Selves in Question: Interviews on Southern African Auto/Biography Contributor(s): Coullie, Judith Lutge (Editor), Meyer, Stephan (Editor), Ngwenya, Thengani H. (Editor) |
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ISBN: 0824830040 ISBN-13: 9780824830045 Publisher: University of Hawaii Press OUR PRICE: $54.15 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: May 2006 Annotation: The Institute of Postcolonial Studies is an autonomous educational institution located in Melbourne, Australia. It has linkages to major universities and research bodies both in Australia and internationally. The Institute's book series Writing Past Colonialism aims to communicate the unique intellectual excitement and academic excellence that characterize the Institute to a broader global constituency. The leitmotiv of the series is the idea of difference--"differences between culture and politics, as well as differences in ways of seeing and the sources that can be drawn upon. In this sense, the series is postcolonial. Yet the space the Institute hopes to open up is one resistant to new orthodoxies, one that allows for alternative and contesting formulations.Though grounded in studies relating to the formerly colonized world, the series seeks to extend contemporary global analyses.Wide-ranging and engaging, Selves in Question considers the various ways in which auto/biographical accounts situate and question the self in contemporary southern Africa. |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Social Science | Anthropology - Cultural & Social - History | Africa - South - Republic Of South Africa |
Dewey: 920.009 |
LCCN: 2005028943 |
Series: Writing Past Colonialism (Hardcover) |
Physical Information: 1.51" H x 6.36" W x 9.02" (1.99 lbs) 496 pages |
Themes: - Cultural Region - Southern Africa |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: Wide-ranging and engaging, Selves in Question considers the various ways in which auto/biographical accounts situate and question the self in contemporary southern Africa.The twenty-seven interviews presented here consider both the ontological status and the representation of the self. They remind us that the self is constantly under construction in webs of interlocution and that its status and representation are always in question. The contributors, therefore, look at ways in which auto/biographical practices contribute to placing, understanding, and troubling the self and selves in postcolonies in the current global constellation. They examine topics such as the contexts conducive to production processes; the contents and forms of auto/biographical accounts; and finally, their impact on the producers and the audience. In doing so they map out a multitude of variables--including the specific historical juncture, geo-political locations, social positions, cultures, languages, generations, and genders--in their relations to auto/biographical practices. Those interviewed include the famous and the hardly known, women and men, writers and performers who communicate in a variety of languages: Afrikaans, English, Xhosa, isiZulu, Sesotho, and Yiddish. An extensive introduction offers a general framework on the contestation of self through auto/biography, a historical overview of auto/biographical representation in South Africa up to the present time, an outline of theoretical and thematic issues at stake in southern Africa auto/biography, and extensive primary and secondary biographies. Interviewees: Breyten Breytenbach, Dennis Brutus, Valentine Cascarino, Vanitha Chetty, Wilfred Cibane, Greig Coetzee, J. M. Coetzee, Paul Faber, David Goldblatt, Stephen Gray, Dorian Haarhoff, Rayda Jacobs, Elsa Joubert, K. Limakatso Kendall, Ester Lee, Doris Lessing, Sindiwe Magona, Margaret McCord, N. Chabani Manganyi, Zolani Mkiva, Jonathan Morgan, Es'kia Mphahlele, Rob Nixon, Mpho Nthunya, Robert Scott, Gillian Slovo, Alex J. Thembela, Pieter-Dirk Uys, Johan van Wyk, Wilhelm Verwoerd, David Wolpe, D. L. P.Yali Manisi. |