UP Journals (Univ. of Pretoria)
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Dirty alien shadow-selves: Delving into the dirt in District 9
Get PDFBeginning with a discussion of the concept of dirt, including synthetic dirt, as contextualised by film critic Peter Brook, I raise pertinent ideas from the work of Nicolas Bourriaud about contemporary visual art. I then move on to an analysis of the representation of literal and synthetic dirt within the science fiction film District 9, directed by Neill Blomkamp (2009). Using Istvan Csicsery-Ronay’s work on the implications of the significance of the encounter with the alien as the ultimate contact zone between self and other, I concentrate on the physical, emotional and aesthetic effects achieved as the central protagonist of District 9 moves from a human to an alien embodiment. I chart the progress of the body-horror and ethical development entailed in this change of state, making reference to ideas first developed by anthropologist Mary Douglas. The viewer’s responses are shown to be complex and muddy, composed of warring impulses of revulsion and admiration. As the central character, Wikus, becomes an alien his body becomes a rich symbolic ground. His increasingly leaky, abject body reflects ideas which can be interpreted universally, but more specifically within the South African context reveal anxieties about the cohesion of a minority group. I conclude by analysing the end of the film, which is moving, future-directed and insistent on the significance of art in society
Billy Monk: Love in a loveless time
Get PDFThe story of Billy Monk is in parts inspiring, tragic, chastening, and challenging. Achieving posthumous fame and international provenance, Monk’s photographs reveal a striking lacuna in the image repertoir of South African photography. All too human, Monk’s life is the stuff of legend. However, it is Monk’s photographic eye which is the primary focus of this first sustained critical study of the artist’s oeuvre. My thesis is that Monk’s work embodies a prosaic tenderness and honesty that is rare in a society - overdetermined by the legacies of colonialism and apartheid - in which human life has largely been re-presented through a pathological and spectacularised optic. His work captures love in a time of lovelessness.
Dirty cuts: Violence, trauma and narrative in a post-apartheid South African film
Get PDFThis paper considers narrative disruption in Teboho Mahlatsi’s 1999 film, Portrait of a Young Man Drowning, particularly as it relates to memory, trauma and violence. The disruption that marks this eleven-minute film indicates a violent and impoverished past intruding into the present, in terms of both the broader political context of apartheid South Africa and the more recent social instability caused by crime. The film communicates an underlying trauma through the disruption; the narrative intrusions can be read as symptomatic, but they are weighted down with memory. Postapartheid South African film has been haunted by the past, particularly through the compulsion to rehearse reconciliation, even if not explicitly political, through film narratives. While the trend in recent South African fiction film has been towards seamlessness in editing and the contained structure of the three act narrative, Mahlatsi’s film begins to address concerns which mainstream narratives find difficult to articulate. The underlying violence of the film is communicated textually, through its almost aggressive editing. Discontinuous editing becomes a way of representing interior experience. Narrative disruption creates a disturbed text and this is symptomatic of subterranean social trauma caused by a troubled past and violent present.
A voice of her own: speaking her narrative through pointure-practices
Get PDFJacques Derrida’s (2009 [1978]:301-315) metaphor of “pointure” forms a leitmotif in the final narrative series of the Dis-Location/Re-Location exhibition (2007-2008), titled A Room of Her Own (2006-2007). The metaphor of “pointure” itself is doublybound: although pointure-practices may be aligned with actions that connote mastery such as “penetrating”, “piercing”, “pricking”, “puncturing” or “rupturing” a surface, their consequences also “point to” restitution: a conjoining of otherwise discreet elements through stitching, lace-making, binding, braiding and weaving type practices historically associated with femininity and domesticity.
In A Room of Her Own, conceptions of what I propose to be three pointure-type practices – the Victorian construct of needlework, the historically gendered nineteenth-century psychosomatic disorder of hysteria and the contemporary practice of self-mutilation through cutting – as signifiers of passive, self-negating “femininity” are subverted through redefinition as forms of agency. With reference to the ways in which these pointure-practices are played out in A Room of Her Own, and by aligning these practices with Julia Kristeva’s (1995) concept of ‘transgressive writing’, I suggest that they can be read as empowering forms of preverbal, bodilydriven self-expression; a means of “giving voice” to unspoken traumas and speaking in the face of being silenced by nineteenth-century gendered discourses
German Cinema – terror and trauma: cultural memory since 1945
Get PDFThe renowned and prolific Thomas Elsaesser has published extensively on film history and theory, from studies of German cinema (silent German cinema, New German Cinema, the cinema of the Weimar republic, German auteurs) to the operation of postmodernism as mourning work.
\u27Make a plan’ – Design Policy Conference
No full textIn October 2011, following a successful bid, the city of Cape Town was designated as the World Design Capital (WDC) for 2014. This designation is awarded biennially by the International Council for Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID). The WDC initiative began as an attempt to motivate cities to consider design as a strategic development tool.
Reforming Youthful Offenders: The Case of Diepkloof Reformatory School, 1935-1948
Get PDFThis article explores Alan Paton’s efforts towards turning a prison into a school, the task which he was given by the Union Education Department following numerous debates in parliament in 1934. The aim was to transfer all reformatory institutions for juveniles run by the Department of Prisons, to the Union Education Department. Equally important, this article focuses on Paton’s journey and experiences as the principal of Diepkloof Reformatory School from 1935 to 1948. The focus is on African juvenile offenders since Diepkloof Reformatory was the only reformatory for African boys in the Union and the continent of Africa until the 1960s. The account delves into the day-to-day lives of pupils who were sent to the Reformatory School by the Children’s Courts. Paton, driven by a vision of rehabilitation over punishment, introduced reforms emphasising education, skills training, and self-discipline. The article explores the day-to-day lives of the youth incarcerated at Diepkloof Reformatory, an angle that has received limited attention from historians and reformists. It also extends beyond the reformatory, addressing the release conditions, home suitability, and the struggles some boys experienced in reintegrating into society. Paton\u27s vision to make Diepkloof a place of justice and opportunity faced setbacks, yet his influence left a lasting impact on others who found success after rehabilitation. The article studies primary sources and correspondence to provide an understanding of the rehabilitation efforts Paton made to turn this prison into a school and the recommendations made by the Board of Management towards smooth administration to ensure an effective rehabilitation process for the boys
Geography\u27s ability to interpret topographic maps and orthophotographs, adoption prediction, and learning activities to promote responsible usage in classrooms[1]
No full textLearners find it challenging to interpret topographic maps and orthophotographs. Although the chatbot Geography might be useful for this purpose, no research is available regarding its abilities and limitations. Thus, the aim of this multi-phase mixed methods research was threefold, namely (a) to explore Geography\u27s topographic map and orthophotograph interpretation skills, (b) to determine the factors which can drive its adoption, and (c) suggest learning activities to promote responsible usage in geography classrooms. During the first phase, an explorative case revealed that Geography can be useful in interpreting topographic maps and orthophotographs but can also fabricate facts. During the second phase, the high adoption prediction score (six out of nine) indicated a need for responsible usage. Thus, learning activities were designed during the last phase to promote responsible use in geography classrooms.
1The title of this chatbot may cause confusion; thus, I have italicized to clearly distinguish between the chatbot, Geography, and the subject field, geography. Description provided in the paper
Respecting patient autonomy: Unfortunate verdict but sound precedent: Evans v United Kingdom app no 6339/05, (European Court of Human Rights, 10 April 2007)
Get PDFEvans v United Kingdom saw the foundational medico-legal doctrine of informed consent come into conflict with women’s reproductive rights in the context of in-vitro fertilisation. In this matter, the appellant, Evans, appealed the Court of Appeal’s decision to sustain her erstwhile partner’s (Johnston) right to withdraw his consent to implant embryos they had fertilised together. These embryos were Evans’s last opportunity to have genetically related children. Evans submitted that the municipal courts had not adequately considered her position as a woman, and the judgment violated her article 8 and 14 rights under the European Convention of Human Rights. This case note analyses the majority and minority judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). It finds that Evans’s and Johnston’s competing interests had to be weighed against each other, since the matter fell within the margin of appreciation awarded to the Grand Chamber of the ECHR. Evans’s rights under articles 8 and 14 were both due consideration, and it was appropriate to attribute significance to her interests as a woman. However, her rights had to be weighed against Johnston’s under article 8 and the importance of reinforcing the doctrine of informed consent. It is concluded that Evans’s interests could not legally outweigh the dangerous precedent that would have been set by finding in her favour. Therefore, although the verdict was unfortunate for Evans, it was correct for the Grand Chamber to rule in favour of the UK to set a sound precedent that protects patient autonomy in Europe
‘Greening History Teaching’:: Justifying the Inclusion of Socio-Environmental History in the South African Further Education and Training History Curriculum
No full textThis position paper argues for including socio-environmental history in the South African Further Education and Training (FET) history curriculum. It is premised on the fact that planet Earth is in the age of the Anthropocene, within which humans have had a dominant effect on the planet and have contributed fundamentally to climate change, which is noticeable through extreme weather events, such as erratic rainfall, floods, droughts, heatwaves and wildfires. These have led to extreme hazards, including destruction of infrastructures, large-scale migrations and loss of lives. Climate change aside, humanity is also facing problems of air and water pollution, deforestation, desertification, famine and diseases; in fact, we still have traumatic memories of the COVID-19 pandemic, which destroyed livelihoods and to date, has left more than seven million people dead worldwide. This paper is based on a desktop qualitative research method and draws from secondary and primary literature on socio-environmental history. Furthermore, it analyses the Curriculum Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS), focussing on the FET history curriculum. The study builds on the intersectionality and all-inclusive ecologies of knowledge approach to demonstrate that socio-environmental history intersects with other history topics already part of South Africa’s CAPS FET history curriculum. The paper argues that, through the infusion of socio-environmental history content into this curriculum, history teaching will contribute more meaningfully toward learners’ understanding of the socio-environmental challenges confronting humanity in South Africa and beyond. This will provoke learners to raise questions regarding the nexus between people and nature, and interrogate how this shapes the local, regional and global environments and the results thereof, in the process, inculcating positive attitudes and values about stewardship of planet Earth.