Showing papers in "Journal of Literary Studies in 2012"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the children's hour drama serves as a cultural and political commentary on the social anxieties of a changing America seeking a "return to normalcy" after war in the 1910s, cultural upheaval in the 1920s, and financial collapse in the 1930s.
Abstract: Summary Most readings of American playwright Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour (1934) focus on the psycho-social power of adolescent-driven gossip, rumours and slander, and the frightening outcomes that can emerge when people lose their ability to reason, question, analyse and criticise the world around them. This article argues that the drama also serves as a cultural and political commentary on the social anxieties of a changing America seeking a “return to normalcy” after war in the 1910s, cultural upheaval in the 1920s, and financial collapse in the 1930s. Mary's “evil” behaviour suggests that she is caught in a net of shifting social values concerning sexuality and gender roles and uses wickedness as a strategy to order and control her chaotic world. As an orphan, an outcast, and a young woman grappling with her own developmental issues, Mary desires to gain status within Lancet, Massachusetts, by exposing and attempting to eliminate cultural anxieties about gender and sexuality, as well as chang...
8 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the International Pen Club vice-president, Ben Okri, has expressed a belief that "the greatest inspiration, the most sublime ideas of living in a happier realm of pure dreams" (B.O., 1996).
Abstract: Introduction First, let me express my deep gratitude to you for taking time out of your busy schedule and the public demands made upon so celebrated a writer to talk to a reader who finds your works--be they poetic, dramatic, or prose--intriguing and compelling. I can well understand why the International Pen Club has you as their vice-president. Secondly, I must tell you that I would like to use this interview as the opening piece in a monograph of your works that 1 hope to publish shortly, containing articles by myself and also those by some of my postgraduate students at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. Rosemary Gray: I'd like to begin by asking you to respond to my perception that throughout your oeuvre there seems to me to be a single guiding principle, a deeply embedded philosophical credo, if you like. Of course I could be mistaken, being driven in my reading of your work by my own horizons of expectation (to borrow a term from Robert Jauss). In other words, I may be being misled by my own reception aesthetics. The principle I refer to is, I believe, nowhere better expressed than towards the end of Songs of Enchantment when, from the silence of "unblindedness", Azaro's father, in conversation with his son, a "spirit-child", an abiku, is moved to muse that [t]he light comes out of the darkness. (1993:287) This is a catalyst for two other questions and for a request I should like to make, but perhaps you'd like to respond to my contention about your guiding principle before I pose the two questions that arise out of this one. Am I on the right track in attributing an innate optimism to you? Ben Okri: No, I wouldn't call it optimism so much as realism. But, it is important how one defines realism. Realism takes in what is seen, felt, touched; what is unknown and unseen. The primordial African spirit views reality from a wider spectrum [than the Western one]. It is informed by the metaphysical sense embedded in all the great traditions, but particularly in the African tradition. The African world view takes in the hierarchy of metaphysical beings which, in turn, leads to a number of essential questions: What constitutes one's reality? Is one's reality true only for that individual? Isn't our reality limited to what we are taught to see? A piano with only five keys is a reality. But, if we include all the keys, the white keys and the black keys, this is a different reality. So reality depends on our cultural perception of the keyboard of life. Using the full keyboard, Azaro's father discovered a new perception of fundamental questions, especially the question of what constitutes the nature of reality. Is it outside oneself or fatally linked to human sensibilities? How does one construct reality? One cannot truthfully tell an African tale according to Jane Austen's reality or an early-nineteenth-century English tale according to an African reality. Dialogue with the West is thus difficult because reality is not universal. R.G.: Is there an element of the Platonic notion of the "real" and the "really real" here? B.O.: Yes, but also the Scandinavian concept of reality. I can draw it for you. [This Okri did in my copy of Starbook. R.G.: Although the author has himself emphasised the realistic dimensions of his work, this realism must be seen to embrace the ancestors, myths and legends, which are an integral part of the real world, of urban life and of rural life. Local beliefs are thus part of the real world, not parallel with, but contiguous to it. Elsewhere, I have referred to Okri's spirit-in-life beings as leading sentient double lives (see The English Academy Review 26(1) May 2009: 45). In Starbook, Okri states: "Only in light can truth be found.... Beyond is where it really begins" (2007: 118), which is itself an effective synopsis of what he writes in Birds of Heaven (1996: 12-13): The greatest inspiration, the most sublime ideas of living that have come down to humanity come from a higher realm, a happier realm, a place of pure dreams, a heaven of blessed notions. …
8 citations
TL;DR: Coetzee's Life & Times of Michael K (1983) as mentioned in this paper explores the social contract, as formulated by Hobbes and its rebuttal by Rousseau, as well as the historical events that came to underpin the modern South African state.
Abstract: Summary This article focuses on J.M. Coetzee's Life & Times of Michael K (1983) in light of current theoretical concerns with issues of sovereignty and the state (raised by, among others, Hardt and Negri and Agamben), issues which Coetzee explicitly addresses in his recent Diary of a Bad Year. I analyse the novel's engagement with several of the narrative formations of political modernity, both generally and in the South African context, and focus in particular on the following: the social contract, as formulated by Hobbes, and its rebuttal by Rousseau; as well as the historical events that came to underpin the modern South African state: the Great Trek and Van Riebeeck's garden. I argue that the novel attempts to counter these narrative underpinnings of state sovereignty, not so much with a literary sovereignty, but with its own strategies of rescripting, defamiliarisation, and evasion. I situate Coetzee very much within the context of not only South African, but also global modernity here: at a historic...
7 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a rethinking of alternative theoretical approaches to the discursive modes of what is African literature is presented, where African feminism as a guiding framework is applied to the analysis.
Abstract: Summary Africa's knowledge, especially as “authored”, “created” and packaged in African languages, is inspired by daily life experiences. Its expressive modes mirror traditions and innovations of oral expression. On the other hand, written literature, defined by Western parameters, is classified into different genres specific in form and style. African literature has therefore struggled to fit into this pigeonhole and its strata although a significant component characterising its uniqueness is in the process left out. In such are components laden with African-specific forms of expression, metaphor and rendition when packaged in foreign languages. This observation inspires a rethinking of alternative theoretical approaches to the discursive modes of what is African literature. This article dialogues literary expressions hardly located among traditional literary genres. African feminism as a guiding framework is applied.
7 citations
TL;DR: This record-breaking resolution for the resolution of the error bars of the ellipsoidal error bars is set for the second time in a row.
Abstract: Theatre, as a simulacrum of the cultural and historical process itself, seeking to depict the full range of human actions within their physical context, has always provided society with the most tangible records of its attempts to understand its own operations. It is the repository of cultural memory, but, like the memory of each individual, it is also subject to continual adjustment and modification as the memory is recalled in new circumstances and contexts. (Carlson 2004: 2) Introduction In Jill Fletcher's well-known book on the history of South African theatre, entitled The Story of South African Theatre: 1780-1930 (1994), she gives a fascinating overview of the establishment of a theatre tradition in South Africa during the 18th and 19th centuries. The influence of certain historical events and the impact of various political regimes at the Cape of Good Hope during this period all left traces on the development of such a tradition. The colonisation of the Cape of Good Hope first by Dutch settlers (1652-1806) and then the more prolonged colonisation of the Cape and South Africa by the British (from 1806 till 1961) led to the development of two mainstream European theatre traditions in South Africa: one that was mainly influenced by the British theatre tradition, and one that was clearly to a greater extent influenced by the European (Dutch, German, French) tradition. Afrikaans drama and theatre developed from the latter tradition. I want to highlight in this article the importance of only two plays in this tradition, namely S.J. du Toit's Magrita Prinslo (1896) and Deon Opperman's Donkerland (1996). Whilst du Toit's play is scarcely known or remembered by contemporary Afrikaans audiences and is relegated to the annals of South African/Afrikaans theatre history, Opperman's play is well known, has received the most prestigious Afrikaans (literary) award (namely the Hertzog Prize) and is today widely studied by students, scholars and researchers. The discussion will be placed within the broader context of a contemporary interest in drama and theatre studies, namely a focus on the relationship between theatre and memory. This interest is evident in a number of recent studies (notably Marvin Carlson's The Haunted Stage: The Theatre as Memory Machine). A comparative reading of these two Afrikaans plays, namely Magrita Prinslo (1896) and Donkerland (1996), will focus on the theme of Afrikaner nationalism as a common theme linking these two historical plays. The main concepts and ideas associated with this theme as highlighted in this discussion are: the (re)interpretation of certain events within Afrikaner history and the relationship with the indigenous people of this land; the Afrikaans language; and the volksmoeder theme. 1 Two Afrikaans Plays: Magrita Prinslo (1896) and Donkerland (1996) 1.2 Magrita Prinslo by S.J. du Toit (1896) The significance of du Toit's play lies mainly in the fact that it is considered by most theatre historians (Bosman, Binge, Fletcher) to be the first published play in Afrikaans (1) in South Africa. Magrita Prinslo is on one level just a simple love story, namely the story of Magrita's loyal and unshaken love for Pieter Botha, even after she is wrongly informed by his love rival, Koos Potgieter, that he has died. The historical context in which this romantic love triangle is set, that is, the Great Trek, can, however, be seen as the main focus of this play. The romantic intrigue plays out against the backdrop of important events associated with the Great Trek, namely the infamous Slagtersnek incident (where the British hanged 6 so-called Boer traitors in 1816 in public); Commandant Hendrik Potgieter's Trek to Natal (1838), and Commandant Piet Retief's murder at the hand of the Zulu King, Dingaan (17 February 1838). These historical events are all regarded as important events within Afrikaner history and became the focus of many historical studies of the period. …
6 citations
TL;DR: Van Niekerk as mentioned in this paper presented the future of Afrikaner culture in a new matrilineal and racially hybrid genealogy through the self-sacrifice of the white matriarch, Milla de Wet.
Abstract: Summary In Agaat (2006), Marlene van Niekerk presents the future of Afrikaner culture in a new matrilineal and racially hybrid genealogy. This matrilineal genealogy occurs through the self-sacrifice of the white matriarch, Milla de Wet. Van Niekerk disrupts and subverts dominant patriarchal, patrilineal and racial epistemes upon which the plaasroman is based by leaving the farm, not to Milla's son and putative male heir, but to the coloured housekeeper, Agaat. The allusive prose passage that is the focus of this article is written in the style of a prayer or lament with its mournful meditation on the onset of disease and decay in the soil and farming stock that Milla regrets not having saved from abuse and denigration. The lament becomes an appeal for a beneficent successor to care for and “breathe” life back into the soil. In this article we shall explore how Milla is presented as an Earth Mother, through the invocation of the Demeter-Persephone myth, supplicating for rebirth and renewal. Here the Earth ...
5 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors highlight the key concerns in the debate on postcolonial theory in South Africa: the question of the applicability of the term postcolonial or a notion of postcoloniality as an explanatory discourse for the South African case, the critical disablement of the investigating intellectual who deploys post-colonial theory informed by deconstruction, and the political implications of post-colonization theory as appropriated in the SA academy.
Abstract: Summary Which modalities of postcolonial theory gained currency within the literary-cultural discourses of the South African academy? In seeking to answer this, I highlight the key concerns in the debate on postcolonial theory in South Africa: the question of the applicability of the term postcolonial or a notion of postcoloniality as an explanatory discourse for the South African case; the question of critical disablement of the investigating intellectual who deploys postcolonial theory informed by deconstruction; the question of the political implications of postcolonial theory as appropriated in the South African academy; and the question of the focus on racial and cultural difference at the expense of an analysis of class. The mode of articulation of postcolonial theory in South Africa submerges a “liberal-humanist” tendency – one that sought to abrogate some of the most radical insights of postcolonial theory. What results from this will to power is a deadlocked institutional politics that does not y...
5 citations
TL;DR: In the view of many commentators, the picture with regard to African-language literature is bleak as mentioned in this paper, it is a literature dominated by the demands of the school market, and it has tended to produce repetitive and childish plots.
Abstract: Summary In the view of many commentators, the picture with regard to African-language literature is bleak. To many critics, African-language literature both in the present and the past is a failed enterprise. In their view it is a literature dominated by the demands of the school market, and it has tended to produce repetitive and childish plots. It is a literature that has failed to respond to the socio-political and historical realities from which it has emerged (Chapman 1996; Mphahlele 1992; Kunene 1991, 1992). Many critics and commentators expected that after 1994, the situation might change. However, for many critics, this promise has not materialised. Instead, much African-language literature simply repeats old themes, styles, discourses, plots and strategies of characterisation (Grobler 1995; Mtuze 1994). This article seeks to engage with existing modes of criticism to ask whether these are the most appropriate and whether they might not be limited understandings of African-language literature. It ...
4 citations
TL;DR: Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love (2007) and the cinematic version of Karen Blixen's novel Babette's Feast (1987) as discussed by the authors explore the significance of the enjoyment of food in relation to spirituality, as (re)presented in two texts.
Abstract: Summary This article explores the significance of the enjoyment of food in relation to spirituality, as (re)presented in two texts -Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love (2007) and the cinematic version of Karen Blixen's novel Babette's Feast (1987). It is argued that the pleasure derived from food occupies a crucial position in both texts, firstly in its own “hedonistic” right, but secondly also as far asit functions allegorically (Babette's Feast), or temporally (Eat, Pray, Love) regarding the (re)presentation of spiritually significant experience. That is, the enjoyment of food is (re)presented as a means of repeating (and perhaps anticipating) spiritually meaningful culinary experience (Babette's Feast). In Eat, Pray, Love, the spiritual awakening of the protagonist, in the “dark night of her soul”, is succeeded by a kind of “carnival”, followed by something resembling the Lent of the Christian tradition. Hence, her journey through space and time takes her from sensuous (though celibate) pleasure in foo...
4 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines gender representations in older Sesotho novels and observes whether or not there have been gains in the narrative of gender equality. But they do not examine the gender relations of the community that they narrate.
Abstract: Summary This article examines gender representations in older Sesotho novels – the first one, Moeti wa Botjhabela, having been published in 1907. The objective is to observe whether or not there have been gains in the narrative of gender equality. Rereading the older Sesotho novels makes one understand them from a different perspective, and they give one a glimpse, albeit broken and fragmented, of the gender relations of the community that they narrate. A novel is a powerful social instrument of represen-tation because it uses literary devices such as characterisation, plot and setting to construct shared meanings within a cultural space. In this regard, the ideas, con-cepts, feelings and actions of the characters that such a novel constructs stand for real issues in the culture that the writer knows well, and in this regard a novel (re)-produces certain cultural notions. The Sesotho novel, like other Sesotho art forms, is thus seen as a creation that serves Sesotho cultural representation.
4 citations
TL;DR: The authors argued that the seemingly disparate affective and corporeal sensations of abjection and compassion significantly inform the fiction of Australian modernist, Patrick White, focusing in particular on White's early novel The Living and the Dead ([1941]1977), a work often sidelined in critical discussions of his writing.
Abstract: Summary This article argues that the seemingly disparate affective and corporeal sensations of abjection and compassion significantly inform the fiction of Australian modernist, Patrick White. Focusing in particular on White's early novel The Living and the Dead ([1941]1977), a work often sidelined in critical discussions of his writing, it maintains that the dialectical tension between abjection and compassion that fascinates White informs his representations (and troubling) of subjectivity from the beginning of his oeuvre. Accordingly, the article identifies the importance of corporeality within White's fiction, an aspect of his work that has often been occluded within critical readings committed to his transcendentalism. With particular reference to Julia Kristeva's theory of abjection and various recent theoretical conceptions of affect, it suggests that White's characters’ sublime, recurring and transient forfeitures of identity may be profoundly imbricated with their surrender to – as opposed to the...
TL;DR: In this article, the author argues that through the spirit-child Azaro, Songs of Enchantment not only renounces the notion of African history as repetitive, but the novel itself is also made up of fragments of stories whose apprehension of reality is equally fragmented in order to partialise literary/narrative accounts and critical interpretations of politics in the African postcolony.
Abstract: Summary This article explores the elements of the fantastic in Ben Okri's novel Songs of Enchantment. The novel has received little critical attention on its own terms. In contrast, this article demonstrates that Songs of Enchantment contributes to African cultural renaissance by questioning the politics of Nigeria in particular and the African postcolony in general. This article argues that through the spirit-child, Azaro, Songs of Enchantment not only renounces the notion of African history as repetitive; the novel itself is also made up of fragments of stories whose apprehension of reality is equally fragmented in order to partialise literary/narrative accounts and critical interpretations of politics in the African postcolony. The figural tropes Okri uses include deployment of the fantastic elements embedded in classical realism, folk tale, dreamlore, and the cautionary tale imbued with parabolic qualities. These literary strategies enable Okri to fundamentally fracture the unbearable tyranny of the a...
TL;DR: This issue of the Journal of Literary Studies/Tydskrif vir literatuur-wetenskap, guest-edited by Rosemary Gray, is dedicated to the works of a Booker Prize-winning author, Ben Okri as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: This issue of the Journal of Literary Studies/Tydskrif vir literatuur-wetenskap, guest-edited by Rosemary Gray, is dedicated to the works of a Booker Prize-winning author, Ben Okri. Linear threads of utopianism, history and civilisation, language and writing, notions of reality, politics, literary aesthetics and intertextuality, postmodernism and the postcolony form an interlacertine pattern that draws the six articles together into a coherent whole. It is, at once, easy and extremely difficult to critique the Okri oeuvre. The paradox inheres in the fact that, on the one hand, Okri's writings provide a richness and complexity that is both challenging and exhilarating for the critic. On the other hand, this Nigerian-born author's facility with words and his inimitable ability to capture in simple yet profound phrases "what oft was thought but ne'er so well expressed" (to quote a favourite Enlightenment author, Alexander Pope) tempt one to sidestep critique and invoke and facilitate Okri's own voice as self-evident. Consider, for example, two of Okri's comments in his recent Steve Biko Memorial Lecture in Cape Town (12 September 2012), which embrace concerns that are explored in some depth in the articles in this issue. Having pointed to the African world's empathy with and support for the struggle against apartheid, Okri first posed the loaded question "After the nightmare is over, what are you doing with the day?" Then, reminding the audience of the last eighteen years of so-called liberation and the propensity of neocolonialists to blame the past, while enjoying the fruits of the present, he transposed the adage "They came; they saw; they conquered" into an equally telling and all-embracing indictment of "We came; we saw; we squandered!" It is this same plain-speaking and cogent thinking that informs my conversation with Okri in London (16 February 2011), with which this issue begins. In this interview, Okri was quick to rebuff the charge of optimism as evinced in the aphorism "light comes out of the darkness" in his Songs of Enchantment--part of his famed Famished Road trilogy--with a cultural relativist redefinition of the real, perceiving of reality as "a keyboard of life". Responding to my comment that his novels depict an unusually robust relationship between the child and either of its parents, Okri was quick to point out that "the family is the intimate theatre of life". The conversation ranges widely from the philosophical, the political and the esoteric to debating the nature of literature and the civilising role of the writer. Unlike so many black African writers, Okri tends to evince a postmodernist rather than a postcolonial consciousness because, as he says, "We are not defined by history. The human spirit is limitless and our job as writers is to unveil". Leigh van Niekerk's article picks up on both the optimistic and post-modernist strands. In her article "Postmodernism's Pit Stops en Route to Utopia", she explores the notions of language, history and death in In Arcadia. In a close critical analysis of motifs, word usage and plot elements, and drawing on Gadamer and Heidegger, van Niekerk shows how philosophical hermeneutics, postmodernism and this novel are intertexts, "each informing the other in the never-ending hermeneutic circle". The first of two comparative articles--one on Okri and Soyinka by Rosemary Gray and the other on Okri and Blake by Pam van Schaik follows. …
TL;DR: Okri, a renowned Nigerian novelist, is adept in using myths suggestively to foretell the future because he sees certain repetitive trends that are common to Africa's corporate existence.
Abstract: Summary Africa's intelligentsia, whether creative or critical, have always been yoked with the task of finding a framework that would provide some tranquillity to this troubled region. Since the narcissism of negritude to the aestheticism of postcolonialism, the perennial issues about identity, the brain drain, political impasse, war and starvation still loom large. This article contends that, whilst debates continue to rage, it is pertinent to point out that with myth-making certain ideals and contradictions about the future of Africa can be foreseen. Economic failure, terrorism, kidnapping and religious crises are on the increase because leaders and followers are not taking cognisance of certain recurring patterns which forewarn of forthcoming events. Ben Okri, a renowned Nigerian novelist, is adept in using myths suggestively to foretell the future because he sees certain repetitive trends that are common to Africa's corporate existence. When viewed in mythical terms, these patterns could be predictive...
TL;DR: This paper explored the ways in which both Ben Okri and William Blake prophesy the redemption of humanity through the power of words and the participation of all people in a new "dream" by means of which a more humane civilisation may be attained.
Abstract: Opsomming Drawing principally from Mental Fight and Jerusalem, this article explores the ways in which both Ben Okri and William Blake prophesy the redemption of humanity through the power of words and the participation of all people in a new “dream” by means of which a more humane civilisation may be attained. It explores the significance of some of Blake's central symbols in relation to his vision of man's Fall and Redemption and how closely the poetry and prose of Ben Okri echo Blake's themes and motifs. By entitling one of his anthologies of poetry Mental Fight, Ben Okri succinctly acknowledges the Romantic poet William Blake as a source of inspiration. These two simple words, to anyone familiar with Blake's poetry, would immediately recall his impassioned declaration in Milton: I will not cease from Mental Fight, Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand Till we have built Jerusalem In England's green & pleasant land. (Milton, 1804-1808 Preface ll. 13-16, K 481)
TL;DR: This paper explored the representation of meat in three novels by Eben Venter, namely Foxtrot van die vleiseters (1993), Ek stamel ek sterwe (2005) and Horrelpoot (2006) (published in translation as Trencherman), and explored the use of vegetarianism as a counter-discourse by the author to undermine the prevalent meatloving culture associated with the farm-novel tradition in Afrikaans.
Abstract: Summary This article explores the representation of meat in three novels by Eben Venter, namely Foxtrot van die vleiseters (1993) (published in translation as Foxtrot of the Meat-Eaters), Ek stamel ek sterwe (2005) (published in translation as My Beautiful Death), and Horrelpoot (2006) (published in translation as Trencherman). Theauthor uses the metaphor of meat and meat consumption to comment on the greed and oppression associated with the white farm owner and patriarch, as well as on other related issues such as gender, the body and sexuality. Finally the article explores the use of vegetarianism as a counter-discourse by the author to undermine the prevalent meat-loving culture associated with the farm-novel tradition in Afrikaans. In all three novels there is an opposition between life on the farm and life in the big city, predominantly life in large Australian cities after the main characters have emigrated to Australia.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors tackle the reductionist notion of African literature written in African languages by arguing that in spite of the limits imposed on it by the fact of linguistic provinciality, this category of literature does more than articulating exclusively ethnic sentiments and modes of nationalism.
Abstract: Summary Arguments and debates about the appropriate linguistic medium for the expression of African literature continue to be recurrent. One such argument against the literature is the assumption that even at its very best, it can only serve a provincial purpose, as it is ethnic-based. Against this backdrop, the article seeks to tackle the reductionist conception of African literature written in African languages by arguing that in spite of the limits imposed on it by the fact of linguistic provinciality, this category of literature does more than articulating exclusively ethnic sentiments and modes of nationalism as a counterforce to the literature written in European languages. To do this, the article examines Wa Gbo …, an anthology of contemporary Yoruba poems. I argue that beyond a body of poetry that seeks the consolidation of Yoruba nationalism, the value of this anthology lies substantially in the way most poets centralise the discourse of postcolonial Nigeria by engaging national issues around que...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors adopt a literary aesthetics approach, explaining that mythic conjunctions are inherent in ontopoiesis or the self-induced development of consciousness (Tymeniecka 1992) and draw on Ben Okri's A Time for New Dreams (2011) and Wole Soyinka's Myth, Literature and the African World ([1976]1995).
Abstract: Summary Drawing on Ben Okri's A Time for New Dreams (2011) and Wole Soyinka's Myth, Literature and the African World ([1976]1995), this article adopts a literary aesthetics approach, explaining that mythic conjunctions are inherent in ontopoiesis or the self-induced development of consciousness (Tymeniecka 1992). Okri (2011: 27) argues that self-creativity or innovation “come from being able first to see what is there, and not there; to hear what is said, and not said …. And … the art of intuition”, whereas for Soyinka ([1976]1995: 3) “man's attempt to externalise and communicate his inner intuitions” gives rise to cultural mythology. “In Asian and European antiquity … man did, like the African, exist within a cosmic totality, did possess a consciousness in which his own earth being, his gravity-bound apprehension of self, was inseparable from the entire cosmic pheno-menon,” he asserts (p. 3.). The poems selected reveal that mythic conjunctions are inherent in such non-dualistic insights. In Okri's poetry...
TL;DR: In this article, L.D. Raditladi was chosen, his poetry blending indigenous African and Western-influenced themes and forms, and portraying common and shared ethos, beliefs and practices of the Batswana.
Abstract: Summary This article illustrates different dimensions of social change regarding the Batswana and Western cultural norms. L.D. Raditladi was chosen, his poetry blending indigenous African- and Western-influenced themes and forms, and portraying common and shared ethos, beliefs and practices of the Batswana. His poetry also addresses social issues that are of particular significance to Africans who for so long have negotiated and navigated a world of contrasting social norms and values. Many modern Batswana continue attempting to harmonise their cultural values and norms with what they perceive as useful and relevant from so-called modern norms and values. It is a journey beset by fearful odds. Two poems, “Tshwano-logo” and “Fatshe la Batswana”, were chosen for this study. They exhibit the gist of the topic under discussion, and together with references to other poems by Raditladi, are employed to vividly display elements of societal transformation. Global changes – brought by new religion and education, a...
TL;DR: The authors assesses the evolving Kiswahili poetry aesthetics and argues that the art is an African prodigy and evaluates the arguments of both the conservatives and the liberals in the debate and asserts that the identities which the two camps tend to front are tenuous considering that they straddle the general and the specific.
Abstract: Summary This article assesses the evolving Kiswahili poetry aesthetics and argues that the art is an African prodigy. It evaluates the arguments of both the conservatives and the liberals in the debate and asserts that the identities which the two camps tend to front are tenuous considering that they straddle the general and the specific. Based on the constructionist theory, the article analyses the standpoints of the conservatives and the liberals in the debate and contends that they reveal three subsets of identities: the Swahili, the Africans and the universal. The article unearths the various methods that have been employed to ascribe Kiswahili poetry to such identities and argues that they mainly derive from some generalised and unstable postulations – facets such as historical epochs, orality and literacy, geography, language, literature, social class, religion and gender. By referring to the same facets, while also taking into account Kiswahili's poetry medium of dissemination, its authors and cons...
TL;DR: This article explored Leipoldt's cosmopolitan argument against political, sectional possessiveness in the cultural development of South Africa between the mid-19th and early-20th centuries, with a sustained focus on the import of Afrikaner food.
Abstract: Summary The famous Afrikaans poet C. Louis Leipoldt (1880-1947) has long been misread as a nationalist writer. During the first half of the 20th century Leipoldt's poetry seemed to be in sympathy with Afrikaner nationalism, and since his death he has mostly been remembered for this element of his work. Recent scholarship reveals a different Leipoldt, one fiercely anti-nationalist in his unpublished English fiction and more openly aggressive in his non-fiction prose. Leipoldt regularly wrote about food and culinary traditions in South Africa and used his knowledge of local cuisine to argue against notions of “authentic Afrikaner dishes”, instead insisting that the earliest authorities behind original South African dishes camefrom the “Cape Malay” population of theWestern Cape. This article aims to explore Leipoldt's cosmopolitan argument against political, sectional possessiveness in the cultural development of South Africa between the mid-19th and early-20th centuries, with a sustained focus on the import...
TL;DR: In this paper, the relevance of the philosophical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Martin Heidegger to Okri's writing in particular and to postmodern literature in general is discussed.
Abstract: Summary From the outset, this article emphasises the notions of language, history and death as indispensible to any reading of Ben Okri's In Arcadia ([2002] 2003). From this, the article explains the relevance of the philosophical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Martin Heidegger to Okri's writing in particular and to postmodern literature in general. Heidegger's concept of being-towards-death as the only way to achieve Dasein (authentic human existence), as well as Gadamer's idea of language and history as the necessary precursors to human understanding (the hermeneutic circle), is elucidated. Postmodernism itself is loosely defined before the author hones in on particular items of evidence – motifs, word usage, plot elements, etc. – from the primary text, in support of the argument that language, history and death are relevant in this context inasmuch as they relate to perception (and its relationship with reality). Further explication of postmodernism, Dasein, being-towards-death, and the hermene...
TL;DR: In this article, a two-course meal is divided into two sections, like a two course meal, with a brief subsection devoted to anthropophagy, and the second section discusses cannibalism and some of its associated processes.
Abstract: Summary The article is divided into two sections, like a two-course meal. The first section begins by defining food before considering some cultural aspects of what constitutes normal/permissible versus abnormal/non-permissible comestibles; it rounds out with a brief subsection devoted to anthropophagy. The second section discusses cannibalism (and some of its associated processes, such as decapitation and evisceration) as themes in Thomas Harris's tetralogy of novels featuring the psychiatrist/serial killer/cannibal, Hannibal Lecter. Cumulatively, the two sections seek to explore and explain how and why, in Hannibal Lecter's case, “Der Mensch ist was er iβt” (Man is what he eats).
TL;DR: The role of food and spices in the conceptual art of the South African artist Berni Searle is examined in this article, focusing on the visual representation of food, spices and culinary traditions through the exploration of her series "Colour Me".
Abstract: Summary This article examines the role of food and spices in the conceptual art of the South African artist Berni Searle. It focuses on the visual representation of food, spices and culinary traditions through the exploration of her series "Colour Me", which includes photographic installations: “Traces” (1999), "Looking Back” (1999), “Girl” (1999), along with her video installation “Snow White”. All these pieces reference in differing ways food, spices or the traditions tied to them. Searle also uses gastronomic imagery to comment on topics such as slavery. As is evident from her work, food and spices are not necessarily associated with the preparation of food.
TL;DR: In this paper, Mofokeng's short story volume Leetong [On a Journey] is read as satire on repression in general and on South Africa in particular, and it has become a part of the conceptual political lexicon of the Sesotho language to refer to the corruption of apartheid ideology.
Abstract: Summary Mofokeng's volume of short stories, Leetong [On a Journey], is traditionally read as satire on repression in general and on South Africa in particular. The title, Leetong, has become a part of the conceptual political lexicon of the Sesotho language to refer to the corruption of apartheid ideology. This collection of short stories constitutes a body of protest fiction based on inferences from situations rather than actual incidents. Collectively the eight short stories combine to form one voice in contention with the political dispensation of oppressed South Africans during a particular historical era of political oppression, known as the apartheid era. The dehumanisation of black South Africans has not stopped since the apartheid era because the dominant image of black South Africans continues to be that of heathens. This article postulates the notion that the scheme of the short story volume Leetong [On a Journey] has created a powerful metonymy, to the extent that whenever one alludes to the ti...