Affiliations
Association of University English Teachers of South Africa
Dictionary Unit
Institute for the Study of English in Africa
National English Literary Museum
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Kathleen Samson, Michael Hathorn and
Armand Swart (not available for the photo).
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Research Seminar: 19 March 2013, Department of English
English Honours Seminar Room
17h15
All welcome
Writing revolution, failing, changing gear: the manuscript revisions of Waiting for the Barbarians
Prof David Attwell
Biography: Prof Attwell is Chair of Modern Literature, Head of the Department of English and Related Literature at the Univeristy of York. He is currently on a two-year Leverhulme Research Fellowship in order to write a critical biography of J. M. Coetzee, focussing on the genesis of the major novels.
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English Department Research Seminar
14 March 2013
17h15
The Department of English Common Room
All Welcome
Merlin in the North:
History and Prophecy in Medieval Scandinavia
Sometime between 1123 and 1139, in Oxford, a man named Geoffrey of Monmouth
finished an historical work of dubious veracity known as the 'Historia regum Britanniae'
(the 'History of the Kings of Britain'). So popular was the work that some 217
manuscripts containing it have been listed, with about a third of those dating from before
the end of the 12th century. The book was translated into a wide array of languages,
including German, Italian, French, Welsh, and Old Norse. It was a medieval bestseller,
and the foundation upon which almost all subsequent Arthurian material is based.
Embedded in the larger work was a section called the 'Prophetiae Merlini' (the
'Prophecies of Merlin').
This presentation describes and analyses the interface between Old Norse vernacular
literature and Latin historiography. It also examines the variant approaches to history and
fiction that these two traditions maintain. In doing so the presentation illuminates some
of the more interesting facets of Old Norse literature, and also some of the problems
raised by medieval translation theory. -
English Department Research Seminar: 28 February 2013, 17h15
Department Common Room
Frontier Fictions: Settler Stories and the Origins of White Guilt
Rebecca Weaver-Hightower (University of North Dakota)
Abstract: In this presentation, Weaver-Hightower will give an overview of her book, Frontier Fictions, which offers a comparative reading of South African, Australian, US, and Canadian books about settlement in what Mary Louise Pratt has called “the contact zone.” Weaver-Hightower will discuss her methodology and process before giving a more detailed reading of her argument, with a focus on 19th century Anglophone South African literature. In particular, this paper will address the role of literature in managing the guilt and anxiety resulting from settlement by looking at how narratives function like defense mechanisms. This book, Weaver-Hightower will explain, comes from her attempt to address the nagging question of the sources (historical, psychological, and cultural) of what twentieth century conservatives call “white guilt.”
Biography: Rebecca Weaver-Hightower is an Associate Professor of English specializing in postcolonial studies at the University of North Dakota. Her book Empire Islands: Castaways, Cannibals and Fantasies of Conquest (Minnesota 2007), analyzes how island castaway tales presented fantasies that made the expansion of empire more palatable. Her current work analyzes Australian, South African, Canadian, and U.S. frontier literatures for how certain stories helped those cultures to process the guilt from the displacement of indigenous peoples during colonial settlement. She is also currently co-editing a volume on postcolonial film with Peter Hulme entitled Postcolonial Film and has recently co-edited a special journal issue on Australian literature. Weaver-Hightower has published more than a dozen essays on Caribbean, Irish, Australian, African, and British literatures and film; and she is Book Reviews editor of The Journal of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies. She enjoys traveling internationally (most often to South Africa, Australia, and England) to work with dusty old books in archives and learn about the cultures of the places about which she reads and writes.
