Translation and South African English Literature: van Niekerk and Heyns' Agaat

English Today ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lobke Minter
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
South African ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
African Literature ◽  
The South ◽  
Literary Field ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
South African Literature

English is in many ways the language that is assumed to be the giant in the South African literary field. The mere mention of South African literature has a different nuance to, let's say, African literature, since African literature has a vast array of national, colonial and post-colonial contexts, whereas South African literature is focused on one nation and one historical context. This difference in context is important when evaluating the use of English in South African Literature. In many ways, the South African literary field has grown, not only in number of contributors, and the diversity represented there, but also in genre or style. South African literature is becoming more fluid, more energetic, and more democratic in all the ways that the word implies. Writers like Lauren Beukes and Lily Herne are writing science fiction worlds where Cape Town is controlled by autocratic fascists or zombie wastelands that stretch from Table Mountain to Ratanga Junction; Deon Meyer writes crime thrillers, and Renesh Lakhan plumbs the depths of what it means to be South African after democracy. In many ways, the entire field of literature has changed in South Africa in the last twenty or so years. But one aspect has remained the same: the expectation, that while anyone who has anything to say at all, creatively, politically or otherwise, can by all means write it in their mother tongue, if the author wants to be read by more than a very specific fraction of society, then they need to embark on the perilous journey that is translation, and above all, translation into English.

scholarly journals Decolonizing the English Literature GCE A-Level via the South African Ex-Centric

2021 ◽  
Vol 70 (270) ◽  
pp. 244-252
Author(s):  
Jade Munslow Ong
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
English Literature ◽  
African Literature ◽  
English Studies ◽  
The South ◽  
Teaching Activities ◽  
Funded Research ◽  
South African Literature ◽  
The Impact

Abstract In this snapshot article, I outline the background and context for the development of research-led teaching activities aimed at students pursuing the WJEC Eduqas GCE A-Level English Literature qualification. The aims of these activities are threefold: first, to assist students’ learning and preparation for the exam component ‘Unseen Prose’ (worth 10% of the overall qualification); second, to extend the impact of AHRC-funded research on South African literature to 16- to 18-year-old learners; and third, to mobilize the first two aims in support of decolonizing efforts in English Studies.

A Case for a Transforming Christology in South Africa

2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 310-326
Author(s):  
Jakobus (Koos) M. Vorster
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
African Literature ◽  
Kingdom Of God ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Historical Jesus ◽  
The Political ◽  
The South ◽  
South African Literature ◽  
Lost In Translation

Abstract In the South African discourse on the political relevance of Jesus Christ, a vast array of conceptions of Jesus emerged over the years of the struggle, the liberation, the quest for spirituality and the theology of reconstruction. This discourse has taken place within the framework of the two broad historical movements of a “high” and a “low” Christology. In a recent thought provoking and informative article Mouton & Smit investigated four of the dominant discourses on Jesus in contemporary South Africa.1 They surveyed the discussions of Jesus in the popular news and newspaper debates, academic circles and scholarship, the worship and spirituality of congregations and believers, and public opinion about social and political life. After reviewing a huge corpus of South African literature on concepts of Jesus they ask the question whether Jesus was lost in translation in the South Africa of recent times. This article is an attempt to take the argument further. First of all, the investigation will provide another outline of the Christologies in the recent South African discourse within the broad framework of a “high” and a “low” Christology. The concepts under consideration are the spiritual Jesus, the political Jesus and the historical Jesus. Then a case will be made for the transforming Jesus of the Kingdom of God as a corrective on the Christologies of Apartheid, the liberation struggle and the modern-day post-modern projections of the historical Jesus.

scholarly journals The development of critical and cultural literacies in a study of Mariama Ba's So Long a Letter in the South African literature classroom

Literator ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 179-196
Author(s):  
R.H. Latha
Keyword(s):  
Critical Pedagogy ◽  
South African ◽  
African Literature ◽  
Woman Writer ◽  
The South ◽  
Mariama Ba ◽  
Literature Classroom ◽  
South African Literature ◽  
Curriculum 2005 ◽  
So Long A Letter

The Languages, Literacy and Communication learning area of Curriculum 2005 endorses “intercultural understanding, access to different world views and a critical understanding of the concept of culture” (National Department of Education, 2001:44). Although this curriculum is learner-centred and tries to create a better balance in the previously asymmetrical relationship between teacher and student, it does place great demands on the educator to avoid reinforcing cultural and multipolitical ideals which are not concomitant with the principles of a multicultural democracy. Since learners are expected to respond to the aesthetic, affective, cultural and social values in texts, the educator has to act responsibly in choosing texts which promote the values inherent in Curriculum 2005. Implicit in the curriculum statement is a commitment to critical pedagogy in the literature classroom with the general aim of promoting societal transformation. As the cultural assumptions underlying particular texts are often not known or shared by all learners, it is important for the educator to facilitate an examination of these assumptions in order to promote cultural understanding and values such as religious tolerance. This article will therefore investigate the development of cultural and critical literacies in the South African literature classroom with particular focus on So Long a Letter by the postcolonial African Muslim woman writer, Mariama Ba.

A New Keynesian Phillips Curve for South Africa

2013 ◽  
pp. 30-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rulof Burger ◽  
Stan du Plessis
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Open Economy ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Phillips Curve ◽  
African Literature ◽  
New Keynesian ◽  
New Keynesian Phillips Curve ◽  
The South ◽  
South African Literature

In South Africa, as elsewhere, economists have not reached an agreed upon model for the Phillips curve, despite its importance for understanding the process of inflation and its relevance for policy makers. It has been a particular challenge to identify the role of aggregate economic activity in the inflationary process in the South African literature, since the breakdown of a reasonably traditional Phillips curve, which had existed until the early seventies. A comparatively new model of the Phillips curve, often called the New Keynesian Phillips Curve (NKPC), has recently received considerable interest and support from monetary economists. The South African literature is exceptional in that these models have not yet been applied locally, despite their close association with forward looking and rules-based monetary policy regimes such as the inflation-targeting regime of the South African Reserve Bank. This chapter takes a first step towards introducing the NKPC in the South African debate, by estimating standard, hybrid, and open economy versions of the model and comparing the results with the international literature as well as South African precedents. The authors find encouraging, though tentative, evidence that research along these lines might help to identify the impact of aggregate economic activity in the domestic process of inflation.

South African Historiography and the Cape Archives

Itinerario ◽  
1984 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-30
Author(s):  
Robert Ross
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Social History ◽  
Driving Force ◽  
African Literature ◽  
The South ◽  
South African Literature ◽  
Attention To Detail

In the last decade and a half, the historiography - though not the society - of South Africa has been transformed. In 1970, there was not the same vitality that then characterised much of the historical work north of the Zambesi. In 1984, Southern African historical studies are by far the most lively anywhere in the continent. Indeed, even if with their typical parochialism those who survey modern trends in historiography have not noticed it, many facets of the so-called “new” social history are peculiarly well represented in the South African literature. The spectacularly fast urbanisation of South Africa since the mineral revolution at the end of the last century and the concomittant intensification of capitalist agriculture have naturally provided subjects enough, and they have been worked out with an exemplary attention to detail and texture. Perhaps the driving force behind this work has been a concentration on the ways in which Africans, both in town and in the countryside, were able to make and remake their worlds, in conflict with and in the interstices provided by the racist white society and government.

scholarly journals 21st Century South African Science Fiction

2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-105
Author(s):  
LUIZA CARAIVAN
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
South African ◽  
21St Century ◽  
African Literature ◽  
South African Literature ◽  
Fiction Writer ◽  
The Way

Abstract The paper analyses some aspects of South African science fiction, starting with its beginnings in the 1920s and focusing on some 21st century writings. Thus Lauren Beukes’ novels Moxyland (2008) and Zoo City (2010) are taken into consideration in order to present new trends in South African literature and the way science fiction has been marked by Apartheid. The second South African science fiction writer whose writings are examined is Henrietta Rose-Innes (with her novel Nineveh, published in 2011) as this consolidates women's presence in the SF world.

scholarly journals An investigation of the management and maintenance of an online subject directory with particular reference to the South African Literature Online resource

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Pamela Portia Thembeka Rakoma
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
African Literature ◽  
The South ◽  
Online Resource ◽  
South African Literature ◽  
Subject Directory

The aim of the study was to investigate management and maintenance procedures that were used by other sites and how these could be used as a basis for formulating management and maintenance procedures for the SALO subject directory.

scholarly journals The resurrection of South African literature in Dutch? Some remarks on canonisation of minority literatures

Literator ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Olf Praamstra ◽  
Eep Francken
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Literary History ◽  
African Literature ◽  
Colonial Literature ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
East Indies ◽  
Peripheral Area ◽  
South African Literature ◽  
History Of ◽  
Minority Literatures

To gain entry into literary history and into the canon of literature may be quite difficult for a writer in general; for an author from a cultural periphery it is nearly impossible. For him there is only one road to canonisation: by way of a separate literary history of his peripheral area. Dutch (post)colonial literature is a case in point. Writers from the former Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), the Dutch Antilles and Surinam have been saved from oblivion because histories of their regional literatures have been published. In contrast, South African literature in Dutch (not to be confused with Afrikaans literature) in the course of the twentieth century dropped out of the picture. Although, strictly speaking, there is a need for more preliminary studies, a concise history of this specific body of literature is highly desirable as well.

scholarly journals Land, Livelihoods, and the Decline of Work: South African Lessons for Current Debates

2012 ◽  
pp. 90-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Scully
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Labor Movement ◽  
African Literature ◽  
The South ◽  
South African Literature ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Labor Literature ◽  
The Way

This article presents a comparison of central debates in South African labor sociology in the1970s and the contemporary era. I argue that scholars can break through impasses in currentlabor sociology debates by reviving attention to the land-labor-livelihood (LLL) connections thatinspired theoretical advancements in the South African literature of the 1970s. After anintroduction and definition of LLL connections, the paper analyzes an exemplary work of thelabor literature of the 1970s, giving special attention to the way in which the LLL focus shapedthe questions asked by the authors. The article proceeds to a review of central debates from thecurrent labor literature, which focuses primarily on issues of the labor movement. It is arguedthat this focus on movements has limited the scope of labor scholarship, resulting in an impassein South African labor debates. An emerging literature that renews attention to the LLLconnections is proposed as a model for moving beyond this impasse. I close the article bydiscussing the implications for this review of South African literature for global laborscholarship.

Rebuilding the Nation: On Architecture and the Aesthetics of Constitutionalism in South African Literature

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-91
Author(s):  
Elizabeth S. Anker
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
African Literature ◽  
The South ◽  
Success Story ◽  
South African Literature ◽  
Economic Reality ◽  
South African Constitution ◽  
Constitutional Jurisprudence

AbstractThe South African Constitution is widely regarded as one of the world’s most progressive, and this essays looks to a series of novels concerned with the nation’s transition beyond apartheid in order to examine the challenges of transformative constitutionalism. Through readings of Nadine Gordimer’sNone to Accompany Me, Zakes Mda’sWays of Dying, and Ivan Vladislavic’sThe Folly,1it explores the prevalence of the language and imagery of architecture in describing national rebuilding and South African constitutional jurisprudence alike. The essay ultimately argues, however, that the architectural metaphor casts post-apartheid recovery as a success story that belies political and economic reality.

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