Gabeba Baderoon

Gabeba Baderoon's The History of Intimacy traces one woman's journey into writing. The winner of numerous awards, the collection reflects on the delicate, risky terrain of art, politics, and love in postapartheid South Africa.

Poems

The History of Intimacy

An analysis of the role of Muslims from South Africa’s founding to the present and points to the resonance of these discussions beyond South Africa. How do Muslims fit into South Africa's well-known narrative of colonialism, apartheid and post-apartheid? South Africa is infamous for apartheid, but the country's foundation was laid by 176 years of slavery from 1658 to 1834, which formed a crucible of war, genocide and systemic sexual violence that continues to haunt the country today. Enslaved people from East Africa, India and South East Asia, many of whom were Muslim, would eventually constitute the majority of the population of the Cape Colony, the first of the colonial territories that would eventually form South Africa. Drawing on an extensive popular and official archive, Regarding Muslims analyses the role of Muslims from South Africa?s founding moments to the contemporary period and points to the resonance of these discussions beyond South Africa. It argues that the 350-year archive of images documenting the presence of Muslims in South Africa is central to understanding the formation of concepts of race, sexuality and belonging. In contrast to the themes of extremism and alienation that dominate Western portrayals of Muslims, Regarding Muslims explores an extensive repertoire of picturesque Muslim figures in South African popular culture, which oscillates with more disquieting images that occasionally burst into prominence during moments of crisis. This pattern is illustrated through analyses of etymology, popular culture, visual art, jokes, bodily practices, oral narratives and literature. The book ends with the complex vision of Islam conveyed in the post-apartheid period.

From slavery to post-apartheid

Regarding Muslims

Panashe Chigumadzi

Sisonke Msimang

Zukiswa Wanner

Zoë Wicomb

Yewande Omotoso

Barbara Boswell

Pumla Dineo Gqola

Desiree Lewis

Grace A. Musila

Zethu Matebeni

Yvette Abrahams

gertrude fester-wicomb

Mary Hames

jackï job

Ingrid Masondo

Patricia McFadden

Danai S. Mupotsa

Leigh-Ann Naidoo

Fatima Seedat

Sa’diyya Shaikh

The first collection of essays dedicated to contemporary Black South African feminist perspectives What do African feminist traditions that exist outside the canon look and feel like? What complex cultural logics are at work outside the centres of power? How do spirituality and feminism influence each other? What are the histories and experiences of queer Africans? What imaginative forms can feminist activism take? Surfacing: On Being Black and Feminist in South Africa is the first collection of essays dedicated to contemporary Black South African feminist perspectives. Leading feminist theorist, Desiree Lewis, and poet and feminist scholar, Gabeba Baderoon, have curated contributions by some of the finest writers and thought leaders. Radical polemic sits side by side with personal essays, and critical theory coexists with rich and stirring life histories. By including writings by Patricia McFadden, Panashe Chigumadzi, Sisonke Msimang, Zukiswa Wanner, Yewande Omotoso, Zoë Wicomb and Pumla Dineo Gqola alongside emerging thinkers, activists and creative practitioners, the collection demonstrates a dazzling range of feminist voices. The writers in these pages use creative expression, photography and poetry in eclectic, interdisciplinary ways to unearth and interrogate representations of Blackness, sexuality, girlhood, history, divinity, and other themes. Surfacing is indispensable to anyone interested in feminism from Africa which, the contributors show, is in vivid and challenging conversations with the rest of the world.

On being black and feminist in South Africa

Surfacing

An anthology dedicated to contemporary Black South African feminist writing influential to today's scholars and radical thinkers Surfacing: On Being Black and Feminist in South Africa is the first collection dedicated to contemporary Black South African feminist perspectives. Leading feminist theorist, Desiree Lewis, and poet and feminist scholar, Gabeba Baderoon, have curated contributions by some of the finest writers and thought leaders into an essential resource. Radical polemic sits side by side with personal essays, and critical theory coexists with rich and stirring life histories. The collection demonstrates a dazzling range of feminist voices from established scholars and authors to emerging thinkers, activists and creative practitioners. The writers within these pages use creative expression, photography and poetry in eclectic, interdisciplinary ways to unearth and interrogate representations of blackness, sexuality, girlhood, history, divinity, and other themes. Surfacing asks: what do the African feminist traditions that exist outside the canon look and feel like? What complex cultural logics are at work outside the centers of power? How do spirituality and feminism influence each other? What are the histories and experiences of queer Africans? What imaginative forms can feminist activism take? Surfacing is indispensable to anyone interested in feminism from Africa, which its contributors show in vivid and challenging conversation with the rest of the world. It will appeal to a diverse audience of students, activists, critical thinkers, academics and artists.

A Hundred Silences is the third collection of poetry by Gabeba Baderoon - recipient of the DaimlerChrysler Award for South African Poetry in 2005. In this new selection of poems, the poet explores how every room has its own silences, its own memories and secrets. She speaks of the quiet, gnawing loneliness of hotel rooms in 'Sleeping in hotels', of the ache of longing and how sometimes 'love is in the going away'. She also does not steer away from what is not said, from the silences between words, and how anger can spark 'the taste of blood never too far ...eyes watchful/heavy as bruises'. It is an eloquent, tender collection of poetry, affirming Baderoon as one of the most exciting new voices in South African writing.

A Hundred Silences

Sunil Amrith

Antoinette Burton

Sarah Nuttall

Carolyn Hamilton

Lakshmi Subramanian

Ranka Primorac

James Ogude

Meg Samuelson

Karin Barber

Charne Lavery

Khwezi Mkhize

Christopher EW Ouma

Rimli Bhattacharya

Danai S Mupotsa

Madhumita Lahiri

This book covers concepts and methods from the work of Isabel Hofmeyr, a leading South African scholar of print cultures and intellectual trajectories in the Atlantic and Indian oceans.

African print cultures and oceanic turns in Isabel Hofmeyr’s work

Reading from the South

Exploring the distances and silences that may exist between people, this thoughtful collection of poems considers how the details of life sometimes connect to lead to momentary intimacies and connections. It includes poems about love, war, and relationships both distant and close.

The Dream in the Next Body

"The history of intimacy is the fourth collection by award-winning poet Gabebe Baderoon. Breathtaking intimacies and private hurts are crafted into lyrical form - in poems on desiring what is furtherest from you, memories of a midnight swim, how children work out the laws of existence, the stakes of speaking a forbidden word, elegies to a jazz prodigy, and a beloved poet, and how not to be alone"--Back cover.

Alicia C. Decker

This special issue, edited by the co-directors of the African Feminist Initiative (AFI) at Pennsylvania State University, is a partnership between Meridians and the AFI. The issue builds on the AFI's work to promote the study of African feminist thought and activism within the U.S. academy and to create equitable partnerships between scholars and practitioners of African feminism. Through the multiplicity of feminisms theorized in this issue, contributors challenge patriarchal ideologies and structures on myriad fronts, both on the African continent and beyond. The issue includes poetry, memoirs, essays, interviews, reflections, and testimonials on African feminisms, addressing such topics as hip hop, ethnography, secessionist movements, "saving" Nigerian girls, and women's writing. Contributors. Gabeba Baderoon, Abena P. A. Busia, Ginetta E. B. Candelario, Msia Kibona Clark, Alicia C. Decker, Chipo Dendere, Abosede George, Tsitsi Jaji, Selina Makana, Patricia McFadden, Anne Moraa, Jacqueline-Bethel Tchouta Mougoué, Neo Sinoxolo Musangi, Wambui Mwangi, Aziza Ouguir, Charmaine Pereira, Fatima Sadiqi, Toni Stuart, Makhosazana Xaba, Ntokozo Yingwana

Cartographies for the Twenty-first Century

African Feminisms

Gabeba Baderoon

Books

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