Journal of Literary Studies最新文献

{"title":"The Anticipation of #MeToo in J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace","authors":"Craig Smith","doi":"10.25159/1753-5387/11054","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.25159/1753-5387/11054","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, I reconsider J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace, often interpreted in the context of South Africa’s transition to post apartheid life and with an eye to the nation’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, by instead reading it in light of the international twenty first century  MeToo movement. I contend that, in retrospect, Disgrace both demonstrates affinities with  MeToo and proleptically envisions, from the postcolonial periphery, the contours of the movement decades before its forceful emergence as a watershed moment in the West. Disgrace tells a story echoed in many  MeToo accounts, depicting the public exposure and fall from grace of a privileged white man following his sexual exploitation of a non white student. My interests lie not in the matter of David Lurie’s potential redemption; rather, I explore Coetzee’s exposure of the persistence of institutionalized gendered and racial privileges through moments of historical transformation. I argue that Disgrace’s highlighting of its own unnarrated perspectives anticipates the forceful challenge to a lingering white heterosexual hegemony that characterizes MeToo, while at the same time exposing the perpetual marginalization of non white and non Western traumas in discourses of transitional justice in South Africa and globally.","PeriodicalId":43700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Studies","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75408147","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":"Complicity and Responsibility in Contemporary African Writing: The Postcolony Revisited by Minna Johanna Niemi","authors":"Fiona Moolla","doi":"10.25159/1753-5387/11187","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.25159/1753-5387/11187","url":null,"abstract":"Book Review","PeriodicalId":43700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Studies","volume":"48 191 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83282218","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":"n Voelvlug oor die ontwikkeling en die gebruik van Kaapse Afrikaans (Kaaps) in Afrikaanse dramas","authors":"Marisa Keuris","doi":"10.25159/1753-5387/10884","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.25159/1753-5387/10884","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, I give a bird’s eye view of the development of Kaaps (Afrikaans) drama: from the early days of Dutch Afrikaans drama when the use of so called “Hottentots Dutch” was first introduced to contemporary works that make use of Kaaps. Since “language”  in drama is foregrounded by the use of dialogue by the characters in a play, the focus of this discussion is mainly on dramatic dialogue. Some insights of Vimala Herman as discussed in her seminal study, Dramatic discourse: dialogue as interaction in plays (1995), are used to structure this article’s theoretical parameters. She makes the point that dramatic dialogue is not simply the reflection of ordinary speech between speakers or even the “refinement” of such speech but is, in fact, much more complicated and should rather be seen as an imitation of the rules and conventions underpinning real life discourse. The playwright simply creates the illusion that a specific conversation is taking place between characters. An analysis of dramatic dialogue should, however, also be accompanied by an understanding of the greater contextual context of a play (eg. the socio political issues addressed or implied in such a work). From the various examples given in the article, one can discern through the use of dramatic language a particular development from the early Dutch Afrikaans play’s paternalistic depictions of so called “Hottentot” characters by white playwrights, to more sympathetic contemporary depictions of Khoisan characters by white playwrights. Today the use of Kaaps is increasingly used by their own playwrights to give authentic portrayals of urban coloured communities.\u0000Opsomming\u0000In hierdie artikel word 'n voelvlug van die ontwikkeling van Kaapse Afrikaans (Kaaps) in die Afrikaanse drama verskaf: vanaf die vroee dae van Hollands Afrikaanse drama tot by kontemporere werke wat van Kaaps gebruik maak. Aangesien “taal” in drama hoofsaaklik na te gaan is in die dialoog wat karakters gebruik, is die fokus in hierdie bespreking op dramatiese dialoog. Die artikel se teoretiese raamwerk word gerig deur die toepassing van sommige insigte soos bespreek in Vimala Herman (1995) se seminale studie, Dramatic Discourse: Dialogue as Interaction in Plays. Herman verwerp 'n dikwels algemene oortuiging dat dramatiese diskoerse grotendeels 'n weerspieeling is van alledaagse gesprekke—moontlik net fyner verwerk of aangepas deur 'n dramaturg vir die verhoog. Dramatiese dialoog is in der waarheid die nabootsing van die spraakreels en spraakkonvensies wat gewone gesprekke onderle en skep gewoon die illusie dat 'n bepaalde gesprek gevoer word. 'n Analise van dramatiese dialoog moet egter ook vergesel word van 'n begrip van die groter konteks waarbinne 'n drama geplaas is (byvoorbeeld die sosiopolitieke aangeleenthede wat die werk aanspreek of impliseer). 'n Mens kan wel 'n bepaalde ontwikkeling opmerk uit die onderskeie voorbeelde wat kortliks bespreek word, naamlik vanaf die vroee Hollands Afrikaanse dramas se ","PeriodicalId":43700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Studies","volume":"47 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86600671","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":"Doing Literature Now","authors":"R. Nethersole","doi":"10.25159/1753-5387/10883","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.25159/1753-5387/10883","url":null,"abstract":"Opinion Piece","PeriodicalId":43700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Studies","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-05-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75541716","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":"Eliot and Beckett’s Low Modernism: Humility and Humiliation, by Rick de Villiers","authors":"M. Marais","doi":"10.25159/1753-5387/10688","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.25159/1753-5387/10688","url":null,"abstract":"Rick de Villiers’s principal contention in Eliot and Beckett’s Low Modernism: Humility and Humiliation is that the work of both these writers evinces a concern with suffering and one of its possible effects, that is, “the extinction of personality” (2). For this reason, he begins his argument with a discussion of the ambivalent relation of humiliation to humility. In its secular, post-Enlightenment guise, humility is associated with humanist and rationalist notions of individual autonomy, the preservation of human dignity, progress, perfectability, and the betterment of society. So, although humility, in the context of the Enlightenment project’s emancipatory narrative, is premised on a recognition of the individual’s shortcomings and of universal limitations, it asserts “with equal force the inherent dignity of each individual” (11). From this perspective, humility cannot but eschew humiliation, which is aligned with a divestiture of human dignity and an erosion of notions of progress and human upliftment. What De Villiers shows, however, is that humility and humiliation were once closely affined, with the latter designating the personal act of self-abasement rather than the interpersonal act of degrading another person. Moreover, a corollary of humility, in this Christian tradition, is self-knowledge, which is understood to mean not only knowledge of one’s own weaknesses, but also of human fallibility. Indeed, it is the latter which inspires a negative self-regard and, with it, self-forgetfulness and self-lowering. In this connection, De Villiers cites Simone Weil’s reflection that “Once we have understood that we are nothing, the object of all of our efforts is to become nothing” (15). When humility and humiliation are aligned, knowledge translates into self-sacrifice.","PeriodicalId":43700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Studies","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89388083","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":"Life Writing During a Pandemic: Making Sense of the “New Normal” in Lockdown Extended: Corona Chronicles (2020)","authors":"W. K. Barure, D. R. Tivenga","doi":"10.25159/1753-5387/10410","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.25159/1753-5387/10410","url":null,"abstract":"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 reconstruct the first lockdown in South Africa, and take stock of the situation by confronting an immediate and distant past, daily acts of survival, private lives and imagined futures. The article also considers how the narrators envision themselves as vulnerable subjects, hence uniquely capturing the intense mood of the lockdown and how it led to a renewed interest in life writing.\u0000Opsomming\u0000Hierdie artikel fokus op die florerende Covid-19-lewensvertellings deur Suid-Afrikaanse outeurs waarin hulle hul beproewinge en die “nuwe normaal” weergee in 'n poging om sin te maak van die uitwerking van die pandemie, deur die lens van hulle alledaagse ervarings wat verskil van die ervarings wat in die hoofstroommedia uitgebeeld word. Na die noukeurige lees en tekstuele ontleding van drie persoonlike narratiewe, bespreek ons hoe hierdie outeurs die eerste inperkingstyd in Suid-Afrika gerekonstrueer het, die situasie krities in oënskou geneem het deur die onmiddellike en verre verlede, daaglikse oorlewingsaksies, privaat lewens en verbeelde toekoms gekonfronteer het. Die artikel neem ook die feit in ag dat die vertellers hulleself as weerlose persone sien, en vang gevolglik op ’n unieke wyse die intense gemoedstemming van die grendeltyd, en hoe dit tot hernieude belangstelling in die skryf oor die lewe gelei het, vas.","PeriodicalId":43700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Studies","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73382150","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":"Being Human in a Time of Catastrophe: African Feminism, Feminist Humaneness, and the Poetry of Joyce Ash","authors":"N. Nkealah","doi":"10.25159/1753-5387/10416","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.25159/1753-5387/10416","url":null,"abstract":"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 establishes connections between being feminist and being humane using the poetry of Cameroonian writer Joyce Ash. Ash’s poetry constructs feminist humaneness as a socially responsive and practical feminism that fosters human relationships.\u0000Opsomming\u0000Hierdie artikel bestudeer wat menswees in ’n tyd van gesondheidskatastrofe behels, en stel die konsep van feministiese menslikheid bekend. Feministiese menslikheid is ’n vertakking van Afrika-feminisme en handel oor vroue se praktikalisering van hul feminisme deur welwillendheid, sorg, medelye, empatie en bedagsaamheid teenoor ander vroue in tye van siekte, pandemies, en ander gesondheidskatastrofes te toon. Die artikel gebruik die poësie van die Kameroense skrywer Joyce Ash deur ’n verband daar te stel tussen feministies wees en menslik wees. Ash se poësie konstrueer feministiese menslikheid as ’n maatskaplik responsiewe en praktiese feminisme wat menslike verhoudings koester.","PeriodicalId":43700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Studies","volume":"112 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82330247","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":"Dystopian Futures: Ugandan Science Fiction and Post-Apocalypse Contagions","authors":"E. Nabutanyi","doi":"10.25159/1753-5387/10413","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.25159/1753-5387/10413","url":null,"abstract":"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 Karooro Okurut, Moses Isegawa, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, and Austin Ejeit—have used fiction to offer insights into the various contours of these contagions. For example, in their interrogation of one of the worst pandemics to hit the Ugandan society—AIDS—a host of writers have centred a cautionary tale motif and verisimilitude to show how behavioural change can effectively combat disease outbreaks. This article builds on this substantial Ugandan archive of plague writing by focusing on one genre of Ugandan writing—science fiction—that has not received much critical attention for its exploration of pandemics. I explore how Dilman Dila’s “A Leafy Man,” “Where Rivers Go to Die” and “The Taking of Oleng” use science fiction tropes to proffer insights in contemporary Ugandan plagues. I argue that Dila uses science fiction to effectively delineate the causes of, how to cope with and the myths that circulate about these catastrophic occurrences in the Ugandan public sphere.\u0000Opsomming\u0000Soos die meeste lande op die Afrika-vasteland het Uganda onlangs met eksistensiële pandemies soos vigs, Marburg, cholera en ebola geworstel, benewens die huidige Covid-19-pandemie. Al die bogenoemde siekte-uitbrekings het dikwels ondenkbare lyding vir Uganda se bevolking meegebring.  Dalk is dit die rede waarom Ugandese vakkundiges en openbare intellektuele—veral skrywers soos Mary Karooro Okurut, Moses Isegawa, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, en Austin Ejeit—fiksie gebruik het om insig in die verskillende kontoere van hierdie besmettings te bied. Byvoorbeeld, in hul ondersoeke oor een van die ergste pandemies wat die Ugandese samelewing getref het, naamlik vigs, het vele skrywers ’n waarskuwende verhaalmotief en skynwaarheid die middelpunt gemaak om te wys hoe gedragsverandering die uitbreking van siektes doeltreffend kan bekamp. Hierdie artikel bou voort op dié omvattende Ugandese argief van skryfwerk oor siektes, deur te fokus op een genre van Ugandese skryfwerk—wetenskapsfiksie—wat nie veel kritiese aandag gekry het vir die bestudering van pandemies nie. Ek ondersoek hoe\u0000Dilman Dila se “A Leafy Man,” “Where Rivers Go to Die” en “The Taking of Oleng” wetenskapsfiksie-stylfigure gebruik om insig oor hedendaagse Ugandese plae te bied. Ek voer aan dat Dila wetenskapsfiksie gebruik om ’n doeltreffende beeld te skep van die oorsake van hierdie katastrofiese verskynsels wat in die Ugandese openbare sfeer sirkuleer, hoe om dit te hanteer en die mites daaromtrent.","PeriodicalId":43700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Studies","volume":"39 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84040896","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":"Pandemic Literatures and Being Human in Times of Mass Infection and Catastrophe: Some African Perspectives","authors":"I. Manase, T. Ndlovu","doi":"10.25159/1753-5387/10409","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.25159/1753-5387/10409","url":null,"abstract":"Special Issue Introduction","PeriodicalId":43700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Studies","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82261057","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":"Imagined Identity and Human Rights in the Post-pandemic World of Lauren Beukes’s Afterland","authors":"C. Stobie","doi":"10.25159/1753-5387/10417","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.25159/1753-5387/10417","url":null,"abstract":"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 framework, which emphasises all humans’ right to equality and freedom from prejudice. The world of Afterland, featuring the aftermath of the death of most people with prostates, offers an opportunity for dramatically reconceptualised gender roles and behaviours, and the possibility for readers to experience the effects of transportation into a narrative and the alleviation of out-group anxiety. Such processes allow for prejudice reduction and an increase in empathy. Through a close reading of sections of the novel, and by focusing particularly on the instance of transgender, I note that the novel fails to figure transgender rights as human rights through its representations and lacunae. Other representations of gender, sexuality and, to some extent, race is also at variance with the need for increased vigilance about the rights of marginalised and at-risk individuals during a pandemic.\u0000Opsomming\u0000Die artikel is gemoeid met verteenwoordigende lesers se reaksies op Afterland, deur Lauren Beukes. In ooreenstemming met Beukes se reputasie is die roman met toejuiging begroet. Ander lesers het egter leemtes en negatiewe voorstellings opgemerk, wat met sukses beskou kan word vanuit die perspektief van ’n hermeneutiek van agterdog, wat ’n ontleding van die affektiewe ontvanklikheid van ’n teks moontlik maak; sowel as ’n menseregteraamwerk, wat klem lê op die reg van alle mense tot gelykheid en vryheid van vooroordeel. Die wêreld van Afterland, wat gekenmerk word deur die nadraai van die dood van die meeste mense wat ’n prostaat het, bied ’n geleentheid vir dramaties gerekonseptualiseerde geslagsrolle en -gedrag, en die moontlikheid vir lesers om die uitwerkings van transportasie in ’n verhaal in en die verligting van buite-groep-angs te ervaar. Sodanige prosesse maak vermindering van vooroordele en ’n toename in empatie moontlik. Deur gedeeltes van die roman deeglik deur te lees en veral op die geval van transgender te fokus, merk ek op dat die roman nie daarin slaag om transgender-regte as menseregte uit te beeld deur sy voorstellings en leemtes nie. Ander voorstellings van gender, seksualiteit en, in ’n mate, ras, is ook strydig met die behoefte aan verhoogde waaksaamheid oor die regte van gemarginaliseerdes en individue wat in gevaar verkeer tydens ’n pandemie.","PeriodicalId":43700,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Literary Studies","volume":"104 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77616778","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}