Nadine Gordimer\u27s Fictional Selves: Can a White Woman be at Home in Black South Africa?

(First paragraph) Growing up in South Africa where only 5.6 million people are white out of a population of 37.9 million, Nadine Gordimer became increasingly conscious of her whiteness1. The colour of her skin instantly signaled \u27oppressor\u27 to black South Africans. Her whiteness imposed upon her a social and political identity that she rejected; yet, it was like a face she could not wash off, a mask she could not take off. As she said in a 1978 interview, \u27In South Africa one wears one\u27s skin like a uniform. White equals guilt\u27 (Bazin & Seymour 1990:94). She often sought to separate her personal identity from that of her racial group in order to be welcomed rather than be shut out (or even shot) by those for whom whiteness signified \u27enemy\u27. Must she go into exile, or would she eventually feel \u27at home\u27 in her native country? Writing helped to clarify her thinking on these matters, because in her fiction she could imagine a variety of probable scenarios in which an array of fictional selves could act out possibilities2

Articulating the Questions, Searching for Answers: How \u3ci\u3eTo the Lighthouse\u3c/i\u3e Can Help

(First paragraph) At Old Dominion University, English majors must take one of the following courses-Postcolonial Literature, Literature by Minorities, African-American Literature, or Women Writers. In each course, our majors encounter new materials and perspectives. I teach Virginia Woolf\u27s To the Lighthouse in Women Writers, a course in which students expect to explore feminist perspectives. Students range in age from nineteen lo sixty, but most are in their twenties or thirties. Frequently the first in their families to attend college, many come from conservative homes where feminist is a derogatory word. Therefore I find that the best way into a feminist novel like Virginia Woolf\u27s To the Lighthouse is through biography and autobiography, and I point out that Woolf noted the autobiographical nature of this novel in her letters, diaries, and autobiographical fragments. Despite differences in class, national culture, and time period, most students can successfully relate to the concerns about marriage and work expressed by Woolf. Discovering links between and among her life, the novel, and their own lives helps them see, and empathize with, her feminist perspective

Marge Piercy\u27s \u3ci\u3eSmall Changes\u3c/i\u3e: Welcome to the Sexual Revolution

Marge Piercy\u27s novel Small Changes is encyclopedic in its incredibly detailed, all-encompassing feminist analysis of female and male behavior in the late 60\u27s and early 70\u27s. The behavior of the younger generation is compared and contrasted with that of their parents. The overall impression given by the novel is that, despite the very different life-styles of the two generations, very little change has, in fact, occurred. At the end of the novel, sexism prevails and no significant threat to male control of the power structure has developed. From examination of the title, Piercy seems to place her emphasis not upon the changes but upon the small impact those changes have had

Androgyny or Catastrophe: Doris Lessing\u27s Vision in the Early 1970s

Doris Lessing\u27s novels of the early 1970s offer readers a rare kind of wisdom one which has been nourished by Sufism, a form of Islamic mysticism, which she admires. Unlike Lessing\u27s earlier fiction which was simply influenced by the ideas of Sufism, three of her novels-Briefing for a Descent into Hell (1971), The Summer Before the Dark (1973), and The Memoirs of a Survivor (1974)-are literally Sufi fables-that is, symbolic stories, each of which illuminates truth (qtd. in Shah, The Sufis 14). The Sufi truth illuminated by these novels is that life is One, and that because we have long ignored that truth, we now have an urgent choice to make between oneness and catastrophe. In these novels Lessing insists that unless we consciously and actively choose that personal wholeness and recognition of our inherent oneness with others and with nature, which I term androgyny, we shall destroy all, or almost all, of the life on this planet

Women, Men, and Education in a Changing World

When anyone talks about change, there are many people who feel afraid. People fear chaos and uncertainty, both of which may accompany change. Fears of technological change are expressed in innumerable science fiction books and films; fears of changes in governmental systems are expressed in fantasies such as George Orwell\u27s 1984. Fears of feminism may be expressed in comic books, films, dystopian fiction, or conversation. Women and men who fear feminist ideas have nightmare visions of female-dominated societies where women treat men as many misogynist men have treated women or where, to their horror, women find ways of not needing men at all anymore

Southern Africa and the Themes of Madness: Novels by Doris Lessing, Bessie Head, and Nadine Gordimer

However different their lives, Doris Lessing, Bessie Head, and Nadine Gordimer share the common heritage of having grown up in southern Africa. All three were profoundly affected by that experience. Their responses to the colonialist, racist, and sexist attitudes that permeated their lives have determined, to a major extent. the nature of their fiction. Their novels reflect the grotesque situations and bizarre human relationships created by prejudice, injustice, and the desire to dominate. These three authors focus on the mad nature of this social and political situation in southern Africa. In their works, dystopian and utopian visions of the future provide perspectives from which to view the nightmarish quality of the past and present. These writers seek to communicate the horror of what they have known and their longings for something else-other ways of being and acting than those that characterize not only most whites of southern Africa but also most people of all colors. Although other works by these women writers will be mentioned, this chapter focuses upon Martha Quest, Briefing for a Descent into Hell, and Shikasta by Doris Lessing, Maru and A Question of Power by Bessie Head, and Burger\u27s Daughter, July\u27s People, and A Sport of Nature by Nadine Gordimer

The Evolution of Doris Lessing\u27s Art from a Mystical Moment to Space Fiction

After publishing ten major novels, Doris Lessing has begun writing what she calls \u27·space fiction\u27· for her new series entitled Canopus in Argos: Archives. In a review of the first two novels published in this series, namely, Shikasta ( 1979) and the Marriages Between Zones Three. Four, and Five (1980)1. Jean Pickering stresses that many of Doris Lessing\u27s most avid readers were initially attracted to her because of her insights about the female experience and because of her allegiance to nineteenth-century realism. Pickering suggests that Lessing\u27s growing interest in space fiction and Sufism (Islamic mysticism) has made these admirers increasingly uneasy.2 In retrospect, however, even these readers should recognize that the seeds of this later development were there from the beginning. To understand Doris Lessing\u27s recent enthusiasm for space fiction, it is important to see its roots in the mystical experience she describes in her early novel, Martha Quest (1952)

Expanding the Concept of Affirmative Action to Include the Curriculum

At Old Dominion University, a state university of 14,500 students in Norfolk, Virginia, the concept of affirmative action has been expanded to include the curriculum. From my perspective as a Women\u27s Studies Director who also serves on the University Affirmative Action/Equal Employment Opportunities Committee, I would like to share the story of (1) how this came about, (2) what it means, and (3) what questions and problems it raises in terms of my work as Director of Women\u27s Studies. The President of ODU strongly supports affirmative action in hiring. Because we have an energetic Coordinator of International Programs, the President likewise recognizes that material concerning people of color inside and outside the United States should be integrated into the curriculum. In September 1979, however, when this story begins, he did not realize that the integration of women into the university and into society called for a transformation of the traditional curriculum. Because his talk at the first meeting of the President\u27s Advisory Committee on Affirmative Action/Equal Employment Opportunity revealed this gap in his awareness, I suggested to the Affirmative Action Director, Maggi Curry (whose title is also Assistant to the President), that a special meeting with the President to clarify the goals and activities of both Women\u27s Studies and the Women\u27s Center would be helpful. She decided that a meeting on this subject would benefit all those in the upper administration. Therefore, she added the Vice President for Academic Affairs, the Vice President of Educational Services and Planning, the Dean of Student Affairs, and the Dean of Arts and Letters to the list of those invited to participate

Women at Rutgers College: Remembering 1970-1977

My story is about developing women’s studies from 1970 to 1977 at Rutgers College, which was then one of the five separate colleges that made up Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Rutgers College was all-male, but it did not stay that way long. Because it was part of a state university, the Board of Governors decided that the college had to go co-ed the following year to avoid being sued for discrimination. In order not to displace male students, the integration would proceed very slowly by adding a few females to each freshman class. After four years of letting the resistant males become accustomed to having women on campus, the admissions office would begin taking students solely on the basis of merit. But, when shocked administrators learned that the criterion of merit would result in accepting more females than males, they quickly put in place a 50-50 quota system

Betrayals of the Body Politic: The Literary Commitments of Nadine Gordimer

Reviews the book `Betrayals of the Body Politic: The Literary Commitments of Nadine Gordimer,\u27 by Andrew Vogel Ettin