Gender and "History": 1980s South African Women's Stories in English (original) (raw)
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By submitting this thesis, I declare that the entirety of the work contained therein is my own, original work, that I am the sole author thereof (save to the extent explicitly otherwise stated), that reproduction and publication thereof by Stellenbosch University will not infringe any third party rights and that I have not previously in its entirety or in part submitted it for obtaining any qualification.
Journal of Literary Studies, 1993
This essay focuses on the history of short stories by South African women of all races in an attempt to elucidate existing concepts pertaining to race, class and gender. It transpires that the first phase of modern feminist criticism was directed at exposing patriarchal tendencies prevalent in language and literature, while the second phase assessed the meaning and value of writing by women. The writer postulates that a perspective is imperative that both recognises and articulates intrinsic differentiation. Simultaneously, there should be an awareness of existing interrelationships allowing for different identities, divergent politics and dissimilar struggles. "Woman", per se, cannot be regarded as a stable identity because of diversification related to politics, culture and customs. The writer maintains that differences within ourselves have to be understood first before we can come to grips with differences inherent in others. Differentiation of identity is discussed with reference to three instances namely precolonial narrative art manifesting in historical documents, journals, letters, diaries and other forms. White Afrikaans-speaking women were, due to British imperialism, alienated from white English women and regarded as being superior to black South African women. This status quo was maintained until the fifties when black women began making themselves heard. Several examples of writing are cited leading to the conclusion that identity cannot be dealt with perfunctorily as it possesses both negative and positive facets to be explored by future feminist writers.
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'A Clearing in the Bush': Teaching South African Women's Writing
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This essay takes its title from a short story by Zoe , so as to begin to locate and nd a way of expressing the experiences of reading, discussing and teaching a selection of South African women's writing to student groups in the UK. This paper looks speci cally at teaching South African women's writing on a 'Black and Asian women's writing'module, with some reference to other classes in which South African women's writing has been part of this study. In doing so, post-colonial and feminist critical practices are usefully integrated with the learning theories of phenomenography and experiential learning in order to better explore the developing learning experience. From where we are located, it has been important to nd our own voices with which to articulate our responses to these texts. Our own locus of experience, our 'clearing in the bush' is something we have grown gradually to recognize and identify. It is hoped that we have been learning to appreciate the writings available to us without translating them into the discourse of the colonial, nor lling them up with our own particular meanings and the interpretations of a white feminist criticism. The post-colonial imaginary, and the discourses available to us have meshed with our own experiences as students and teacher, learners and readers in the process.
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