Professor Dan Wylie

B.A. (Hons), Ph.D. (Rhodes)

Email: d.wylie@ru.ac.za

 

Teaching & Research Interests:

White writing on Shaka; African literature; Southern African poetry; twentieth-century prose and poetry; spirituality and poetry; and ecological issues in literature.

Professor Wylie has published several articles on white writing on Shaka, and on Zimbabwean literature. His book, Savage Delight: White Myths of Shaka (Natal University Press) was published in 2000. He is also a published poet. His collection The
Road Out appeared in 1996, winning the 1998 Ingrid Jonker and Olive Schreiner prizes.

 

Selected Publications:

 

Books, parts of books:

2011: Shaka: A pocket biography.  (Jacana: Johannesburg)

2008: Elephant (Reaktion Books: London)

2008: (Editor) Toxic Belonging?: Identity and ecology in Southern Africa (Cambridge Scholars Press: London)

2008: “White myths of Shaka”. In Benedict Carton, John Laband and Jabulani Sithole, eds. Zulu Identities: Being Zulu, past and present. Univerity of KwaZulu-Natal Press: Pietermaritzburg.

2007: Road Work (poetry: Echoing Green Press)

2006: Myth of Iron: Shaka in History. UKZN Press: Pietermaritzburg.

2006: The Fourteen: Sonnets from amongst the Portuguese (poetry: self-published)

2005: “‘Mind has mountains’: Poetry and ecology in Eastern Zimbabwe”. In Versions of Zimbabwe, ed Ranka Primorac and Robert Muponde, James Currey: London.

2002: “‘Dead Leaves’: Reflections on writing a memoir of the Rhodesian conflict.” In Chris van der Merwe and Rolf Wolfswinkel, eds. Telling Wounds: Narrative, Trauma & Memory; working through the SA armed conflicts of the 20th century. Van Schaik/UCT. 190-194.

2002: Dead Leaves: Two years in the Rhodesian war. University of Natal Press.

2001: Original Forest (poems; self published) “Elephants and the Ethics of Ecological Criticism: A case study in recent South African fiction”. In Sue Kossew and Dianne Schwerdt, eds, Re-Imagining Africa: New Critical Perspectives. (Nova Science, New York). 175-193.

2000: Savage Delight: White Myths of Shaka (monograph; Natal University Press).

2000: “Animals, Arcadia, Allegory, &c”, in Ivan Vladislavic, ed. T’kama-Adamastor:Inventions of Africa in a South African Painting. Wits UP. 153-161.

2000: “Chenjerai Hove”, “N H Brettell”, “Henry Rider Haggard”, in Douglas Killam and Ruth Rowe, eds, The Companion to African Literatures in English (James Currey, London)

1998: “Taking Resentment for Wisdom: A Posthumous Conversation between Dambudzo Marechera, N H Brettell and George Grosz”, in A J Chennells and Flora Veit-Wild, eds, Dambudzo Marechera, Africa World Press, Lawrenceville NJ. 315-331.

1998: Winner Ingrid Jonker Prize for poetry

1998: Winner Olive Schreiner Prize

1997: Special mention: Noma Award for Publishing in Africa 

1996: The Road Out (poems; Snailpress)

1995: “Language and Assassination: Cultural negations in white writers’ portrayal of Shaka”, in C Hamilton ed. The ‘Mfecane’ Aftermath (Wits University Press), 71-103.

1994: “Henry Rider Haggard”, “South African Colonial Mythology”, in E D Benson et al, eds. Enyclopaedia of Postcolonial Literatures (London, Routledge), vol.1, 620-1, 839-42.

 

Articles in refereed journals:

2008: “’Long and Wandering Forest’: Sidney Clouts, geophilosophy and trees.’ Alternation 14.2, 72 - 96.

2008: ‘The Schizophrenias of Truth-Telling in Contemporary Zimbabwe’ English Studies in Africa 50.2, 151 - 170.

2007: “Imagined corners: Ec(o)centrism in some Eastern Cape poetry.” Scrutiny2 12/1, 30-45.

2007: ‘Kabbo’s Challenge: Transculturation and the question of a South African ecocriticism’. Journal of Literary Studies. 23/3, 252-270.

2007: ‘“Muscled Presence”: Douglas Livingstone’s poem “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Snake”’. (With Mariss Everitt). English in Africa 34/1, 133-154.

2007: ‘”Now strangers walk in that place”: Antjie Krog, modernity, and the making of //Kabbo’s story’. Current Writing 19/2, 49-71.

2007: ‘”Unconscious nobility”: The animal poetry of Harold Farmer’. English in Africa 34/2, 79-92.

2006: ‘Why Write a Poem about Elephants?’ Mosaic 39/4, 27-46.

2006: Introduction and guest editor. Current Writing 18/1 (Literature & Ecology special issue)

2005: Review. Jeff Opland, The Dassie and the Hunter. English in Africa 32/2, 247-51.

2003: “Clutching a handful of granulated glass”. Review essay. Scrutiny2 8/1, 62-69.

2003: “‘Hollow land of emptiness’: repression and ecology in some early Rhodesian poetry.” English Academy Review, 19:1-11.

2002: “‘Speaking Crystals’: The Poetry of Lionel Abrahams and South African Liberalism”. African Literatures Today 23, 101-9.

2002: “The Anthropomorphic Ethic: Fiction and the Animal Mind in Virginia Woolf’s Flush and Barbara Gowdy’s The White Bone.” ISLE (Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment) 9.2, 115-132.

2001: “Elephants and Compassion: Ecological criticism and South African hunting literature”. English in Africa. 28(2). 79-100.

1999: “Broken Bottles Beneath the Lawn”, English Academy Review 15, 113-8.

1998: “The Wilderness in the Blood”, English Academy Review 14. 176-191

1998: “Living Poetry: An experience of pedagogical discovery”. English Studies in Africa 14/1. 89-106.

1995: “Shaka and the Myths of Paradise”, English in Africa 22/1, 19-47.

1995: “The Selves in the Other: The Shaka Poems of D J Darlow and F T Prince”, Current Writing 7/1, 70-87.

1995: “‘Proprietor of Natal’: Henry Francis Fynn and the Mythography of Shaka”, History in Africa 22, 409-437.

1994: “Shaka and the modern Zulu State”, History Today 44/5, 8-11.

1994: “An Icon in the Whirlpool”, New Contrast 22/4, 67-77.

1993: “A Dangerous Admiration: E A Ritter’s Shaka Zulu”, Southern African Historical Journal 28, 98-118.

1992: “Textual Incest: Nathaniel Isaacs and the Development of the Shaka Myth”, History in Africa 19, 411-33.

1991: “Who’s Afraid of Shaka Zulu?”, Southern African Review of Books. 4/3, 15-17.

1991: “Autobiography as Alibi: Nathaniel Isaacs’ Travels and Adventures in Eastern Africa (1836)”. Current Writing 3, 71-90.

1991: “Language Thieves: English-Language Strategies in two Zimbabwean novellas”, English in Africa 18/2, 39-62.

 

Last Modified: Sat, 20 Jan 2024 13:38:29 SAST