Description
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, Zoe 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.
An anthology of academic and non-academic writings dedicated to contemporary black South African feminist perspectives currently influential in scholarship, popularised radical thought and creative expression.
About the Author
Desiree Lewis is Professor in the Department of Women and Gender Studies at the University of the Western Cape. She is the author of Living on a Horizon: Bessie Head and the Politics of Imagining (2007).
Gabeba Baderoon is a literary scholar, poet and Associate Professor of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and African Studies at Pennsylvania State University, where she also co-directs the African Feminist Initiative. She is the author of Regarding Muslims: from Slavery to Post-apartheid (2014) and four books of poetry, most recently The History of Intimacy (2018).
Yvette Abrahams holds a PhD in Economic History from the University of Cape Town and has consulted for government and various NGOs on issues relating to gender equality in policy and practice.
Barbara Boswell is a feminist literary scholar and Associate Professor of English at the University of Cape Town. She is the author of Grace: A Novel (2017), which won the 2018 University of Johannesburg Debut Prize for Creative Writing.
Panashe Chigumadzi is an essayist, editor and fiction writer. Her books include Sweet Medicine and These Bones Will Rise Again.
Gertrude Fester-Wicomb is Honorary Professor at the University of Cape Town. She served as a member of parliament and a Commissioner on gender equality and has taught at Rutgers University in the USA and the University of Rwanda.
Pumla Dineo Gqola is an award-winning feminist author and research professor at Nelson Mandela University. Her books include What is Slavery to Me? Postcolonial/Slave Memory in Post-apartheid South Africa, Rape: A South African Nightmare and Reflecting Rogue: Inside the Mind of a Feminist.
Mary Hames is an educator and Director of the Gender Equity Unit at the University of the Western Cape. She has produced multiple workshopped productions, delivered several talks and papers, spearheaded innovative programmes in collaboration with her students.
Jacki Job is a lecturer in the Centre for Theatre, Dance & Performance Studies at the University of Cape Town. She is a practitioner in performance art and theatre, dancer, choreographer and director.
Ingrid Masondo is the curator of photography and new media at the Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town. She has held various positions including archivist, curator, researcher and photo editor.
Zethu Matebeni is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of the Western Cape. Her edited books include Reclaiming Afrikan: Queer Perspectives on Sexual and Gender Identities and co-edited volumes Queer in Africa: LGBTQ Identities, Citizenship and Activism and Beyond the Mountain: Queer Life in 'Africa's Gay Capital'. She co-produced and co-directed the documentary film, Breaking Out of the Box: Stories of Black Lesbians in South Africa.
Patricia McFadden is a radical feminist, writer and scholar based in Eswatini. Freedom, autonomy, integrity and dignity are central to her re-calibration of core feminist notions and her search for the roots of feminist creativity and critical knowledge production in this contemporary moment.
Sisonke Msimang is a fellow at the Wits Institute of Social and Economic Research (WiSER) at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. She is the author of Always Another Country: A Memoir of Exile and Home and The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela.
Danai S. Mupotsa is a poet and Senior Lecturer in African Literature at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. In 2018, she published her first collection of poetry entitled feeling and ugly.
Grace A. Musila is an Associate Professor in the Department of African Literature at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. She is the editor of Wangari Maathai's Registers of Freedom, author of A Death Retold in Truth and Rumour: Kenya, Britain and the Julie Ward Murder and co-editor of Rethinking Eastern African Intellectual Landscapes.
Leigh-Ann Naidoo is an educator and activist concerned with the ways in which pedagogy can be used in ongoing struggles for the redistribution of power and resources in South Africa and beyond. She is based at the School of Education at the University of Cape Town.
Yewande Omotoso is the author of multiple award-winning books, including Bom Boy and The Woman Next Door.
Fatima Seedat is a Senior Lecturer in Gender Studies at the African Gender Institute at the University of Cape Town. She has worked in various NGOs and government sectors locally and internationally.
Sa'diyya Shaikh is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Cape Town. She is the author of the award-winning Sufi Narratives of Intimacy: Ibn 'Arab', Gender and Sexuality has and co-edited Theorising Gender and Islam and Violence Against Women in Contemporary World Religion: Roots and Cures.
Zukiswa Wanner is the author of the novels The Madams; Behind Every Successful Man, Men of the South and London Cape Town Joburg. She has also written two works of nonfiction, Maid in SA: 30 Ways to Leave Your Madam and Hardly Working. The 2020 Goethe-Medallist has authored three children's books Jama Loves Bananas, Refilwe and Africa (A True Book: The Seven Continents).
Zoe Wicomb is a South African-Scottish writer of fiction, and literary and cultural criticism. She was awarded the illustrious Yale Windham-Campbell Prize for fiction in 2014. Her latest works include Race, Nation, Translation: South African Essays, and the novels October and Still Life. She is Emeritus Professor at the University of Strathclyde, Scotland.
Makhosazana Xaba is a research associate at Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER). She is an anthologist, short story writer and poet who has published three collections of poetry, These Hands, Tongues of Their Mothers and The Alkalinity of Bottled Water. Running and Other Stories.
Book Information
ISBN 9781776146093
Author Desiree Lewis
Format Paperback
Page Count 328
Imprint Wits University Press
Publisher Wits University Press
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, Zoe 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.
An anthology of academic and non-academic writings dedicated to contemporary black South African feminist perspectives currently influential in scholarship, popularised radical thought and creative expression.
About the Author
Desiree Lewis is Professor in the Department of Women and Gender Studies at the University of the Western Cape. She is the author of Living on a Horizon: Bessie Head and the Politics of Imagining (2007).
Gabeba Baderoon is a literary scholar, poet and Associate Professor of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and African Studies at Pennsylvania State University, where she also co-directs the African Feminist Initiative. She is the author of Regarding Muslims: from Slavery to Post-apartheid (2014) and four books of poetry, most recently The History of Intimacy (2018).
Yvette Abrahams holds a PhD in Economic History from the University of Cape Town and has consulted for government and various NGOs on issues relating to gender equality in policy and practice.
Barbara Boswell is a feminist literary scholar and Associate Professor of English at the University of Cape Town. She is the author of Grace: A Novel (2017), which won the 2018 University of Johannesburg Debut Prize for Creative Writing.
Panashe Chigumadzi is an essayist, editor and fiction writer. Her books include Sweet Medicine and These Bones Will Rise Again.
Gertrude Fester-Wicomb is Honorary Professor at the University of Cape Town. She served as a member of parliament and a Commissioner on gender equality and has taught at Rutgers University in the USA and the University of Rwanda.
Pumla Dineo Gqola is an award-winning feminist author and research professor at Nelson Mandela University. Her books include What is Slavery to Me? Postcolonial/Slave Memory in Post-apartheid South Africa, Rape: A South African Nightmare and Reflecting Rogue: Inside the Mind of a Feminist.
Mary Hames is an educator and Director of the Gender Equity Unit at the University of the Western Cape. She has produced multiple workshopped productions, delivered several talks and papers, spearheaded innovative programmes in collaboration with her students.
Jacki Job is a lecturer in the Centre for Theatre, Dance & Performance Studies at the University of Cape Town. She is a practitioner in performance art and theatre, dancer, choreographer and director.
Ingrid Masondo is the curator of photography and new media at the Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town. She has held various positions including archivist, curator, researcher and photo editor.
Zethu Matebeni is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of the Western Cape. Her edited books include Reclaiming Afrikan: Queer Perspectives on Sexual and Gender Identities and co-edited volumes Queer in Africa: LGBTQ Identities, Citizenship and Activism and Beyond the Mountain: Queer Life in 'Africa's Gay Capital'. She co-produced and co-directed the documentary film, Breaking Out of the Box: Stories of Black Lesbians in South Africa.
Patricia McFadden is a radical feminist, writer and scholar based in Eswatini. Freedom, autonomy, integrity and dignity are central to her re-calibration of core feminist notions and her search for the roots of feminist creativity and critical knowledge production in this contemporary moment.
Sisonke Msimang is a fellow at the Wits Institute of Social and Economic Research (WiSER) at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. She is the author of Always Another Country: A Memoir of Exile and Home and The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela.
Danai S. Mupotsa is a poet and Senior Lecturer in African Literature at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. In 2018, she published her first collection of poetry entitled feeling and ugly.
Grace A. Musila is an Associate Professor in the Department of African Literature at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. She is the editor of Wangari Maathai's Registers of Freedom, author of A Death Retold in Truth and Rumour: Kenya, Britain and the Julie Ward Murder and co-editor of Rethinking Eastern African Intellectual Landscapes.
Leigh-Ann Naidoo is an educator and activist concerned with the ways in which pedagogy can be used in ongoing struggles for the redistribution of power and resources in South Africa and beyond. She is based at the School of Education at the University of Cape Town.
Yewande Omotoso is the author of multiple award-winning books, including Bom Boy and The Woman Next Door.
Fatima Seedat is a Senior Lecturer in Gender Studies at the African Gender Institute at the University of Cape Town. She has worked in various NGOs and government sectors locally and internationally.
Sa'diyya Shaikh is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Cape Town. She is the author of the award-winning Sufi Narratives of Intimacy: Ibn 'Arab', Gender and Sexuality has and co-edited Theorising Gender and Islam and Violence Against Women in Contemporary World Religion: Roots and Cures.
Zukiswa Wanner is the author of the novels The Madams; Behind Every Successful Man, Men of the South and London Cape Town Joburg. She has also written two works of nonfiction, Maid in SA: 30 Ways to Leave Your Madam and Hardly Working. The 2020 Goethe-Medallist has authored three children's books Jama Loves Bananas, Refilwe and Africa (A True Book: The Seven Continents).
Zoe Wicomb is a South African-Scottish writer of fiction, and literary and cultural criticism. She was awarded the illustrious Yale Windham-Campbell Prize for fiction in 2014. Her latest works include Race, Nation, Translation: South African Essays, and the novels October and Still Life. She is Emeritus Professor at the University of Strathclyde, Scotland.
Makhosazana Xaba is a research associate at Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER). She is an anthologist, short story writer and poet who has published three collections of poetry, These Hands, Tongues of Their Mothers and The Alkalinity of Bottled Water. Running and Other Stories.
Book Information
ISBN 9781776146093
Author Desiree Lewis
Format Paperback
Page Count 328
Imprint Wits University Press
Publisher Wits University Press
