ENGLISH STUDIES IN AFRICA最新文献

{"title":"Introduction: South African and African Modernism – Beyond a Century, Beyond the Provisional","authors":"Rick de Villiers","doi":"10.1080/00138398.2022.2055852","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00138398.2022.2055852","url":null,"abstract":"On 16 June, 1926, the Johannesburg newspaper Rand Daily Mail carried a gloved dismantling of a new literary magazine called Voorslag. In name and in content, this half-crown monthly promised to be at the sharp end of a rising South African avant-garde, all the while keeping touch with the best art abroad. Splendid ideals, a timely intervention – but was Voorslag quite ‘what it should be’ (Millin 43)? The reviewer, Sarah Gertrude Millin, had her doubts. Despite its claims to radical newness, she saw in Voorslag something oddly familiar, derivative even. Its focus was too ‘narrow’. Its philosophy resembled too closely that of certain Anglo-American little magazines. And its editors – Roy Campbell, William Plomer and Laurens van der Post – seemed to endorse a predictable cast of European ‘prophets’ and ‘gods’ (44): the Sitwells, Clive Bell, Roger Fry, T.S. Eliot, Marcel Proust, James Joyce and others. There is neat irony in the fact that Millin’s piece appeared on 16 June, otherwise known as ‘Bloomsday’. Only four years had passed since modernism’s ‘annus mirabilis’ – the year that saw the publication of Ulysses, The Waste Land, and Jacob’s Room, the year that supposedly ‘[broke] the world... in two’ (Cather v) – and already its tenets, methods and proponents were being treated as a known quantity. ‘The fact of the matter,’Millin lamented, ‘is that Voorslag, for all its South African flavour, is a branch of a well-defined overseas group’ (44). An uncharitable reader might be tempted to say the review betrays that ‘grocer’s mentality’ (Gardner and Chapman 4) which Voorslag sought to trouble. It is difficult not to regard Millin’s quibbles as both slight and slighting. It is difficult, too, crediting the idea that modernism was as ‘well-defined’ as her tone of polite boredom would suggest. But despite some hasty dismissals, the novelist’s tacit scepticism about a ‘South African modernism’ is itself not easily dismissed. Could such a movement ever amount to more than a provincial version of its metropolitan model? Could it add anything other than local ‘flavour’ to an apparently European project? Would ‘South African modernism’ ever shake the pincers of the provisional?","PeriodicalId":42538,"journal":{"name":"ENGLISH STUDIES IN AFRICA","volume":"65 1","pages":"1 - 4"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43171818","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Modernisms and Modernities in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart","authors":"R. West-Pavlov","doi":"10.1080/00138398.2022.2055860","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00138398.2022.2055860","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In this article I argue that Nigerian author Chinua Achebe ostentatiously co-opted Yeats’s poem ‘The Second Coming’ in the title of his 1958 novel Things Fall Apart to mobilize a modernist gesture in order to bookend what is in fact primarily a rehearsal of markers of modernity (realist narration, the structure of the historical novel as defined by Lukács). The latter rehearsal was central to Achebe’s claim for the fully-fledged rationalist character of the Igbo polity and his bid to put his society on a par with European modernity. Crucial to this claim for parity, however, was Achebe’s countervailing manipulation of residual markers of modernism to force a wedge into the monolith of modernity so as to disable those elements of modernity that disqualified African societies from parity with Europe, as against those elements that were desired as offering parity. By the same token, Achebe’s ‘countermodernism’ also foregrounds other versions of history that resonate with global alter-modernisms and thus posits alternative modernities.","PeriodicalId":42538,"journal":{"name":"ENGLISH STUDIES IN AFRICA","volume":"40 2","pages":"72 - 86"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41306802","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Room","authors":"Kobus Moolman","doi":"10.1080/00138398.2021.1969103","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00138398.2021.1969103","url":null,"abstract":"(2021). The Room. English Studies in Africa: Vol. 64, The Plague Years, pp. 110-113.","PeriodicalId":42538,"journal":{"name":"ENGLISH STUDIES IN AFRICA","volume":" 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138492533","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Fever Dreams: Surveying the Representation of Plagues and Pandemics in South African Speculative Fiction","authors":"C. Warren","doi":"10.1080/00138398.2021.1969104","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00138398.2021.1969104","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper provides an overview of the representation of outbreaks of infectious disease in South African speculative fiction. The focus is on novels by South African authors (even if some are set in the US) which envision a future plague or pandemic, from AIDS to flu-like viruses to a zombie outbreak. This is not an in-depth analysis of individual texts but a survey of the ways in which future plagues are envisioned, including in young adult fiction and popular fiction.","PeriodicalId":42538,"journal":{"name":"ENGLISH STUDIES IN AFRICA","volume":"64 1","pages":"114 - 120"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49258748","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Will the COVID-19 Crisis Lead to a Fourth Wave of Neo-nationalism?","authors":"E. Bergmann","doi":"10.1080/00138398.2021.1969101","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00138398.2021.1969101","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In this paper, I analyze whether the COVID-19 crisis might lead to a new wave of neo-nationalism. History teaches that socio-economic crises tend to pave the way for populist nationalists to seize the moment and place themselves as saviours of the people/nation against both an external threat and the domestic elite. In previous research, I detected three waves of nativist populism, emerging into what I call neo-nationalism in the post-war era, each rising in the wake of crisis. The characteristics of the current crisis are in many ways reminiscent of those that have previously led to the rise of nativist populism, which defines much of contemporary politics in the West, and indeed around the world. It is therefore timely to contemplate whether the crisis resulting from governmental responses to COVID-19 might ignite the fourth wave of neo-nationalism.","PeriodicalId":42538,"journal":{"name":"ENGLISH STUDIES IN AFRICA","volume":"64 1","pages":"98 - 109"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43298673","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"‘As others feel pain in their lungs’: Albert Camus’s The Plague","authors":"Hedley Twidle","doi":"10.1080/00138398.2021.1969094","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00138398.2021.1969094","url":null,"abstract":"This is an account of reading Albert Camus's The Plague in the wake of various real-world epidemics, and from a place, South Africa, that emerges as a kind of mirror image of the north Africa in which the novel is set. It suggests that what seems at first like a simple story is in fact a deeply complex, even contradictory work: one that that absorbs and reflects back as much history and difficulty as the reader is willing to bring to it. While giving postcolonial critiques of the work their due, I explore how and why The Plague still holds energy and meaning for a 21st-century audience.","PeriodicalId":42538,"journal":{"name":"ENGLISH STUDIES IN AFRICA","volume":"64 1","pages":"24 - 40"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42432450","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Two Paintings","authors":"Ingrid Winterbach","doi":"10.1080/00138398.2021.1969151","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00138398.2021.1969151","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42538,"journal":{"name":"ENGLISH STUDIES IN AFRICA","volume":"64 1","pages":"59 - 60"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42496731","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Ancient Chinese Poetry and Chinese Calligraphy in Combatting COVID-19","authors":"Zhiyong Mo","doi":"10.1080/00138398.2021.1969099","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00138398.2021.1969099","url":null,"abstract":"In the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, countries, regions and international organizations dispatched personal protective equipment (PPE) to frontline workers and afflicted people. Lines of ancient Chinese poetry were printed on the side of boxes dispatched by the People’s Republic of China both nationally and globally, as well as some sent from Japan to China. Many of these lines invoked shared histories and the long tradition of crosscultural communication and international friendship between China and other countries. But the printing of poetry was also motivated by a desire to remove people – albeit temporarily – from the context of COVID-19 suffering, to lead them to a more peaceful and harmonious world. The good will and friendship among people, as well as the common destiny of all humanity, is a recurrent theme. On the boxes of PPE sent to Wuhan, initially the most affected city, by the Chinese language academy (HSK) in Japan, eight Chinese characters read, ‘Mountain, River, Different, Areas / Wind, Moon, Same, Sky’ (Figure 1). The elemental and ethereal images, wind, moon and sky emblematize a lofty, magnanimous, and capacious mind, able to accommodate ‘ten thousand things’. These words were first embroidered on a thousand cassocks – on the orders of Japan’s Emperor Tenmu’s grandson Prince Nagaya (circa. 684–729) – and were sent to the Tang Dynasty court about 1300 years ago. After receiving them, the high monk Ganjin (Jianzhen 688–763), inspired by the gift, sailed to Japan to propagate Buddhism there. Invoking and rekindling this ancient memory of Japan reaching out – reiterating the gift – the HSK affirmed the long history of solidarity between the two nations. As the pandemic unfolded, China reciprocated the gift by sending PPE to Japan. China’s poem to Japan also affirmed their common heritage despite the distance separating them. The Tiantai Sect was founded during the Tang Dynasty and Japanese monks traveled to Tiantai to study, which led to them establishing the Tiantai Sect in Japan and instigating ongoing exchange. The Buddhist scholar Juzan’s lines allude to this history by using the metaphor of a tree’s blossom spreading its fragrance to two places (Figure 3). In the lines by Southern Song Dynasty poet, Zhang Xiaoxiang (Figure 7), printed on the PPE","PeriodicalId":42538,"journal":{"name":"ENGLISH STUDIES IN AFRICA","volume":"64 1","pages":"84 - 97"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47754140","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Tick Tock","authors":"Sonia Fanucchi","doi":"10.1080/00138398.2021.1969127","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00138398.2021.1969127","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42538,"journal":{"name":"ENGLISH STUDIES IN AFRICA","volume":"64 1","pages":"255 - 255"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44133794","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Ten Chinese COVID-19 Poets","authors":"Yanbin Kang","doi":"10.1080/00138398.2021.1969152","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00138398.2021.1969152","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42538,"journal":{"name":"ENGLISH STUDIES IN AFRICA","volume":"64 1","pages":"77 - 83"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43394824","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}