Wilhelm Bleek and the Khoisan imagination: a study of censorship, genocide and colonial science

Simple item page
dc.contributor.authorWittenberg, Hermann
dc.date.accessioned2014-02-13T13:54:49Z
dc.date.available2014-02-13T13:54:49Z
dc.date.issued2012
dc.description.abstractIn 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.en_US
dc.description.accreditationDepartment of HE and Training approved listen_US
dc.identifier.citationWittenberg, H. (2012). Wilhelm Bleek and the Khoisan imagination: a study of censorship, genocide and colonial science. Journal of Southern African Studies, 38(3): 667-679en_US
dc.identifier.issn0305-7070
dc.identifier.issn1465-3893
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10566/1010
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.privacy.showsubmitterFALSE
dc.publisherTaylor & Francis Groupen_US
dc.rights� 2012 Taylor & Francis Group. This is the author's post-print version of the article and may be freely used, provided that full acknowledgement is given.
dc.source.urihttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057070.2012.704677
dc.status.ispeerreviewedTRUE
dc.subjectBushmanen_US
dc.subjectHottentoten_US
dc.subjectKhoi Narrativeen_US
dc.subjectEuropean Children's Fableen_US
dc.subjectSouth Africaen_US
dc.subjectLiteratureen_US
dc.subjectBleek, Wilhelmen_US
dc.titleWilhelm Bleek and the Khoisan imagination: a study of censorship, genocide and colonial scienceen_US
dc.typeArticleen_US

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
WittenberghCensorship2012.pdf
Size:
225.02 KB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Author final version
Download
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
license.txt
Size:
1.55 KB
Format:
Item-specific license agreed upon to submission
Description:
Download

Collections

Research Articles (English Studies)