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HU Credits:
2
Degree/Cycle:
2nd degree (Master)
Responsible Department:
English
Semester:
2nd Semester
Teaching Languages:
English
Campus:
Mt. Scopus
Course/Module Coordinator:
Professor Louise Bethlehem
Coordinator Office Hours:
Monday 11:00 - 12:00 or by appointment
Teaching Staff:
Prof Louise Bethlehem
Course/Module description:
In 1994 Nelson Mandela was elected as the first democratic president of South Africa. This course explores literature written in South African following the negotiated transition to democracy there. Among other things, it investigates the long reach of the apartheid past over the postapartheid present, while attempting to specify how the "New South Africa" differs from its racist predecessor.
Together, we will study novels by three authors, J.M. Coetzee, Zoe Wicomb and K.Sello Duiker, whose works afford crucial insight into the early phases of South Africa's transition to democracy.
Through this analysis, a range of questions concerning the formal devices of postapartheid literature will also emerge into view.
The emphasis of our reading together falls mainly on prose, but we will also consider selected works of poetry. We will at times refer to cinematic renderings of selected literary texts or to works of documentary film, including Steve Jacobs’s production of J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace (2008) and other works.
Course/Module aims:
To define characteristics of postapartheid literature across formative themes of the new democratic state: Body, Witness, Urban Space.
As your instructor, I aim to help you understand the social and historical framing of these texts so that this knowledge will empower your literary analysis of this corpus.
Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
By the end of the course, I expect you to be able to identify salient continuities and discontinuities between apartheid-era and postapartheid texts.
I will assist you with the skills needed to offer historically informed close textual readings of such texts.
I will expect you to be able to point to major historical events shaping literature after the transition to democracy in South Africa.
Attendance requirements(%):
100
Teaching arrangement and method of instruction:
Lesson and Seminar
Course/Module Content:
A complete list of weekly readings is available on the Moodle site.
Required Reading:
PRIMARY TEXTS
Coetzee, J.M. 1998. _Disgrace_. (Harmondsworth: Penguin
Duiker, K. Sello. 2013 (2000). _Thirteen Cents._ (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press).
Wicomb, Zoë. 2001. _David’s Story_. (New York: The Feminist Press).
SELECTED SHORT WORKS ON MOODLE
Additional Reading Material:
Students writing a seminar paper in this course will be requested to read ONE additional novel independently selected from the list below in consultation with Professor Bethlehem.
Mark Behr 1995 [1993] The Smell of Apples (New York: St. Martins).
Damon Galgut 2021 The Promise (Cape Town: Penguin Random House South Africa).
Nadine Gordimer 2012 No Time Like the Present (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux).
Zakes Mda 2002 [1995] Ways of Dying (New York: Picador).
Zoë Wicomb 2014 October (New York: The New Press).
Optional Further Reading
Barnard, Rita. 2007. Apartheid and Beyond: South African Writers and the Politics of Place. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2007.
Bystrom, Kerry. 2016. Democracy at Home in South Africa: Family Fictions and Transitional Culture.
Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.
Chapman, Michael. 2009. “Introduction: Conjectures on South African Literature.” Current Writing: Text
and Reception in Southern Africa 21 (1–2) (2009): 1–23.
Munro, Brenna M. 2012. South Africa and the Dream of Love to Come: Queer Sexuality and the Struggle
for Freedom. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.
Nuttall, Sarah. Entanglement: Literary and Cultural Reflections on Post-Apartheid.
Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2009.
Samuelson, Meg. Remembering the Nation, Dismembering Women? Stories of the South African
Transition. Pietermaritzburg, South Africa: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2007.
Course/Module evaluation:
End of year written/oral examination 0 %
Presentation 0 %
Participation in Tutorials 10 %
Project work 50 %
Assignments 20 %
Reports 0 %
Research project 0 %
Quizzes 0 %
Other 20 %
Forums and Persusall Bibliography
Additional information:
1.General: Regular weekly attendance and participation in class discussions are obligatory.
2.Students are required to cover selected readings in the theoretical bibliography in accordance with the weekly schedule of readings.
3.Students are expected to show close familiarity with the primary and theoretical texts under discussion.
Breakdown of grades:
Class Participation: Attendance and active participation in all lectures is compulsory (10 %). Points will be deducted for more than two unexplained absences.
Forums: Complete two out of three Perusall exercises and two out of four forums (4 x 5 &eq; 20%)
Annotated bibliography assignment (details will be posted on Moodle site) &eq; 20%
Final paper &eq; 50%
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