Print, Text and Book Cultures in South Africa - Softcover

Van Der Vlies, Andrew

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1868145662 ISBN 13: 9781868145669

Publisher: Wits University Press, 2012

Synopsis

Explores the power of print and the politics of the book in South Africa from a range of disciplinary perspectives - historical, bibliographic, literary-critical, sociological, and cultural studies. The essays address a range of topics as varied as the role of print cultures in contests over the nature of the colonial public sphere in the nineteenth century; orthography; iimbongi, orature and the canon; print and transnationalism; Indian Ocean cosmopolitanisms; books in war; local academic publishing; and the challenge of ‘book history’ for literary and cultural criticism in contemporary South Africa.

About this title

Review:

Print, text and book cultures in South Africa is a field-defining contribution to the country's literary scholarship. Andrew van der Vlies's introductory essay maps the conceptual terrain in a systematic and engaging way, illustrating its relevance to South Africa's literary and cultural history. The essays that follow demonstrate the archival richness and liveliness of the field, while opening doors to future research. Beyond South Africa, the book will be exemplary in showing how book histories develop under postcolonial conditions. - David Attwell, author of J.M. Coetzee: South Africa and the Politics of Writing (1993) and Rewriting Modernity: Studies in Black South African Literary History (2005), and co-editor of The Cambridge History of South African Literature (2012)

About the Author:

<p> <em>Andrew van der Vlies </em>is senior lecturer in the School of English and Drama at Queen Mary, University of London, and research associate in the department of English literature at Rhodes University, Grahamstown.</p>

About this edition

• Publisher: Wits University Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1868145662
• ISBN 13: 9781868145669
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 490