Research Articles (English Studies)

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Alan Paton�s sublime: race, landscape and the transcendence of the liberal imagination
(University of KwaZulu Natal, 2005) Wittenberg, Hermann
This article develops a postcolonial reading of the sublime by suggesting that aesthetic theories of the sublime were, in their classical philosophical formulations by Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant, founded on problematic assumptions of racial difference. In the colonial sphere, it is argued, the sublime could discursively manage and contain the contradictions inherent in the aesthetic appreciation and appropriation of contested landscapes. This is particularly evident in the Alan Paton's writing. This article looks at the origins and the influence of rhetoric of the sublime in Paton's work, particularly in his novel Cry, the Beloved Country, and argues that the sublime is a key discursive structure in the shaping of Paton's complex and ambivalent representation of South Africa's politicised and racialised landscape.
Alan Paton�s writing for the stage: towards a non-racial South African theatre
(Taylor & Francis (Routledge), 2007) Wittenberg, Hermann
Introduction: It would not be an exaggeration to assert that no South African playwright in the 1950s and 1960s received as much international attention and recognition as Alan Paton, until eclipsed by Athol Fugard�s emerging career. Paton�s own plays and musicals, and the stage adaptations of his novels, had some extensive and successful runs on Broadway in New York, and also played to packed houses in South Africa. Some highly acclaimed artists, ranging from the German avant-garde composer Kurt Weill to South Africa�s jazz musician Todd Matshikiza, helped to bring his work to the stage. Yet Paton�s theatrical work has received surprisingly scant attention from critics, which is all the more remarkable, given the author�s prominence as one of South Africa�s most well-known writers. Like his novels, Paton�s plays are not simply light human dramas or romantic comedies as much colonial theatre at the time, but serious works that were deeply concerned with the socio-political issues facing South Africa under apartheid. As Paton once put it, he was never interested in �writing a �jolly good fellow� sort of play.� Three of his major plays were written and performed in a crucial period of South African history: the Sharpeville massacre, the implementation of the Group Areas and other cornerstone apartheid acts, the treason trials, and the declaration of the republic.
'This thing called reconciliation�' Forgiveness as part of an interconnectedness-towards-wholeness
(Philosophical Society of Southern Africa, 2008) Krog, Antjie
Regular reference is made, within the discourse around the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, to the fact that ubuntu, an indigenous world view, played a role in the process. This paper tries to show that despite these references, important analysts of the TRC (as well as many South Africans) had insufficiently accounted for this worldview in their critical readings of the Commission�s work and therefore found aspects of the process incoherent and/or morally and legally confused. I am not arguing that the TRC was not a deeply flawed process, but want to establish how powerfully this indigenous world view brought a coherency that not only enabled the TRC to do its work without incidences of revenge, but imbued politically and legally trapped concepts with new possibilities. The pervasiveness of this world view within eg. the second round of TRC testimonies is noticeable and show how often the critique on the TRC fails to take this dominant role into account and how many, seemingly contradictory or confusing, positions become coherent when regarded within this worldview. This view of interconnectedness, consistently expressed throughout the life of the commission, has wide implications for the interpretation of healing, the asking of amnesty, the rehabilitation of perpetrators, the interdependence of forgiveness and reconciliation in the process of achieving full personhood within a healed society. In the footsteps of Richard Bell, this paper locates this world view within a particular framework formulated as ubuntu by Desmond Tutu, as communitarianism by Kwame Gyekye, as ethnophilosophy by Paulin Hountondji etc. The paper also tries to understand how this interconnected moral self is formed and who the community could or should be that influences this moral self.
The taint of the censor: J.M. Coetzee and the making of In the Heart of the Country
(Institute for the Study of English in Africa, Rhodes University, 2008) Wittenberg, Hermann
With the publication of In the Heart of the Country by the London publisher Secker & Warburg in 1977, J. M. Coetzee had achieved international recognition for his second novel, transcending the narrow national literary culture of South Africa. Although In the Heart of the Country, with its overtly South African subject matter and setting certainly strengthened his credentials as a significant new South African writer, a careful look at the publication history of this novel shows a degree of ambivalence in the way Coetzee's authorship emerged in the force-field of tension between the local and the global. On the one hand, In the Heart of the Country's British publication was a further step in Coetzee's transnational authorship, a process that I have argued took place already with the writing and local South African publication of Dusklands (1974) ; on the other hand, Coetzee was also addressing himself for the first (and possibly last) time in a very particular and focused manner to a local readership. This complex doubled form of authorship was reflected in the dual publication history of In the Heart of the Country, both as an international version for the metropolitan Anglophone market (with a parallel United States edition), and as an edition published by Ravan Press in the following year, licensed for distribution only in South Africa. The South African edition distinguished itself not only by a different imprint and jacket design, but was decidedly local, with much of the novel's extensive dialogue in Afrikaans.
�Modern prophets, produce a new bible�: Christianity, Africanness and the poetry of Nontsizi Mgqwetho
(Southern African Literature and Culture Centre, UKZN, 2008) Brown, Duncan
In this article I consider how one might approach the apparently singular figure of Nontsizi Mgqwetho, a Xhosa woman who produced an extraordinary series of Christian izibongo in newspapers in the 1920s: through what kind of language, from what critical perspective, might one think and write about her? There have been various attempts to write about Mgqwetho, and there are certain obvious possibilities in terms of approach and methodology, which I explore briefly, but I want to suggest a mode of reading which provides a richer, more engaged and more engaging understanding � one which reads with and through, rather than onto or against, her African Christian articulations.
Complicit refugees, cosmopolitans and xenophobia: Khaled Hosseini's 'The Kite Runner' and Romesh Gunesekera's 'Reef' in conversation with texts on xenophobia in South Africa
(Common Ground, 2008) Flockemann, Miki
In the aftermath of the brutal xenophobic attacks in parts of South Africa against 'other' Africans between March and May this year, a fairly sustained (if repetitive) public debate has emerged in the local press. The aim is to extend this discussion to South African literary production and to stories from elsewhere - in this case, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. The distinction between complicit refugees and cosmopolitans draws on some of the arguments of Mark Saunders and Anthony Appiah as a framework for comparing Hosseini s popular 'The Kite Runner' (2003) and Gunsekera's lyrical 'Reef' (1994). These will be read in relation to K. Sella Duiker's 'Thirteen Cents' (2000). Establishing a 'conversation' between these texts is associated (from Appiah) with calls/or re-thinking terms such as citizen and cosmopolitan. This, in turn. has implications for the current expressions of and about, xenophobia in South Africa.
The right of indigenous people to communal land
(2009) Choma, Hlako; Makulana, Walter
The component of indigenous culture is founded on the concept of having responsibilities to the collective rights than simply enjoying the rights. The Indigenous people have an essential element of the relationship to nature as such indigenous concepts are not confined to human beings only, however include all living things. The collective rather than individualistic nature of Indigenous society, thus define the individual and collective rights. The human rights, in some ways share certain parallels or philosophical strains with the general practices, custom, and value of Indigenous societies . Land is the foundation for the economic substance of Indigenous people and for the continued survival of their cultures. One major problems faced by Indigenous people is the disposition of their traditional lands and territories.
Late style in J.M. Coetzee's Diary of a Bad Year
(Taylor & Francis (Routledge), 2010) Wittenberg, Hermann
J.M. Coetzee�s post-millennial writing has been marked by new forms of inventiveness, formal risk-taking and narrative experimentation that have blurred the boundaries between fiction, autobiography and social commentary. Using the example of the novel Diary of a Bad Year (2007), it is argued that this latter fiction is exemplary of Edward Said�s idea of �late style�, accounting not only for Coetzee�s surprising venture into explicit political commentary, but also his narrative minimalism. The paper looks carefully at the content and style of Coetzee�s novel, contrasting its descriptive technique with earlier fictions.
The pregnant man: race, difference and subjectivity in Alan Paton�s Kalahari writing
(Taylor & Francis, co-published with Unisa Press, 2010) Wittenberg, Hermann
In South African imaginative writing and scholarly research, there is currently an extensive and wide-ranging interest in the �Bushman�, either as a tragic figure of colonial history, as a contested site of misrepresentation, or even as an exemplary model of environmental consciousness. Writing and research about �Bushmen� has not only become pervasive in the academy, but also a site of controversy and theoretical contestation. It is in this context that this paper investigates the meaning and significance of �Bushmen� for Alan Paton, one of South Africa�s most well-known writers. Paton�s writing is not usually associated with �Bushman� studies, yet this article shows that the �Bushman� became a highly charged and ambivalent figure in his imagination. Paton�s problematic ideas are contextualised more carefully by looking at the broader context of South African letters. The article initially analyses Paton�s representation of �Bushmen� in his Lost City of the Kalahari travel narrative (1956, published in 2005. Pietermaritzburg: KZN Press), and also discusses unpublished archival photographs. A study of the figure of the �Bushman� throughout the entire corpus of his writing, ranging from early journalism to late autobiography, allows us to trace the shift of his views, enabling us to reflect not only on Paton�s thinking about racial otherness, but also gauge the extent to which his encounter with the Kalahari Bushmen destabilised his sense of self, finally also preventing the publication of the travelogue
Little perpetrators, witness-bearers and the young and the brave: towards a post-transitional aesthetics
(Taylor & Francis, 2010) Flockemann, Miki
The aesthetic choices characterizing work produced during the transition to democracy have been well documented. We are currently well into the second decade after the 1994 election - what then of the period referred to as the 'second transition'? Have trends consolidated, hardened, shifted, or have new 'post-transitional' trends emerged? What can be expected of the future 'born free' generation of writers and readers, since terms such as restlessness, dissonance and disjuncture are frequently used to describe the experience of constitutional democracy as it co-exists with the emerging new apartheid of poverty? Furthermore, what value is there in identifying post-transitional aesthetic trends?
The everyday experience of xenophobia: performing The Crossing from Zimbabwe to South Africa
(Routledge, 2010) Flockemann, Miki; Ngara, Kudzayi; Roberts, Wahseema; Castle, Andrea
Debates on the underlying causes of xenophobia in South Africa have proliferated since the attacks -between March and May 2008. Our article shows how exploring the everyday 'ordinariness' of xenophobia as performance can contribute additional insights not readily available in the public media or in works such as the recently published Go home or die here.- violence, xenophobia and the reinvention of difference (Hassim et al. 2009). The claim that as metaphor the meaning of performance is discovered in the dialectic established between the fictitious and actual context, provides a point of departure for a discussion of an autobiographical one-man play, The Crossing, in which Jonathan Nkala performs .his hazardous and 'illegal' rites of passage from Zimbabwe to South Africa. The play's aesthetic of 'witnessing', associated with the protest generation, intersects with and looks beyond a post-Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) aesthetic. To contextualise our discussion of Nkala's work we track trends in responses to xenophobia, including the suggestion that the attacks were underpinned by prevailing discourses of exceptianaJism and indigeneity. However, the intimacy of targeting those living close to you needs fuller anatysis. We will argue that the liminality of the performance event provides scope for making connections not directly 'there' at the moment of performance. This has a bearing on the 'return' to Fanon and claims about 'negrophobia' characterising many reports in the public domain on the events of 2008. In turn, this invites speculation about the re-alignments indicated here.
Race, resistance and translation: the case of John Buchan�s UPrester John
(Taylor & Francis (Routledge), 2011) Wittenberg, Hermann
In postcolonial translation studies, increasing attention is being given to the asymmetrical relationships between dominant and indigenous languages. This paper argues that John Francis Cele�s UPrester John (1958), is not simply a subordinated and obeisant translation of John Buchan�s adventure thriller Prester John (1910), but a more complex form of textuality that is both oppositional and complicit with the workings of apartheid. Although Cele�s translation reproduces Buchan�s story of a daring young Scotsman who single-handedly quells a black nationalist uprising, it also ameliorates the novel�s racist language and assumption. Cele�s translation practice is examined in the context of apartheid publishing and Bantu education.
Coming home, coming out: Achmat Dangor's journeys through myth and Constantin Cavafy
(Taylor & Francis Group, 2011) Field, Roger
Despite his international status, the impact of Constantin Cavafy�s poetry on South African letters has gone largely unnoticed. This article draws attention to the range of Cavafy's, influence on the local poets, writers, critics and cultural activists, particularly during the 1970s and 1980s, but directs most of its attention to two early short stories by Achmat Dangor, �The Homecoming� and �Waiting for Leila�, and his most recent novel Bitter Fruit. In all of these works Dangor refers directly and indirectly to Cavafy�s poetry, his sexuality, his evocations of place and his use of Greek mythology, particularly in one of his most famous poems �Ithaka�. The article also addresses Dangor�s ambivalence towards Cavafy, particularly the disjuncture between Cavafy�s ironic, apolitical modernism, modernism�s appeal to Dangor, his desire to produce accessible protest literature and his need to justify recourse to the classics in Africa.
Notes towards a history of Khoi literature
(Taylor & Francis, 2011) Wittenberg, Hermann
This article puts forward a revisionist history of Khoi literature, and also presents a number of translated Khoi narratives that have not been available in English before. Compared to the large volume of Bushman literature and scholarship, there has been very little Khoi literature and engagement with it, and an argument is presented to account for this gap in South African cultural history. Until now, the major source of Khoi literature was Wilhelm Bleek�s Reynard the Fox in South Africa (1864), and this text is critically interrogated as a limiting version of Khoi orature. An alternative corpus of Khoi narratives is presented that was originally published in Leonard Schultze�s Aus Namaland und Kalahari (1907).
Towards an archaeology of Dusklands
(Institute for the Study of English in Africa, 2011) Wittenberg, Hermann
This essay seeks to explore the question of origins: the beginnings of the literary career of arguably South Africa's most significant author, and the development of a form of authorship that was, at its inception, situated both locally and globally. An archaeology of the publication history of the debut novel Dusklands (1974) can shed light on the emergence of a particularly complex form of transnational authorship that J. M. Coetzee came to assume, a form locating itself within the South African literary landscape while simultaneously connecting itself to broader international literary currents.
Facing the stranger in the mirror: Staged complicities in recent South African performances
(Routledge, 2011) Flockemann, Miki
The staging of complicity has developed into one of the most prevalent trends in recent South Africa theatre. The audience may become aware of their own complicity in injustice, or complicity may feature as a subject to be explored in the play. I will argue that one can identify three broadly defined performance modalities which shape current engagements with complicity. These modalities are identified by the adjectives, 'thick' (as in densely layered, complex, deep), 'reflective' (as in reflecting upon as well as revealing), and 'hard' (in the sense of direct, uncompromising, difficult to penetrate). Rather than signifying distinct categories, these terms are attributed to a cluster of performance dynamics.
Making a case for the teaching of reading across the curriculum in higher education
(Education Association of South Africa (EASA), 2012) Bharuthram, Sharita
Over the past two decades there has been much written in the literature about the importance of reading and the importance of teaching students reading strategies to improve their reading comprehension. Reading is one of the most important academic tasks encountered by students. In higher education, students are exposed to a number of texts and textbooks that require independent reading. At this level they are expected to comprehend what they read so that they can analyse, critique, evaluate and synthesize information from various sources. Many students entering higher education are not adequately prepared to meet these challenges. This article highlights the literacy situation in South Africa with a particular focus on reading both in school and in higher education. In addition, the article highlights the importance of teaching students reading strategies across the curriculum in order to improve their reading comprehension, thereby enhancing their chances of academic success. The implications of this research for policy makers and academics in higher education institutions are outlined and some suggestions are made.
When orature becomes literature: Somali oral poetry and folktales in Somali novels
(Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012) Moolla, Fiona F.
The article discusses Somali literature, with particular focus given to the influence of Somali oral poetry and folk tales on modern novels. The difference between the concepts of orature and oral literature is examined, and the history of print and oral literary culture coexisting in Somalia is commented on.
�� The Agapanthi, Asphodels of the Negroes��: Life-writing, landscape and race in the South African diaries and poetry of George Seferis
(Taylor & Francis, 2012) Field, Roger
The Greek poet George Seferis (1900-1971) spent 10 months in South Africa during WWII as a senior diplomatic official attached to the Greek government in exile. Drawing on his diary entries, correspondence and poetry this article challenges earlier interpretations of his work best described as a �synchronic panoptic vision� (Bhabha). Beginning with an exploration of the troubled relationship between the �glory that was Greece� and the failure of its early 20thcentury nationalist, expansionist and modernization projects, the article argues that Seferis tried to overcome alienation from landscape and a crisis of creativity in two ways: he transcribed and commented on Cavafy�s poetry, but was unable to resolve his relationship with the latter; by reaching down into the ruins of ancient Greece and back into its mythological past, through a process of negative displacement he transforms these crises into a descent to the world of the dead. Unlike Odysseus, he receives no guidance from its inhabitants, for they speak only the language of flowers and there are none. Accompanying Seferis� dual purpose use of classical mythology as national heritage and ironic device is a more problematic aspect of modernism � the relegation of Africa and its sub- Saharan inhabitants to a primitive otherness that, he felt, limited his ability to express himself, and which generated some of his greatest poetry.
Wilhelm Bleek and the Khoisan imagination: a study of censorship, genocide and colonial science
(Taylor & Francis Group, 2012) Wittenberg, Hermann
In 1864, Wilhelm Bleek published a collection of Khoi narratives titled Reynard the Fox in South Africa, or Hottentot Fables and Tales. This article critically examines this foundational event in South African literary history, arguing that it entailed a Victorian circumscription of the Khoisan imagination, containing its libidinal and transgressive energies within the generic limits of the na?ve European children�s folktale. Bleek�s theories of language and race are examined as providing the context for his editorial approach to Khoi narratives in which the original �nakedness� was written out. The extent of Bleek�s censorship of indigenous orature becomes visible when comparing his �fables� to a largely unknown corpus of Khoi tales, collected by the German ethnographer Leonhard Schultze during the Nama genocide in the early twentieth century. The article compares these collections of oral narratives, and suggests that this has implications for the way the famous Bleek and Lloyd /Xam archive was subsequently constituted in the 1870s. Wilhelm Bleek�s interventions in civilising the Khoisan imagination marks a move away from a potentially Rabelaisian trajectory in South African literature through which the Khoisan could be represented and represent themselves. In admitting a sanitised indigenous orature into the colonial literary order, it is argued that Bleek helped to create a restrictive cultural politics in South Africa from which the country is yet to emerge fully.

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