Representing Bushmen: South Africa and the Origin of Language

Front Cover
University Rochester Press, 2009 - Literary Collections - 210 pages
A detailed and compelling volume that contributes significantly to current trends in post-apartheid scholarship.Representing Bushmen draws on the work of Jacques Derrida, Edward Said, and Martin Bernal to show how the study of language was integral to the formation of racial discrimination in South Africa. Author Shane Moran demonstrates the central role of literary history to the cultural racism and ideology that fed into apartheid by tracing the ethno-aesthetic figuration of the Bushmen in W. H. I. Bleek's theory of the origin of language. Moran examines the gestation of colonial ideology, and provocatively traces aspects of the post-apartheid rhetoric of commemoration and national unity to their colonialist roots. This detailed and compelling volume contributes significantly to current trends in post-apartheid scholarship. Moran emphasizes the need for a cautious interrogation of the colonial archive and scrutiny of critical discourses used by the would-be postcolonial intellectual, and poses a timelychallenge to those committed to exorcising that legacy. Shane Moran teaches at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.enge to those committed to exorcising that legacy. Shane Moran teaches at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.enge to those committed to exorcising that legacy. Shane Moran teaches at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.enge to those committed to exorcising that legacy. Shane Moran teaches at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
 

Contents

Introduction Unity in Diversity
1
Colonial Intellectual
19
On the Origin
31
HumanAnimal
48
Writing Bushmen
67
Language and Blood
80
Colonial Family Crypt
96
Bushman Literature
114
Conclusion Presentiment
128
Notes
149
Bibliography
187
Index
207
Copyright

Common terms and phrases