Apartheid and Beyond
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$85.00 (06)Description
Apartheid and Beyond is a major contribution to the study of South African literary culture. It offers elegant readings of Coetzee, Gordimer, Fugard, Tlali, Dike, Magona, and Mda, focusing on the intimate relationship between place, subjectivity, and literary form revealed in their work. It also explores the way apartheid functioned in its day-to-day operations as a geographical system of control, exerting its power through such spatial mechanisms as residential segregation, bantustans, passes, and prisons. Though in the first instance concerned with literary texts, Apartheid and Beyond also meditates on crucial historical processes like colonial occupation, the creation of black townships, migration, forced removals, the emergence of informal settlements, the gradual integration of white cities, and efforts at land reform. Cumulatively, the six essays in this book tell the story of the transformation of apartheid's landscapes of oppression into the more ambiguous landscapes of contemporary South Africa: landscapes of tourism and leisure, of crime and privatized security, of uncontrolled urbanization and persistent poverty. Barnard's methodologically eclectic writing draws on the work of major European and U.S. theorists like Foucault, De Certeau, and Jameson, as well as important African intellectuals like Mbembe, Ramphele, and Ndebele. It also takes literary figures seriously as theorists of space in their own right. Apartheid and Beyond is both an innovative account of an important body of politically-inflected literature and an imaginative reflection on the socio-spatial aspects of the transition from apartheid to democracy.Reviews
"Apartheid and Beyond stands as the most ambitious, authoritative, and theoretically astute study of South African literature to date. Barnard's wonderfully interdisciplinary approach makes this book essential reading for anyone in the humanities and social sciences interested in the politics and theory of space."-- Rob Nixon, Rachel Carson Professor of English, University of Wisconsin-Madison
"In this wide-ranging study of South African literature, Barnard focuses on the importance of place as an issue of real concern to all those living in, or writing about, the country. The choice of this governing term is one of those brilliant clarificatory moves that seem obvious once someone has made them. Apartheid was, after all, a doctrine of place, and questions of place were, and still are, central to South African culture and politics. This is an elegant and engaging survey by an outstanding and original critic." -- Derek Attridge, Leverhulme Research Professor and Professor of English, The University of York
Apartheid and Beyond provides a fruitful way of reading both literature and the material situations in which different members of our society find themselves. Combine that with the notion of imaginary (or "imagined," in a positive sense) geographies, and we have a good set of analytic tools for asking questions about ourselves and our societies; about who and how we are."--Mail and Guardian
"A timely and compelling study."--Sarah Phillips Casteel, Contemporary Literature
"Apartheid and Beyond creates its own innovative critical space, combining exploratory close readings of salient passages with radically interdisciplinary conceptualizations. Bernard has both drawn on and drawn out the traditions of canonical literary history and interpretation in order to delineate the exemplary "politics of place," so unflaggingly elaborated by these "South African writers" then and there, for here and now."-^Modern Fiction Studies"
"Full of rewarding, incisive writing that draws the reader into a uniquely South African spatiality, Apartheid and Beyond offers an historically grounded interpretation of South African space that helps on understand complex, shifting ways in which it is currently being re-imagined, politicized, and inhabited."-Safundi
Apartheid and Beyond provides a fruitful way of reading both literature and the material situations in which different members of our society find themselves. Combine that with the notion of imaginary (or "imagined," in a positive sense) geographies, and we have a good set of analytic tools for asking questions about ourselves and our societies; about who and how we are."--Mail and Guardian
"Apartheid and Beyond is a bold statement on the character and fate of South African literature after the collapse of the culture of racial segregation and one of the best meditations on the role of space in the shaping of the imagination. Rita Barnard's extensive background and her linguistic and literary skills have enabled her to negotiate the intellectual minefield that has come to inform and haunt South African literary history after the fall of apartheid with care and sensitivity. The book represents the best combination of literary theory and literary history and of the interplay of texts and landscapes."-- Simon Gikandi, Professor of English, Princeton University
"Written with affection and rigour, Apartheid and Beyond is the most trenchant account of place in South African literature since J.M. Coetzee's White Writing ."-- David Attwell, author of Rewriting Modernity: Studies in Black South African Literary History
"Apartheid and Beyond stands as the most ambitious, authoritative, and theoretically astute study of South African literature to date. Barnard's wonderfully interdisciplinary approach makes this book essential reading for anyone in the humanities and social sciences interested in the politics and theory of space."-- Rob Nixon, Rachel Carson Professor of English, University of Wisconsin-Madison
"In this wide-ranging study of South African literature, Barnard focuses on the importance of place as an issue of real concern to all those living in, or writing about, the country. The choice of this governing term is one of those brilliant clarificatory moves that seem obvious once someone has made them. Apartheid was, after all, a doctrine of place, and questions of place were, and still are, central to South African culture and politics. This is an elegant and engaging survey by an outstanding and original critic." -- Derek Attridge, Leverhulme Research Professor and Professor of English, The University of York
"A timely and compelling study."--Sarah Phillips Casteel, Contemporary Literature
"Apartheid and Beyond is a bold statement on the character and fate of South African literature after the collapse of the culture of racial segregation and one of the best meditations on the role of space in the shaping of the imagination. Rita Barnard's extensive background and her linguistic and literary skills have enabled her to negotiate the intellectual minefield that has come to inform and haunt South African literary history after the fall of apartheid with care and sensitivity. The book represents the best combination of literary theory and literary history and of the interplay of texts and landscapes."-- Simon Gikandi, Professor of English, Princeton University
"Written with affection and rigour, Apartheid and Beyond is the most trenchant account of place in South African literature since J.M. Coetzee's White Writing ."-- David Attwell, author of Rewriting Modernity: Studies in Black South African Literary History
About the Author(s)
Rita Barnard is Professor of English and Director of the Women's Studies Program and the Alice Paul Center for Research on Women and Gender at the University of Pennsylvania.
