History of the Black Press in South Africa 1836-1960

African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented September, 1984. Marked 'Additional Seminar paper

The Ghostly dance: Writing in a new South Africa, published by IDASA

African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented 1990?Since the subject of "Literary Criticism in South Africa" is a vast one, I am going to narrow the topic to the idea of research in South African literature and I do not aim to be comprehensive in any way. Looking back over the last 20 years I am saddened by what we have missed, the opportunities lost. I shall dwell on the past in the hopes that it will teach us something about the present and future. I shall deal with six aspects of what I regret

A short history of "The World" (and other Black South African newspapers)

African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented June, 1976This paper developed out of my interest in black literature. It soon became apparent that an understanding of early black written literature was dependent on a knowledge of the history of the black press. It also soon became apparent that the history of the black newspapers is a grossly neglected field: and it is furthermore a very complex one which I doubt I can do full justice to. My aim will be to give an outline idea of some of the problems and crucial events and to make familiar some of the names of the prominent block journalists of the past. (Thereafter, I shall briefly outline the implications for early black literature.

Black Literature in South Africa 1900-1950

African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented October, 1974. Not to be used without the Author's permissionThe magazine Drum began in March, 1951, and it has become deservedly famous since: partly for the ethos it created, partly for the writers that it fostered - writers such as Nat Nakasa, Can Themba, Casey Motsisi, Ezekiel Mphahlele et. al. But the image some critics create, and the image which seems to inhere in the popular mind (whatever that may be) is that black writing in South Africa up till 1951 consisted only of the odd and isolated literary event.... In this paper I have three main aims: 1. To show the continuous tradition of writing in English by blacks between 1900 and the 1950's (even this is artificially to exclude the large amount of vernacular writing during this period. It is an artificial exclusion but to include vernacular writing, I believe, could only strengthen the argument of this paper). To show the links, almost inseparable connections, between literature, journalism and politics - all three areas being aspects of the continuous "secondary resistance." Partly my aim here is to indicate that there are no sudden "peaks" or outcrops of literature, that the imaginative works arise naturally out of a continuous debate which has frequent simultaneous expression in other media. The "uniqueness" of literary works must therefore be seen in the light of the fact that their central issues are being discussed contemporaneously in other media. In other words these works are not so "unique", not peculiar phenomena or outcrops: literary productions between 1900 and 1950 are not so isolated. The history of black writing in the Nineteenth Century is largely outside the scope of this paper: Professor Albert S Gerard's book Four African Literatures (University of California Press, 1971) gives a detailed account of this period. Suffice it to say that black journalism began in Southern Africa in July, 1837, and was later to make famous the names of Tujo Soga and John Tengo Jabavu. So that by 1900 there was a fairly strong tradition of journalism. The years 1928 to 1930 saw the publication of three of the more well-known works of the period under consideration. These were Sol Plaatje's novel Mhudi, John Dube's Zulu novel Insila kg Shako (translated into English in 1951) and R.R.R. Dhlomo's An African Tragedy. The lives of the first two of these writers form a kind of model for the rest of the paper

‘A thing of unspeakable horror’ - The history of the loo in literature and life

African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented [1987?]. Paper marked 'Additional Seminar paper'The title of this book requires explanation. Some years ago I saw a Don Martin cartoon in Mad Magazine. It was of one of his crazed-looking, loony characters standing in a laboratory with a test-tube filled with smoking liquid in his hand. He says: *One drink of this and I shall turn into a thing of unspeakable horror*. He drinks ... and nothing happens. So he throws the failed experimental liquid into a nearby sink. Instantly it turns into ••• a loo! As we shall see the cartoon is manifestly slanderous. I must also own up to a personal interest in the subject. My father was a plumber; my grandfather was a plumber. I hail from a plumbing line. But I was the stupid one of the family - I became an academic. I have never quite managed to become part of the Brain Drain. Instead I must content myself with being, at least today, the Drain Brain. I am, however, no Specialist, and this book should not be taken as the last word on the subject. The writing of loo history is an ancient and honorable profession and I must thank some of the pioneers in the field whose work I have drawn upon

A plethora of Type IIA embeddings for d = 5 minimal supergravity

We construct multiple embeddings of all solutions of d = 5 minimal (un)gauged supergravity into massive Type IIA supergravity. The internal spaces and warpings of such embeddings are the same as those of the N = 1 supersymmetric (Mink5) AdS5 vacua, with the slight modification that the U(1) R-symmetry direction becomes fibered over the external space by the d = 5 gauge field. In addition the fluxes are appropriately modified. There are many distinct types of the aforementioned internal spaces and as such many different embeddings of the d = 5 supergravity. As examples of our setup we provide new solutions dual to six-dimensional, N = (1, 0) SCFTs compactified on the product of a constant curvature Riemann surface and a spindle. We also provide a multitude of massive Type IIA embeddings for rotating, asymptotically AdS5 black hole solutions

N = (2, 2) AdS3 from D3-branes wrapped on Riemann surfaces

We construct $\mathcal{N}$ = (2, 2) supersymmetric AdS3 solutions of type IIB supergravity, dual to twisted compactifications of 4d $\mathcal{N}$ = 4 super-Yang-Mills on Riemann surfaces. We consider both theories with a regular topological twist, and a twist involving the isometry group of the Riemann surface. These solutions are interpreted as the near-horizon of black strings asymptoting to AdS5 × S5. As evidence for the proposed duality we compute the central charge of the gravity solutions and show that it agrees with the field theory result

On Type IIA AdS3 solutions and massive GK geometries

We give necessary and sufficient conditions for warped AdS3 (and Mink3) solutions of Type II supergravities to preserve = (2, 0) supersymmetry, in terms of geometric conditions on their internal space M7. Such solutions possess a canonical ten-dimensional Killing vector that can be either time-like or null. In this work we classify the null case in massive Type IIA supergravity which necessitates that M7 decomposes as a circle fibration over a six-dimensional base with orthogonal SU(2)-structure containing a complex four-manifold. We narrow our focus to solutions for which M7 becomes 2 fibred over a foliation of a Kähler manifold over an interval. We find a class of solutions which are the massive Type IIA version of GK geometries and present an extremal problem which computes the central charge of the solution using just topology. Finally, we present geometric conditions for AdS3 solutions to preserve arbitrary extended chiral supersymmetry

The quiet editor: Ivan Vladislavić and South African cultural production

This article examines the literary and sociological significance of Ivan Vladislavić’s "double life” (Lahire, 2010: n.p.) as both editor and writer. With reference to a number of his editorial roles as well as the joint projects he has worked on with writers and visual artists, the article considers how Vladislavić’s work with others spreads symbolic value. Described by one of his clients as the “quiet editor”, Vladislavić can be read as a new kind of author; what he terms “creative editing” (Steyn, 2012: n.p.) as a new kind of writing, through which more traditional models of authorship and literary production are thrown into question — less Bourdieu’s (1984) “field of literary production” or Casanova’s (2004: 82) “world literary space”, red in tooth and claw, amd more Howard Becker’s “art world”: a convivial “network of cooperating people, all of whose work is essential to the final outcome” (1982: 25)

Between- and within-individual sociodemographic and psychological determinants of PrEP adherence among men who have sex with men prescribed a daily PrEP regimen in Wales

We investigated the determinants of daily PrEP use and coverage of condomless anal sex (CAS) by PrEP among men who have sex with men in Wales, UK. We measured PrEP use by electronic monitors and CAS by secure online surveys. We defned PrEP use based on daily medication cap openings and coverage as CAS episodes preceded by≥3 days of PrEP use and followed by≥2 days of PrEP use. We included 57 participants (5463 observations). An STI diagnosis was associated with lower PrEP use but also lower PrEP coverage. Older adults had higher PrEP use. A belief that other PrEP users took PrEP as prescribed was associated with lower PrEP coverage. An STI diagnosis is an important cue for an intervention, refecting episodes of high-risk sexual behaviour and low PrEP coverage. Other results provide a basis for the development of an evidence-informed intervention for promoting coverage of PrE