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Eliot and Beckett’s Low Modernism: Humility and Humiliation, by Rick de Villiers Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2022-04-04 Mike Marais
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Pandemic Literatures and Being Human in Times of Mass Infection and Catastrophe: Some African Perspectives Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2022-03-16 Irikidzayi Manase,Thabisani Ndlovu
Special Issue Introduction
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Dystopian Futures: Ugandan Science Fiction and Post-Apocalypse Contagions Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2022-03-16 Edgar Fred Nabutanyi
Uganda, like most countries on the African continent, has in the recent past grappled with existential pandemics such as AIDS, Marburg disease, cholera, Ebola, and currently the Covid-19 pandemic. All the above-mentioned disease outbreaks have often unleashed unimaginable suffering on Uganda’s population. This is perhaps why Ugandan scholars and public intellectuals—especially its writers such as Mary
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Anxious Competition: Exploring the Poetic Imaginarium of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Malawi Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2022-03-16 Nick Tembo
As I write this article in mid-September 2021, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has claimed the lives of nearly 4.7 million people and over 228 million others have been infected worldwide. This article explores the poetic imaginarium of the coronavirus, focusing on how selected Malawian poets imagine the devastation wrought on human beings by the pandemic in their
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Being Human in a Time of Catastrophe: African Feminism, Feminist Humaneness, and the Poetry of Joyce Ash Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2022-03-16 Naomi Nkealah
This article explores what it means to be human in a time of health catastrophe, and introduces the concept of feminist humaneness. Feminist humaneness is an offshoot of African feminism and is about women practicalising their feminism by expressing kindness, care, compassion, empathy and consideration for other women in times of sickness, disease, pandemics and other health catastrophes. The article
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Writing a South African Pandemic Moment: Inequality and Violence in The Lockdown Collection Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2022-03-16 Thabisani Ndlovu
This article examines how the overwhelmingly dominant genre in The Lockdown Collection (2020), the personal essay, is an appropriate medium to capture the immediacy of the initial hard lockdown in South Africa because of its brevity and resonance. While the essays react to policies of virus containment, the loss and alteration of social conventions, they inevitably reveal the identity of each author
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Life Writing During a Pandemic: Making Sense of the “New Normal” in Lockdown Extended: Corona Chronicles (2020) Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2022-03-16 Walter K. Barure,Doreen R. Tivenga
This article focuses on the bourgeoning Covid-19 life narratives written by South African authors, who narrate their ordeals and the “new normal” in a bid to make sense of the impact of the pandemic through the lens of their everyday experiences that are different to those mediatised in mainstream media. Through a close reading and textual analysis of three personal narratives, we discuss how they
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Twitter Diary and COVID-19 Survival: The Case of @acielumumba Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2022-03-16 Terrence Musanga
This article examines the Twitter diary of Lumumba William Gerald Mutumanje, popularly known as Ace Lumumba in Zimbabwe, which chronicles his experiences of being COVID-19 positive, his recuperation and survival from the contagion. I argue that the Twitter diary attempts to create a resilient and survivor identity for Lumumba and at the same time underscores the fact that everyone is vulnerable and
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Contagion, a Futurist South African Climate Crisis and a Hidden Drug Pandemic in Mohale Mashigo’s Intruders: Short Stories Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2022-03-16 Irikidzayi Manase
The article draws on typologies of contagion, particularly matrices and patterns of virality considered here as tropes from the Bakhtinian chronotope. Using this frame, it analyses how society attempts to control crises and contagions in Mohale Mashigo’s speculative stories, “Untitled i,” “Untitled ii,” and “Ghost Strain N.” The Foucauldian notion of heterotopic juxtaposition of spaces complements
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Imagined Identity and Human Rights in the Post-pandemic World of Lauren Beukes’s Afterland Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2022-03-16 Cheryl Stobie
The article concerns itself with representative readers’ responses to Afterland by Lauren Beukes. In line with Beukes’s reputation, the novel has received acclaim. However, other readers have noted lacunae and negative representations that can fruitfully be viewed from the perspective of a hermeneutics of suspicion, which allows for an analysis of the affective sensibility of a text, and a human rights
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The Role of Prostitutes in the Political Economy of Corruption in Ben Mtobwa’s Pesa Zako Zinanuka and Dares Salaam Usiku Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-12-02 Wendo Nabea
Summary Corruption is a vice that continues to afflict many countries in the world, those of Africa inclusive. It is inimical to the rule of law, honesty and integrity. Those involved in corruption subvert honesty while privileging depravity. In the final analysis, the moral fibre of a people becomes eroded as corruption takes the centre stage. Corruption has been a common subject matter in many literary
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Corruption in Contemporary Nigerian Poetry: A New Historicist Perspective Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-12-02 Onyebuchi Nwosu, Anike Adeshina
Summary Discussions on corruption in Nigeria are dominated by economists and social scientists with their scholastic discourse on the subject growing by the day that one wonders whether Nigerian creative writers, especially contemporary poets are not perturbed by the rising wave of corruption in the country. This article attempts to investigate the contributions of some Nigerian poets like Niyi Osundare
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The Witness of Poetry: Holocaust Representation in Abraham Sutzkever and David Fram Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-12-02 Hazel Frankel
Summary This article discusses a selection of Holocaust poems by Abraham Sutzkever together with several written by David Fram as they epitomise how historical forces shape individual lives, highlighting how the differences in location and experience influenced their creative output. In order to do so, it locates the poets physically and aesthetically, and then compares several poems through in-depth
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A Weberian Reading of Henry James’s The Ambassadors Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-12-02 Ali Yiğit
Summary This article discusses the intriguing intersection of the literary work of prolific American writer, Henry James and the theories of German sociologist, Max Weber. In James’s oeuvre, The Ambassadors, stands out for depicting the impacts of ascending consumer capitalism in the early twentieth-century in a similar manner to Weber. Through the character representation, the novel symbolically engages
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Intensification of Biopolitical Strategies: Governing Bodies’ Treatment of Apocalyptic Zombification in Max Brook’s World War Z Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-12-02 Hossein Mohseni
Summary In Max Brook’s World War Z: An Oral History of Zombie War, the zombie world introduces moments of crisis in the governing system of world powers. Although some have read these moments as being capable of shattering conventional governance systems, the present study sides with the pessimist critics who believe that even in such apocalyptic set of circumstances, governing systems would always
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Ecocritical Concerns in Select Afrikaans Narrative Works: Critical Perspectives Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-12-02 Susan Meyer
Summary Environmentally oriented literary and cultural studies, or ecocriticism for short, gained traction in the United States of America in the late 1980s. It took root in South Africa no earlier than the start of this century and has been applied to the field of Afrikaans literature only for about the last decade. At a conference in Nijmegen in 2010, the leading German ecocritic Axel Goodbody expressed
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Editorial Note Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-12-02
(2021). Editorial Note. Journal of Literary Studies: Vol. 37, No. 4, pp. 106-106.
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Redaksionele nota Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-12-02
(2021). Redaksionele nota. Journal of Literary Studies: Vol. 37, No. 4, pp. 107-107.
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Contributors Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-12-02
(2021). Contributors. Journal of Literary Studies: Vol. 37, No. 4, pp. 108-109.
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“Race”, Language and Xenophobia in Joseph Conrad’s “Amy Foster” Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-09-10 Harry Sewlall
Summary Chinua Achebe’s animus against the creator of Heart of Darkness did not simply end with the charge of racism but extended to anti-Semitism and xenophobia as well. The term “xenophobia”, which is imbricated in the dialectics of race and language, features strongly in the current politics of diaspora and identity. Conventional scholarship on Conrad’s short fiction “Amy Foster” has followed two
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Women Navigating the Climate Catastrophe: Challenging Anthropocentrism in Selected Fiction Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-09-10 Jessica Murray
Summary This article explores how two authors represent female characters who engage with the impending climate catastrophe by exposing and challenging anthropocentrism, albeit in very different ways. The selected novels, Weather by Jenny Offill, and The Last Migration by Charlotte McConaghy, were published in 2020 and 2021 respectively. Both novels were met with significant critical acclaim and both
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Food, Masculinity and Gender-based Violence in Sally Andrew’s Recipes for Love and Murder (2015) Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-09-10 Neil van Heerden
Summary This article offers a reading of Sally Andrew’s debut murder mystery novel, Recipes for Love and Murder: A Tannie Maria Mystery (2015), from the angle of critical food studies. The article explores how the novel’s depiction of food relates to notions of masculinity and power against the backdrop of widespread gender-based violence in South Africa today. I argue that the protagonist and narrator’s
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Rethinking the Concept of Double Consciousness in Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folks (1903) Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-09-10 Mzukisi Lento
Summary In an essay titled “Of our spiritual strivings”, W.E.B. Du Bois coined and elaborated the concept of “double consciousness” to refer to the ambiguity of being black and American. The ambivalence and unstable identities suggested by the term imply living a life characterised by seemingly irreconcilable dualities. On the one hand, blacks are entitled to become Americans because the slave labour
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The Emotional Well-being of African Wives: Perceiving the Generalised Resistance Resources (GRRs) in Stress Management by Co-wives in Lola Shoneyin’s Novel The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-09-10 Florence Y. Ndiyah
Summary Although it is oppressive to women, polygamy is still relevant in many contemporary African societies, where the culturally acceptable identity of a woman is as a wife and mother, as demonstrated in Lola Shoneyin’s The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives (2015). To overcome the challenges of their daily lives, polygynous wives must search for resources elsewhere, since mental health facilities
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Subversive Verses: How Ndebele Musicians Counter-Framed the State Propaganda on The Gukurahundi Genocide Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-09-10 Mthulisi Mathuthu
Summary This article argues that while the state succeeded in framing Gukurahundi as suppression of armed rebellion with the help of some artists, Ndebele musicians also successfully counter-framed the carnage as genocide using subversive metaphors and analogies. It demonstrates that Ndebele musicians were among the earliest public sponsors of the genocide frame. In framing theory, metaphor is one
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Contemporaneity, Religious Instruction and Music in Dryden’s “A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day” and C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia* Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-09-10 Raúl Montero Gilete
Summary In English literature, we sometimes find biblical messages that have been adapted to the contemporary reader, and may be interpreted as veiled religious instructions such as John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. The present study delves into this idea by presenting and comparing John Dryden’s neoclassical poem, “A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day”, with C.S. Lewis’s fantasy heptalogy, The Chronicles
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London and the Spectre of Anarchy: Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday as Urban History Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-09-10 Katrina Gulliver
Summary This article discusses how the criminal threat of anarchist attack was treated in G.K. Chesterton’s novel, The Man Who Was Thursday. The novel captures a particular moment of public concern about terrorism and serves as an object of cultural history in its depiction of London as a den of crime. The plot focuses on an undercover policeman who infiltrates a terror cell. The kind of terrorism
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Editorial Note Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-09-10
(2021). Editorial Note. Journal of Literary Studies: Vol. 37, No. 3, pp. 130-131.
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Redaksionele nota Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-09-10
(2021). Redaksionele nota. Journal of Literary Studies: Vol. 37, No. 3, pp. 132-134.
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Contributors Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-09-10
(2021). Contributors. Journal of Literary Studies: Vol. 37, No. 3, pp. 135-136.
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Representations and Rhetoric of Genocide in African Popular Cultures Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-06-23 Khatija Khan
(2021). Representations and Rhetoric of Genocide in African Popular Cultures. Journal of Literary Studies: Vol. 37, Representations and Rhetoric of Genocide in African Popular Cultures, pp. 1-3.
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Defying Stereotyping Hutu People in The Rwandan Genocide in The Film, Kinyarwanda (2012) Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-06-23 Khatija Khan
Summary Certain academic works and film productions on the Rwandan genocide appear to authorise a new canonicity that simplifies interracial relations between the Tutsi and Hutu people before and during the genocidal war. Kinyarwanda is a film that revises the depiction of Hutus as violent people, all eager to kill Tutsis. The film refuses to endorse this mythology and one-sided characterisations of
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Ahistorical Rhetoric: Oil, Ethnicity and Genocide in South Sudan Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-06-23 Wellington Gadzikwa
Summary If one analyses the genocide in South Sudan from the definition by Travis (2008: 01), according to which genocide is “often the outcome acts designed to enrich a dominant racial, ethnic, religious or political group at the expense of smaller, weaker, or supposedly ‘inferior’ groups that possess valuable lands, monies, labour, or other resources”, it is possible to argue that the current genocide
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Gukurahundi in Zimbabwe: An Epistemicide and Genocide Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-06-23 William J. Mpofu
Summary That in political conflict and war the truth becomes a casualty that is sacrificed on the altar of expediency is an observation that is traceable to the ancient Greek tragedian, Aeschylus. It is no accident that it had to be a student of tragedy and the workings of evil who noted how truth and knowledge are the first to be murdered before individuals and populations of human beings are slaughtered
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Genocidal Action and Framing in Vera's The Stone Virgins Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-06-23 Josephine Muganiwa
Summary The article is a literary analysis of Yvonne Vera's The Stone Virgins tracing the effects of genocide on society as represented in the novel. Existing criticism of the novel either focuses on the poetry and lyricism of the novel or the terror and violence of the war. This article draws on genocide theories to unpack the stages of genocide and its aftermath as represented in the novel. It argues
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Gender Mainstreaming in Peacebuilding and Localised Human Security in the Context of the Darfur Genocide: An Africentric Rhetorical Analysis Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-06-23 Kgothatso B. Shai, Mbay Vunza
Summary A wide body of scholarship has been developed on the Darfur crisis in Western Sudan which started in February 2003.1 Such scholarship includes various academic works by scholars such as Apiah-Mensah (2005, 2006), Deng (2007), Howell (1974), Mohamed (2007), Rankhumise (2006). Among other issues identified by these scholars and conflict resolution practitioners, was the need to establish a nexus
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Media, Minority Discourses and Identity Politics in Post-Genocide Rwanda Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-06-23 Urther Rwafa
Summary This article explores how media has been used to shape the contours of political debate and ethnic identities in post-genocide Rwanda. The article will argue that although the government of Paul Kagame has loosened control on media, its obsession with constructing an “exeptionalised genocide narrative”, has been to a larger measure used as a weapon to gag media freedom. The poor and marginalised
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The Rhetoric of Shimon Wincelberg’s Resort ‘76 and the Aesthetics of Atrocity in Drama of the Holocaust Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-06-23 Owen Seda
Summary The question of whether or not it is proper to create fictionalised works of art out of traumatic episodes of human history such as the Nazi Holocaust of the 2nd World or the Rwandan genocide of 1994 is one which continues to trouble mankind. This dilemma was famously posed by Theodor Adorno (1965) and Lawrence Langer (1975) when they questioned the potential dangers and the morality of “re-victimising
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Gukurahundi, Media and the “Wounds of History”: Discourses on Mass Graves, Exhumations and Reburials in Post- Independent Zimbabwe Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-06-23 Mphathisi Ndlovu
Summary Graves are central to Zimbabwe's political landscape since they constitute sites of contestation in respect of memory and identity. Given the legacies of the Gukurahundi genocide, it is fitting to examine the debates and controversies surrounding the Zimbabwean government's plans to exhume the remains of victims from mass graves. In 1983 the Robert Mugabe-led government deployed a military
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The Language of the Gukurahundi Genocide in Zimbabwe: 1980-1987 Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-06-23 Dr Brian Sibanda
Summary The Gukurahundi genocide in Zimbabwe claimed more than 20 000 lives in the Matebeleland and Midlands provinces of the country at the hands of the state and its militia for political and tribal reasons. This article seeks to demonstrate how language, through hate speech, naming, symbolisation, dehumanisation, and classification, justified and rationalised Gukurahundi. While the linguistic conventions
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Editorial Note Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-06-23
(2021). Editorial Note. Journal of Literary Studies: Vol. 37, Representations and Rhetoric of Genocide in African Popular Cultures, pp. 146-147.
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Redaksionele nota Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-06-23
(2021). Redaksionele nota. Journal of Literary Studies: Vol. 37, Representations and Rhetoric of Genocide in African Popular Cultures, pp. 148-150.
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Contributors Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-06-23
(2021). Contributors. Journal of Literary Studies: Vol. 37, Representations and Rhetoric of Genocide in African Popular Cultures, pp. 151-153.
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Call for Papers Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-06-23
(2021). Call for Papers. Journal of Literary Studies: Vol. 37, Representations and Rhetoric of Genocide in African Popular Cultures, pp. 154-155.
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Translating Taboo: Blasphemy in an Afrikaans Translation of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-03-11 John Boje
Summary The purpose of this study is to examine the role of the translator of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales into Afrikaans in the dual contexts of the ideological milieu that dominated the Afrikaans literary scene and of the literary theory that prevailed at the time. The bulk of the translation fell in the period 1960 to 1980, the heyday of Afrikaner nationalism. The prevalent translation theory in the
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Dystopian Ecologies: Thinking about South African Ecocriticism through a Comparative Reading of Henrietta Rose-Innes’s Green Lion and Alettie van den Heever’s Stof [Dust] Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-03-11 Louise Viljoen
Summary This article explores the notion of a South African ecocriticism by firstly placing it against the background of the ongoing debates about the relationship between postcolonialism and ecocriticism and secondly by situating it within the context of African ecocriticism. It points out the most important characteristics of South African ecocriticism, focusing on the impact of South Africa’s colonial
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Mimetic Presuppositions: On the Epitextual Responses to Two Poems in English by Marlene van Niekerk Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-03-11 Reinhardt Fourie
Summary In this article, I consider two fairly recent English poems by Marlene van Niekerk: “Mud school” (2013) and “Fallist art (in memory of Bongani Mayosi)” (2018). Specifically, I explore the context surrounding the production of these poems, and what we can possibly glean from their limited (and not exclusively literary) reception in order to understand how this part of Van Niekerk’s (English)
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A Mesh of Strange Strangers in Juliana Spahr’s Well Then There Now (2011): An Exploration of Timothy Morton’s Ecological Thought Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-03-11 Alwyn Roux
Summary In this article, I utilise theoretical concepts from Timothy Morton’s The Ecological Thought (2010) to examine selected poems by Juliana Spahr from her poetry collection Well Then There Now (2011). Many of the poems in this collection, especially “Things of each possible relation hashing against one another” (WT 53-67) and “Gentle now, don’t add to heartache” (WT 122-133), deal with the inter-connectivity
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Unburying Silences: Trauma and Recuperative Narrative in Zoë Wicomb’s Playing in the Light Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-03-11 Sheena Goddard, Kevin Goddard
Summary This article argues that Wicomb’s novel is concerned with how to represent intergenerational trauma in South Africa. It suggests that an important element of that representation is the concept of “recuperation”. This includes the action of recuperating past events that have been repressed socially and psychologically, and also the use of that “unburying” as the first step towards recuperative
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History and Literature: Magic Realism and Italian POWs in a South African Novel Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-03-11 Mariëtte van Graan
Summary This article explores the use of a colonial object (a novel) and generally perceived to be colonial practices (such as empirical historiography, the critical study of literature and literary theory) as tools in the ongoing process of decolonising South African minds. Using the magic realist South African novel The Long Silence of Mario Salviati (Etienne van Heerden) as a case study, with particular
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Victims and Survivors: An Exploration of Abuse against Women and Possibilities for Women Empowerment as Portrayed in Selected Zimbabwean Literary Texts Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-03-11 Fennie Mudzi, Paul Svongoro, Josephat Mutangadura
Summary Using a simple qualitative approach based on library desk study, this article explores Tagwira’s The Uncertainty of Hope (2006), Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions (2004) and She No Longer Weeps (1996) to ascertain if traditional norms and practices that oppress women are evident in these selected works of art. Further, the article analyses the literary works to unpack the reasons for the abuse
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Editorial Note Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-03-11
(2021). Editorial Note. Journal of Literary Studies: Vol. 37, No. 1, pp. 120-121.
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Redaksionele nota Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-03-11
(2021). Redaksionele nota. Journal of Literary Studies: Vol. 37, No. 1, pp. 122-124.
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Contributors Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2021-03-11
(2021). Contributors. Journal of Literary Studies: Vol. 37, No. 1, pp. 125-126.
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Contributors Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2020-11-19
(2020). Contributors. Journal of Literary Studies: Vol. 36, Reading Post-Apartheid Whiteness, pp. 148-149.
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Introduction: Reading Post-Apartheid Whiteness Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2020-11-19 Andy Carolin, Minesh Dass, Bridget Grogan
(2020). Introduction: Reading Post-Apartheid Whiteness. Journal of Literary Studies: Vol. 36, Reading Post-Apartheid Whiteness, pp. 1-8.
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Romanticising the “Boer”: Narratives of White Victimhood in South African Popular Culture Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2020-11-19 Hannelie Marx Knoetze
Summary In this article, I present a critical reading of a purposive sample of popular cultural expressions from various sites as they relate to the emergence of narratives of white victimhood in South Africa. The particular focus falls on the resurgence of nostalgic appropriations of the construct of the Afrikaner Boer imaginary, and the concomitant utopian farm ideal. The argument is that this resurgence
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Editorial Note Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2020-11-19
(2020). Editorial Note. Journal of Literary Studies: Vol. 36, Reading Post-Apartheid Whiteness, pp. 143-144.
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Redaksionele nota Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2020-11-19
(2020). Redaksionele nota. Journal of Literary Studies: Vol. 36, Reading Post-Apartheid Whiteness, pp. 145-147.
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Terror Terroir: Building Disruptive Possibilities in Ivan Vladislavić’s The Folly Journal of Literary Studies Pub Date : 2020-10-01 Wamuwi Mbao
Summary Ivan Vladislavić’s 1993 novel The Folly has received less critical attention than his other writing. The novel was republished recently and, in this article, I read The Folly as a text that, from the vantage point of 1993, stages white South African suburbia as a site fraught with tensions. In the novel, the appearance of a drifter on a terrain vague dissolves the certainties of a suburban