Showing papers in "Journal of Literary Studies in 2000"
TL;DR: This paper investigated constructions of cultural identity in recent works of short fiction written in Afrikaans and found that these texts were read within the framework of postcolonial discourse theory, since they were published in the period after the first democratic elections in South Africa in 1994 and form part of a discourse of writing back to colonial discourses, including that of apartheid.
Abstract: Summary This article investigates constructions of cultural identity in recent works of short fiction written in Afrikaans. These texts were read within the framework of postcolonial discourse theory, since they were published in the period after the first democratic elections in South Africa in 1994 and form part of a discourse of writing back to colonial discourses, including that of apartheid. The framework proposed by Mishra and Hodge ([1993]1994) of an oppositional and complicit postcolonial was combined with insights by Homi Bhabha (1994) and Stuart Hall (1992, [1993]1994) regarding essentialism and hybridity in identity construction to establish to what extent Afrikaans texts of after 1994 can still be read in terms of a so‐called “fused postcolonial”, a typification that according to Viljoen (1996) was applicable to the Afrikaans literature prior to 1994.
9 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors look at the ways in which the history and lineage of the African-American Tar-Baby tale can be seen to reflect and parallel the history of African-Americans themselves, and can further be understood as an important example of cultural preservation.
Abstract: Summary The following paper is an adapted version of the introduction to a chapter, entitled “Symbolic Orphans: the Politics of the ‘Father‐Tongue’ in [Toni Morrison's] Tar Baby”, from my current doctoral thesis The fundamental premise underlying this chapter is that Morrison, in her text Tar Baby, uses the complex history of the Tar‐Baby tales, and the trickster‐figure of those tales, in order to trace the cultural origin of African‐American people, to outline the “charts of cultural descent” encoded in their story traditions, and to reclaim such traditions from dominant appropriations of them, for African‐American cultures The paper that follows does not discuss Morrison's text at all, but looks, instead at the ways in which the history and lineage of the African‐American Tar‐Baby tale can be seen to reflect and parallel the history and lineage of African‐Americans themselves, and can further be understood as an important example of cultural preservation, through very particular cultural methods, in t
6 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors apply Kristeva's explication of the relationship between the semiotic and the symbolic, and consider recent examples of jazz literature, most notably Michael Ondaatje's Coming Through Slaughter (1984) and Geoff Dyer's pastiche text, But Beautiful (1991), which counter this reductive tendency by constructing the imbrication of desire and codes of expression.
Abstract: Summary Fictional narratives commonly stage the ineffability of music while simultaneously constructing located identities and trajectories of meaning in the course of its configuration. This argument concerns a range of these constructions: attempts to configure jazz in discourse through translations across the border between the music and corporeality. The literary embodiment of jazz has historically been embedded in primitivist discourses which reify desire in a racist mode. By applying Kristeva's explication of the relationship between the semiotic and the symbolic, the article considers recent examples of jazz literature ‐ most notably Michael Ondaatje's Coming Through Slaughter (1984) and Geoff Dyer's pastiche text, But Beautiful (1991) ‐ which counter this reductive tendency by constructing the imbrication of desire and codes of expression. These renderings of the emergence of the jazz subject allow for productive ruminations on the relations between the somatic body, the body of the instrument and...
4 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that the use of oral narratives as allegories serves to suggest and project multiple readerships, both national and international, and further argue that Mhudi's projected national readership cannot simply be reduced to white, as some critics seem to suggest.
Abstract: Summary In this article I present two main arguments. The first argument addresses aesthetic concerns, namely Sol Plaatje's complex use of oral narratives‐as‐allegories in his novel, Mhudi. I argue that these allegories, while partly serving similar purpose to that of proverbs, are complicated by the fact that they are self‐reflexive. This self‐reflexivity often lays itself open to multiple interpretations, which in turn tend to make the overall political meaning of the novel complex and rather ambiguous. The second argument, which is inextricably linked to the first, addresses itself to questions of readership. Here I argue that the use of oral narratives‐as‐allegories serves to suggest and project multiple readerships ‐ both national and international. I further argue that Mhudi's projected national readership cannot simply be reduced to white, as some critics seem to suggest. There are small, but significant, hints that suggest that the novel is addressed to various racial and ethnic groups. I engage i...
4 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors identify canonical authors and canonical texts by employing statistical methods based on empirical research in Africa and the West, and the results are presented comparatively and diachronically.
Abstract: Summary Who are the most important black authors in anglophone Africa and which are their most significant writings? One way of answering such questions is to examine which authors literary critics choose to write about and which texts teachers of literature choose to teach. Since those who are professionally engaged in interpreting African literatures discriminate when selecting what to comment on, a canon (or canons) can be said to exist. This paper seeks to identify canonical authors and canonical texts by employing statistical methods based on empirical research in Africa and the West. The results are presented comparatively and diachronically.
3 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines Black Sunlight (1980), a novel by Dambudzo Marechera, in the light of critical reappraisal of narratives of national resistance in the 1990s in Zimbabwe.
Abstract: Summary This paper examines Black Sunlight (1980), a novel by Dambudzo Marechera, in the light of critical reappraisal of narratives of national resistance in the 1990s in Zimbabwe. Black Sunlight was published in 1980, the year of Zimbabwe's independence when most black Zimbabweans viewed the coming of that independence as the vindication of Nehanda's prophecy that her “bones” shall rise and Africans will rule themselves. Novelists such as Edmund Chipamaunga in A Fighter For Freedom (1983) and Garikai Mutasa in The Contact (1985), were to use their fiction to fabricate, justify and present nationalist resistance as the “natural”, and uncontestable ideology of decolonisation in Zimbabwe. In contrast, in Black Sunlight, Marechera is radically singular in his use of the carnivalesque in order to resist ideologies of Zimbabwean cultural nationalism based on single notions of the “African image”. This paper argues that the subversion of nationalist discourse of resistance in Zimbabwean literature that Mareche...
3 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, some reflections are made on identity and the self in relation to what is considered different, alterity, and the question is asked how Self and Other have been imagined from African perspectives.
Abstract: Summary Over the years an ever‐growing number of studies on autobiography as a genre concerned with the Self of the author have appeared all over the world. Autobiography as a (mainly) first‐person genre and first‐person narrative in general (fictional and non‐fictional) are not just a formal matter, but also seem to affect the text structure. Depending on the readers’ norms, the first‐person narrative either underlines the authenticity of the story told, or it is used to reinforce the illusion of reality, as a realistic device in the first‐person fictional and nonfictional narrative. In the paperthree points are presented. First, some reflections are made on identity and the Self in relation to what is considered different, alterity. In the second part the question is asked how Self and Other have been imagined from African perspectives. In the third and last part of the paper some forms of first‐person narrative in African oral and written literatures are being discussed. Serious intercultural studies w...
3 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss Villette's genre "flaws", especially its extraordinary use of ambiguities and cultural cliches; they argue that the novel may be read as both Lucy Snowe's saga and a Victorian guide to misreading.
Abstract: Summary Charlotte Bronte's character Lucy Snowe, the protagonist of Villette (1853), ostensibly belongs to the canon of Bildungsroman heroes. She narrates her own saga of apprenticeship which includes the tests of poverty, alienation and loneliness, finally finding fulfillment in marriage and professional life. But Villette does not always conform to the Bildungsroman formula; Lucy's story contains many gaps and frustrating deferrals. From beginning to end, genre “violations” occur. Bronte's novel asks its readers to consider several important questions: Where does Lucy begin? Where does she end? And, on a formal level, how does Villette ‐ Lucy Snowe's self‐narrated story ‐ violate reader's expectations of the Bildungsroman genre? In this essay I discuss Villette's genre “flaws”, especially its extraordinary use of ambiguities and cultural cliches; I contend that Bronte's novel may be read as both Lucy Snowe's saga and a Victorian guide to misreading.
2 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that Coetzee depicts the island setting as a site that transcends history and that this depiction self-reflexively points to the possibility of an autonomous mode of writing, that is, a form of writing which posits the other rather than history as an a priori.
Abstract: Summary In this paper, I argue that, in Foe (1986), Coetzee depicts the island setting as a site that transcends history and that this depiction self‐reflexively points to the possibility of an autonomous mode of writing ‐ that is, a form of writing which posits the other rather than history as an a priori. The depiction conceives of the novel as the event of the writing subject's assumption of responsibility for the other; a performance of the ethical command through which the subject substitutes itself for the other. I maintain that it is through this alignment with the other that Foe, in a seeming paradox, posits the ability of literary writing to affect relations within history.
2 citations
TL;DR: Louw's distinction between a "national" and "colonial" literature is examined in terms of Ricoeur's oppositional analysis of ideology and utopia in his Lectures on Ideology and Utopia as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Summary Focussing on N.P. van Wyk Louw's first two collections of critical essays, Berigte te velde (1939) and Lojale verset (1939), this article considers Louw's recontextualising of the concepts “nation”, “nationalism” and “national literature”. Louw's distinction between a “national” and “colonial” literature is examined in terms of Paul Ricoeur's oppositional analysis of ideology and utopia in his Lectures on Ideology and Utopia (1986). It is argued that these two sets of binary oppositions, supported by subordinate dualisms such as individual/nation and local/universal, formed the intellectual and structural premise of Louw's redefinition of the established Afrikaans critical and creative discourse of the thirties.
2 citations
TL;DR: The authors dedicated this issue of Journal of Literary Studies to Ina Grabe for her contribution to the promotion and development of literary theory and comparative literature in South Africa, which goes beyond reading texts, however, though this remains a key term even in the way she reads university management.
Abstract: At a colloquium in Text and Ideology held at RAU Island a couple of years ago Ina Grabe read a paper entitled \"Text as Artistic Dictator\". The word \"text\" in this title reflects a central concern in Ina's work as reader and theoretician of literature during the past three decades. Her very special contribution to the promotion and development of literary theory and comparative literature in South Africa goes far beyond reading texts, however, though this remains a key term even in the way she reads university management. It is for this special contribution that we dedicate this issue of Journal of Literary Studies to Ina Grabe.
TL;DR: In this paper, Viljoen argues that these texts, particularly Landskap met vroue en slang (1996), foreground metaphysical concerns and that spatio-temporal relations play an important role in emphasising these matters.
Abstract: Summary In this reading of the novels of Lettie Viljoen, spatiality is used as a point of departure The relation between spatiality and temporality in the novels is discussed and the specific use of spatial aspects in the novels indicated The article argues that these texts, particularly Landskap met vroue en slang (1996), foreground metaphysical concerns and that spatio‐temporal relations play an important role in emphasising these matters The Heideggerian concept of Dasein is used in an attempt to clarify the manner in which the main character in the novel experiences space The introduction of frames in the novel is seen not only as a technical procedure but also one through which the characters and the text interact with the enormity and infinity of reality In conclusion the novel is seen as a profoundly poetic text in which the establishment of meaning is enacted by means of the word