transactions from the first descriptions of encounters with the indigene raise the question of contact between one system of representation with another. The patterns of these contacts are mapped regarding the first gifts and exchange “contracts”, and the reactions of the indigene regarding exchange and value. The first visitors’ and settlers’ necessity is initially stronger than the desire for wealth. Unsatisfactory transactions are made through unequal exchanges and the representative roles of mediators. From the descriptions of exchanges and contracts an attempt can be made to read the reactions of the Khoikhoi ...
TL;DR: The authors argue that by blurring the boundaries between history and fiction, and the private and the public, postmodern fiction creates narrative space for histories of the Other to be explored and reconfigured.
Abstract: Summary This article explores the various strategies that postmodern fiction uses to interrogate traditional historical representation. I argue that by blurring the boundaries between history and fiction, and the private and the public, postmodern fiction creates narrative space for histories of the Other to be explored and “reconfigured”.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors highlight the post-colonial features inherent in some of Shakespeare's plays by adopting what Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin call "symptomatic reading" in their seminal work on postcolonial discourse.
Abstract: Summary This paper aims at highlighting the postcolonial features inherent in some of Shakespeare's plays by adopting what Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin call “symptomatic reading” in their seminal work on postcolonial discourse, The Empire Writes Back (1989) Instead of concentrating on the metaphoric meaning of the texts, an interpretation of Shakespearean plays will be suggested which reveals not only the colonial ideologies and other discursive formations that the plays contain, but also the post‐colonial strategies which, though at times implicit, feature prominently in these texts
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors look at the construction of an Afrikaner national identity in W.A. de Klerk's Die Gesel van Namaland, an Afrikaans novel for juvenile readers published in the early fifties.
Abstract: Summary The article looks at the construction of an Afrikaner national identity in W.A. de Klerk's Die Gesel van Namaland, an Afrikaans novel for juvenile readers published in the early fifties. Dealing with the Nama uprising in colonial Namibia, the novel is fundamentally concerned with interpreting a part of Namibian history as the paradigm of the pioneering history of the Afrikaners. Mediated by an avuncular narrator, it is a tale of adventure and romance in which Afrikaner identity is given the appearance of a natural fact. National identity becomes the intertext which is reinforced by a host of subsidiary texts drawn from Afrikaner mythology and history. Like most colonising narratives the text operates with binary oppositions, but the proximity of the Nama, Afrikaans‐speaking, Christian inhabitants of the land constantly threatens the hegemony and exclusivity of the nationalist discourse. In this process, language, history and divine selection become important foci of the discourse. Yet what is disg...
TL;DR: This article argued that Hamilton claimed agency through her particular experience of the lived body, which tended to contradict the Cartesian soul/body split of Western culture, and argued that the Moffats became almost obsessively involved in legislating Hamilton's sexuality within her marriage, until she was forced to leave the mission station and the LMS.
Abstract: Summary Early‐nineteenth‐century Christianity in relation to Ann Hamilton and Mary Moffat provides a rich site for the consideration of embodiment, the feminine speaking subject and the divine. I argue that Ann Hamilton claimed agency through her particular experience of the lived body, which tended to contradict the Cartesian soul/body split of Western culture. She wrote reports of Lattakoo to the London Missionary Society (LMS) in London, asserted her rights to celibacy in marriage, and had, as her confidante, a Khoisan woman, Fransinna. None of these actions endeared her to Mary Moffat (or her husband, Robert), whose subjectivity and embodiment were fixed within the discursive construction of Christianity at the time. Both the Moffats became almost obsessively involved in legislating Hamilton's sexuality within her marriage, until she was forced to leave the mission station and the LMS.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine and compare ways in which theatre has confronted the legacy of gross human rights abuses perpetrated in Spain (the Franco era from 1939 to 1975), Argentina (the military juntas from 1976 to 1982), Chile (the Pinochet regime from 1973 to 1989) and South Africa (the apartheid era from 1948 to 1994).
Abstract: Summary This article examines and compares ways in which theatre has confronted the legacy of gross human rights abuses perpetrated in Spain (the Franco era from 1939 to 1975), Argentina (the military juntas from 1976 to 1982), Chile (the Pinochet regime from 1973 to 1989) and South Africa (the apartheid era from 1948 to 1994) A critique is given on the problem of aestheticising atrocities: Should theatre represent the unrepresentable? Is a social science text the only appropriate site for recording such horrors? Does a stage production not risk transforming the real practice of torture into a fiction? The five play‐texts chosen for analysis and discussion are shown to respond to these questions in different ways
TL;DR: In this paper, a reading of Toni Morrison's Beloved (1987) is presented, where it is shown how in the process she corrects standard representations of the black self and through that her writerly identity as a black female presence in conventional literary and critical practice, Morrison creates a text that requires an adjustment of the self/other reading paradigm if it is to be read satisfactorily.
Abstract: Summary This paper, which focuses on Toni Morrison's novel Beloved (1987), begins with commentary on how reading paradigms can lead to misreadings and distortions, particularly when used to mediate marginal texts. In response to that, in the discussion that follows on Beloved, a reading is given to show how, in spite of linguistic and textual givens and conventional literary and critical practice, Morrison creates a text that requires an adjustment of the “Self/Other” reading paradigm if it is to be read satisfactorily. It is also shown how in the process she corrects standard representations of the black self and through that her own writerly identity as a black female presence in conventional literary and critical practice.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the construction and interpretation of the 1913-1914 Boer Rebellion in five popular romances by English white writers in South Africa and find that the wish to promote white unity is a common theme, developed mainly via a love plot, though with greatly varying degrees of sympathy for Afrikaners provided they are not rebels.
Abstract: Summary This article explores the construction and interpretation of the 1913–1914 Boer Rebellion in five popular romances by English white writers in South Africa. Inverting Frederic Jameson's conception of resistant form, a Utopian vision of a fully democratic South Africa is made to act as arbiter of these novelists’ insights/limitations. The wish to promote white unity is shown to be a common theme, developed mainly via a love plot, though with greatly varying degrees of sympathy for Afrikaners provided they are not rebels. Two of the novels exploit anti‐German contemporary sentiments. Links with the possibility of a black rebellion are, by and large, discreetly evaded. Although one writer has the courage to promote a blend of pacifism and feminism, and the satirical perspective of another reveals a capacity for larger vision, none of these novels comes anywhere near offering a radical challenge to the stock white conception of South African society.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the issue of postcoloniality as a theory of literature with special reference to the African literary experience and show that post-coloniality can play a positive role in the aesthetics of African writing on account of its peculiar dynamics.
Abstract: Summary This article attempts an examination of the issue of postcoloniality as a theory of literature with special reference to the African literary experience. It reviews some of the fears raised in respect of postcoloniality as it is at present propounded and practised; for example, the tendency to adopt in its argument some of the false premises of “discredited” older theories from which it seeks to distance itself. I try to show in this paper that postcoloniality can play a positive role in the aesthetics of African writing on account of its peculiar dynamics.