106 research outputs found
Outrage and political choice in Nigeria: a consideration of Soyinka's Madmen and specialists, The man died, and Season of anomy
Paper presented at the Wits History Workshop: Democracy, Popular Precedents, Practice and Culture, 13-15 July, 1994
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Wet, wild and convivial : past, present and future contributions of Australiaâs ocean pools to surf, beach, pool and body cultures and recreational coasts
I investigated the past, present and possible futures of Australiaâs ocean pools, over a hundred public seawater pools sited on rocky surfcoasts, so that waves wash over their walls. My interdisciplinary analysis informed by actor-Âânetwork theory explored their contributions to surf, beach, pool and body cultures and recreational coasts. Ocean pools have since the nineteenth century been far more significant in the surf, beach, pool and body cultures of Australia and South Africa, than in those of Britain and the United States. Most of Australiaâs ocean pools lie within state of New South Wales, and my work strengthens the case for recognising Australian and NSW ocean pools as having distinct collective identities and affinities with their South African counterparts. Ocean pools are sites of social and environmental learning that challenge efforts to establish human mastery over wild natures and depictions of coastal environments as mere stages for enacting human activities unconstrained by non-Ââhuman nature. They also challenge the notion that people prefer to swim and bathe at patrolled beaches or in private or public pools far less wild than an ocean pool. They are evidence that supervision by suitably trained and equipped lifeguards or lifesavers is not the only or the most satisfactory way to adequately safeguard bathers and swimmers from the dangers of the sea. Australiaâs ocean pools demonstrate that regardless of race, class, gender, age or ability, people can and do make themselves at home in pools shared convivially with wild nature and well-Ââsuited for sustained, unsupervised recreation and sport on rocky surfcoast. Ocean pools serve as places of refuge, therapeutic and restorative environments, adventure playgrounds, convivial public spaces, visually appealing cultural landscapes, brands, icons and symbols. Australiaâs ocean pools are unified by their sites, their affordances and core actor-Ââ networks linked to their fundamental and enduring identity as âwild but safe enough surfside poolsâ. Rocky shores and coastal waters characterised by surf, sharks and rips are among the most persistent macro-Ââactors in these networks that include bathers, swimmers, tourism and transport networks, news media, local councils and progress associations. Australian ocean pools that gained a further identity as âpublic pools for competition and carnivalsâ acquired additional actor-Âânetworks strongly linked since the late nineteenth century to amateur swimming clubs and schools, and since the twentieth century to surf lifesaving clubs and winter swimming clubs. Those ocean pools nevertheless, remained predominately recreational facilities. As other types of public pools became more affordable, Australiaâs ocean pools remained popular despite gaining new identities as an âunusually hazardous type of public poolâ and âa type of facility no longer createdâ. The growing threats to ocean pools and their actor-Âânetworks are a further unifying factor. As sport and recreation venues cultivating healthy, convivial relationships with wild nature and possessing unrealised potential as centres for community engagement, learning and research, ocean pools are worth emulating on other rocky shores and in other public places. My work strengthens efforts to sustain and create ocean pools and supports further studies on seawater pools and their actor-Âânetworks
âDonât tell me this isnât relevant all over again in its brand new same old wayâ: imagination, agitation, and raging against the machine in Ali Smithâs Spring
This paper explores the third novel in Ali Smithâs seasonal quartet, Spring. Using Achille Mbembeâs Necropolitics as a conceptual frame, I analyze Smithâs rendering of a Britain grappling with Brexit in times of transnational populism. As with Autumn and Winter, Smithâs prose is saturated with intertextual borrowings from pop and âhighâ culture, also interrogating the links between ânanoracismâ and the âimmunity and communityâ knot (Dillet). This paper reads Spring alongside Smithâs contribution to and advocacy of the Refugee Tales project regarding the diverse discourses surrounding migration, xenophobia, and indefinite detention. Smithâs writing traces the darkness of our populist present with its rhetorical and material violence, as well as the possibilities for creative response and resistance. I argue that her seasonal quartet to date and her work with Refugee Tales aesthetically and ethically defend the principle that human dignity, both individual and collective, rests on the ability to tell stories
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Forging connections: anthologies, arts collectives, and the politics of inclusion
The changing social and political landscape of twentieth-century Britain catalysed a remarkable rise in collaborative activity by artists and activists of black and Asian heritage. Creative communities began to gather in both local and regional contexts, with the aim of sharing resources and securing an audience. This chapter records some of these many activities, tracing the groupsâ genesis, manifest objectives, and key contributions. It argues that anthologising should be understood as a specifically motivated activity. Literary anthologies of poetry and fiction served to showcase the diversity of contemporary writing, while also suggesting its coherence. Drawing on the concept of âstrategic essentialismâ elucidated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, I show that the anthology acts to ensure the visibility of a group, bannered as a unified and singly-titled selection of texts, while also insisting on the differences within: the heterogeneous multiplicity of black and Asian British experiences and creative practices
'Vernacular Voices: Black British Poetry'
ABSTRACT
Black British poetry is the province of experimenting with voice and recording rhythms beyond the iambic pentameter. Not only in performance poetry and through the spoken word, but also on the page, black British poetry constitutes and preserves a sound archive of distinct linguistic varieties. In Slave Song (1984) and Coolie Odyssey (1988), David Dabydeen employs a form of Guyanese Creole in order to linguistically render and thus commemorate the experience of slaves and indentured labourers, respectively, with the earlier collection providing annotated translations into Standard English. James Berry, Louise Bennett, and Valerie Bloom adapt Jamaican Patois to celebrate Jamaican folk culture and at times to represent and record experiences and linguistic interactions in the postcolonial metropolis. Grace Nichols and John Agard use modified forms of Guyanese Creole, with Nichols frequently constructing gendered voices whilst Agard often celebrates linguistic playfulness. The borders between linguistic varieties are by no means absolute or static, as the emergence and marked growth of âLondon Jamaicanâ (Mark Sebba) indicates. Asian British writer Daljit Nagra takes liberties with English for different reasons. Rather than having recourse to established Creole languages, and blending them with Standard English, his heteroglot poems frequently emulate âPunglishâ, the English of migrants whose first language is Punjabi. Whilst it is the language prestige of London Jamaican that has been significantly enhanced since the 1990s, a fact not only confirmed by linguistic research but also by its transethnic uses both in the streets and on the page, Nagraâs substantial success and the mainstream attention he receives also indicate the clout of vernacular voices in poetry. They have the potential to connect with oral traditions and cultural memories, to record linguistic varieties, and to endow âstreet credâ to authors and texts. In this chapter, these double-voiced poetic languages are also read as signs of resistance against residual monologic ideologies of Englishness.
© Book proposal (02/2016): The Cambridge History of Black and Asian British Writing p. 27 of 4
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