UP Journals (Univ. of Pretoria)
Not a member yet
4792 research outputs found
Sort by
Whose city? (De)colonising the bodies of speculative fiction in Lauren Beukes’s Zoo City: Decolonising Speculative Fiction
No full textThis article explores the (de)colonisation of the body and body boundaries in contemporary South African speculative fiction, paying particular attention to award-wining author, Lauren Beukes’s, second novel, Zoo City (2010). I will apply Lara Cox’s (2018:317) argument that ‘Haraway’s cyborg resembles the liminal view of identity presented by queer theory, which seeks to blur strict divisions between sexual and gender categories, dissolving binary oppositions such as woman/man and heterosexual/homosexual’, to my reading of Zoo City. By centring the novel around Zinzi December, a resident of ‘Zoo City’ (the marginalised underbelly of Johannesburg), and situating the novel in the cradle of humankind, Beukes reacts against South Africa’s colonial history and its colonisation of the body by blurring the animal-human boundary and challenging the colonial construct of body binaries. The novel can be read as a decolonial feminist text as it re-writes South Africa’s apartheid history and critiques its division, separation and bodily segregation. Furthermore, I explore how fictional bodies are imagined and constructed in the text; I ask what kinds of boundary-breaking bodies predominate; and consider their thematic, narrative, and political significance in the post-apartheid imaginary in relation to speculative fiction. I examine how new boundaries (particularly between ‘normative’ society and ‘Zoo City’) are formulated. Zoo City pulls into focus Kristeva’s (1982) notion of the abject body as a central to its concerns, while also bringing attention to Foucault’s (1992) notion of the ‘disciplined’ body. It foregrounds questions about the formulation and destabilisation of identity, with a particular focus on the construction of female identity. This article builds on the critical literature on the dystopian post-apartheid state by examining Zoo City’s depictions of marginalised people and its construction of the body and body boundaries, as well as by extending the examination of representations of the body in speculative fiction
A framework for creating and analysing wordless picturebooks: Stories Worth Telling - crafting stories through the art of design
No full textWordless picturebooks are texts that convey a narrative through a series of images with little or no written information and have gained popularity among academics, readers, and illustrators. These books have evolved from purely educational tools to complex and experimental works, attracting prominent artists and addressing challenging themes. Described as “crossover”, wordless picturebooks frequently defy traditional age, addressing and attracting readers of all ages.
While research on wordless picturebooks is growing, literature generally focuses on wordless picturebooks as educational tools for a younger readership and the aesthetic qualities of the finished picturebook – rarely examining the complex process of creating a wordless, visual narrative. In this article we reflect on the creation of a wordless crossover picturebook to gain insight into this process from Maria van Os’s perspective as a practising illustrator and illustration lecturer. The practice-based approach sheds light on the wordless crossover picturebook as an artefact and the process under taken by an author-illustrator when creating a wordless narrative. A framework for creating wordless narratives was conceptualised by distilling the findings from the practice and framing them within narrative theory. The framework is intended to aid students, lecturers, and practitioners in creating and analysing wordless picturebooks
Subverting the gaze: the voyeuristic, fetishised spectacle of Karl Lagerfeld’s Pirelli Calendar (2011)
Get PDFThe highly prized and rarefied Pirelli Calendar 2011 was released in Moscow in December 2010. Simply titled Mythology, it was conceptualised, developed and photographed by internationally renowned fashion designer and artiste Karl Lagerfeld. It comprises 36 black and white photographs of models and one actress (Julianne Moore) representing mythical characters (including gods, demigods, heroes and muses) from the ancient Graeco-Roman world. Among these, figures such as Apollo, Achilles, Echo and even Zeus are to be found. In this article I elucidate how Karl Lagerfeld has sexually objectified these numinous deities, epic heroes and heroines and thrust them into the domain of highbrow erotica. Furthermore, I aim to analyse the re-representation and re-articulation of these characters both in terms of gender and sex. Described by Lagerfeld as his ‘visual version of Homer’ (Malpas 2010), I will critique his photographs through the use of Laura Mulvey’s (1975/2000) seminal concept of the ‘male gaze’. The argument will also claim that through his camera lens, Lagerfeld has interrogated the status quo of masculinity and femininity. In doing so, he has challenged heteronormative ideologies and instead presented a Calendar of many gazes: heterosexual; bisexual; homosexual; masculine; and feminine: intimating that sex is always a contested norm and a continuous negotiation
Being-in-the-world and Being-with-others:: Heideggerian ontology in Michael Haneke’s Vergletscherung-trilogie
Get PDFIn this paper I explore certain existential elements found in the work of Austrian director Michael Haneke by coupling Haneke’s first three films, his Vergletscherungtrilogie (comprising Der Siebente Kontinent, Benny’ Video and 71 Fragmente einer Chronologie des Zufalls), with the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, focussing specifically on his delineation of Dasein (Being). This analysis is configured around two elements of Heidegger’s philosophy of Being – Being as Being-inthe- world, and Being as Being-with-others. These delineations of Being are further analysed on three fronts. The first examines the role of the postmodern milieu in which Haneke’s work is situated, a world of hyper-technology and rampant consumerism. The second and third fronts of analysis elucidate two delineations of space (Being-in-the-world), and people (Being-with-others). The discussion thus centres on the way in which Heidegger’s ontology of Being is found in Haneke’s sketching of the public space and of greater society. The paper concludes with an analysis of Haneke’s treatment of the private space and the family unit.
Mandela Poster Project Collective: Mandela: Icon lost and regained
Get PDFThe Mandela Poster Project Collective, in partnership with the University of Pretoria, presented an international exhibition of 95 posters celebrating the life of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela between 17 and 26 July 2013. The exhibition was the first public display of the poster collection, which at the time of writing is also going to travel to various venues in Johannesburg and Cape Town. The exhibition is also going to travel internationally, including to Brazil, Canada, Egypt, Japan, Mexico, the UK, and the USA.
Editorial
Get PDFThe articles presented in this special edition of Image & Text may be likened to a fugue of contrapuntal voices1 expressed in textual modes and threaded around Jacques D errida’s (2009 [1978]) theoretical maxim of “pointure”. The notion of “pointure” arises from Derrida’s essay, “Restitutions de la verite en pointure” (“Restitutions of the truth in pointing”) in which he explores the discursive theme of the “inside” and “outside” of a text.
Editorial
Get PDFThe previous bumper issue of Image & Text was dedicated to thematic concerns regarding ‘pointure’ in visual culture. Number 24 is again an open issue that features current research from researchers in Gauteng and the Western Cape. In keeping with the wider ambit of the journal, the five articles reflect a diversity of current topics in various fields related to visual culture.
Ironies, Others, and Afrikaners: an analysis of selected print advertisements from DEKAT and Insig (1994-2009)
Get PDFThe widespread contention is that the major social and political changes propelled by South Africa’s democratisation have sensitised some white Afrikaners to perceptions of loss and marginalisation. Their feelings of anomie and dislocation have been compounded by competing discourses of Afro-nationalism, which have delegitimised Afrikaner whiteness because of its inextricable links with apartheid. As a result, reactionary discourses have emerged to temper the threat of stigmatisation, and hinge on aspirations towards hybridisation and modernisation in the process of constructing “rehabilitated” Afrikaner identities. This article focuses on the manner in which particular discursive strategies, such as irony, are conducive to these processes of identity-work and manifest in a number of print advertisements that seem to appeal to the sensibilities of liberal, white, Afrikaans, upwardly mobile consumers. The advertisements have been obtained from two elite Afrikaans lifestyle magazines, DEKAT and Insig (Insight), for a period of 15 years following the collapse of the apartheid regime. The analyses of these images speculate on the extent to which they propagate a particular vision of Afrikaner whiteness, which is reconcilable with the post-apartheid landscape and an ethos of multiculturalism. This exploration, however, also critiques these emphases on non-racialism and the depoliticisation of ethnic markers such as Afrikaans as guarantees for the continued mobilisation of white Afrikaner capital (in economic and symbolic guises).
Reconfiguring the contagion: A Girardian reading of the zombie apocalypse as a plea for a politics of weakness
Get PDFThis paper explores the mimetic patterns found in a selection of zombie films with reference to the philosophy of René Girard. To begin with, it argues that the zombie apocalypse, rather than only representing a future upheaval of society is also apocalyptical in the literary and theological sense; this it to say that it represents present social conditions by taking a very particular stance on the trajectory of human history. This article describes how the zombie contagion can be read as a symbol of what Girard calls ‘mimetic desire’. Thereafter, it deals with the way in which this contagion of desire, through the hegemony of mimetic undifferentiation, results in the escalation of reciprocal violence in a global society. Finally, it highlights specific plot points in recent zombie cinema that suggest the possibility of curing this reciprocal violence in such a way as to imply the necessity of a politics of weakness.
‘Primarily, I want to be an instrument of change’: Nana Mahomo’s Contribution to the Anti-Apartheid Struggle
Get PDFAs democratic South Africa continues to reflect on its apartheid past, the number of political biographies about individuals who shaped this historical period is growing, especially about those who fought against apartheid. Much of this work is focused on men and women whose contributions can be linked to a particular resistance movement and whose legacies are free from significant controversy. Yet, there are many anti-apartheid activists whose narratives fit awkwardly into democratic South Africa’s new-nationalist history or the official histories of specific liberation movements. One individual who falls into the latter category is Nana Mahomo. Up to now, Mahomo’s contribution to the anti-apartheid struggle in the historiography has been tangential and fragmented. This article constructs a comprehensive overview of Mahomo’s anti-apartheid work and explores how exile shaped the development of his political activism. His story illustrates how access to support networks defined the political trajectories of individuals in exile and how such trajectories interacted with peoples’ own political convictions. This was especially true for activists like Mahomo, much of whose anti-apartheid work was not tied to a South African liberation movement. Finally, the controversial nature of some of Mahomo’s anti-apartheid work strengthens our historiographical understanding of the struggle against apartheid by moving beyond a two-dimensional narrative of heroes versus sellouts