Post Archive

In April last year, I attended a conference marking the 50th anniversary of the publication of J.M. Coetzee’s first novel, Dusklands. It was a memorable event, not only for the rich discussions surrounding the book, but also for the space in which it was held: the University of the Western Cape’s Woodstock Campus, at 66 Greatmore Street. The building, which hosts UWC’s Centre for Humanities Research, is an exceptional interdisciplinary space, bringing together scholarly pursuits and creative practice. Below us, while we spoke about Coetzee’s novel, we heard (faintly) the thudding of hammers: the Ukwanda Puppets and Designs Art Collective were building life-size animals for The Herds, an extraordinary public art initiative that saw a giant “herd” of puppet animals marching from Kinshasa to the Arctic Circle earlier this year, drawing attention to climate change. ...

Two weeks ago, I went on a writing retreat in Betty’s Bay with a group of my colleagues from the Stellenbosch English Department. The house we stayed in had a spacious, wood-beamed sunroom, where I sat writing while the Cape northwester drove gusts of moody rain against the windows. Each morning, a baboon sauntered through the yard, sending the dogs that had come along into high dudgeon. I’d packed my surfboard, and when the storm swells that had been pounding the coast all week began to taper off on Saturday afternoon, I pulled on my booties and paddled out for a bracing session. ...

Kim Stanley Robinson’s hard sci-fi climate novel The Ministry for the Future is part of an Honours course I teach on utopian literature. When I first read the book, I made a brief note for each of its 106 (!) short chapters, as a kind of map or navigation aid to help me in my teaching. I’ve decided to post it here, as my first ever blog post, in case anyone else finds it helpful. ...