Performing Blackness as Transgressive Erotics: African Futurities and Black Queer Sex in South African Live Art

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 52-78
Author(s):  
Jordache A. Ellapen
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Live Art ◽  
Black Queer

scholarly journals The emergence of black queer characters in three post-apartheid novels

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grant Andrews
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
South African Society ◽  
Queer People ◽  
The Social ◽  
South African Literature ◽  
Race And Sexuality ◽  
History Of ◽  
Black Queer

Before the end of apartheid, queer lives were almost entirely unrepresented in public literary works in South Africa. Only after the fall of institutionalised apartheid could literature begin to look back at the role of queer people in the history of South Africa, and begin to acknowledge that queer people are a part of the fabric of South African society. A number of celebrated authors emerged who were exploring queer themes; however, most of these authors and the stories they told were from a white perspective, and black queer voices were still largely absent in literature, especially novels. This paper explores the limited number of black queer literary representations following the influential work of K. Sello Duiker. I explore the social dynamics that might have influenced the fact that so few examples of black queer characters currently exist in South African literature. Through an analysis of novels by Fred Khumalo, Zukiswa Wanner, and Chwayita Ngamlana, I show how black, queer characters in post-apartheid novels confront ideas of culture, race, and sexuality as they wrestle with their identities and with questions of belonging and visibility. 

scholarly journals All that glitters is not gold: Counter penetrating in the name of Blackness and queerness, or, Athi-Patra Ruga's camp act in the dirt

Image & Text ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adéle Adendorff
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Artistic Practice ◽  
Queer Identity ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Comprehensive View ◽  
Political Intent ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Black Queer

ABSTRACT In this article I engage South African artist Athi-Patra Ruga's artistic practice to flesh out the complexities that arise from the intersection of the terms Black and queer. Drawing on diverse historical, social and textual resources, I interpret Ruga's dismantling of dominant post-apartheid and postcolonial narratives vis-a-vis a close reading of some of his provocative avatars. Ruga's practices of staining, tainting and contaminating serve to expose the borders that produce conventional notions of race and gender. The article employs camp discourse in its allusion to performativity, displacement and artifice in order to 1) lay bare prevailing normative structures; and 2) dismantle conventional views of identity. To avoid being blindsided by camp's flamboyance and ostentation, I propose a view that favours an intimate embroilment with dirt - a stance I argue may furnish camp acts with political intent and so help create a more sophisticated and comprehensive view on the juncture of Blackness and queerness. Relying on Ruga's method of counter penetration as a way of fleshing out a hermeneutic view of Black queer subjectivity, I show how counter penetration in Ruga's estimation is a subversive and transgressive act intent on contaminating and infecting conventional narratives of history, identity and politics. Keywords: Black queer identity, camp, Athi-Patra Ruga, performance.

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 151-156
Author(s):  
GerShun Avilez
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Risk Of Injury ◽  
African Black ◽  
Black Lesbians ◽  
Black Queer

The conclusion proposes the concept of queer contingency to describe the recurring back-and-forth between the possibility of freedom and the risk of injury that characterizes Black queer experience throughout the diaspora, which is tracked in the book. The simultaneity of vulnerability and empowerment and the uncertainty of which will prevail at any given moment constitute the terrain of queer contingency. Cultural producers respond to the recognition of contingency by offering queer subjects aesthetic redress, or artworks that imagine paths to freedom that move through but never fully beyond threat. The conclusion turns briefly to Zanele Muholi’s photographic series of South African Black lesbians to illustrate this idea of aesthetic redress and offer a final visual example of the artistic exploration of queer contingency.

The Book of Joy

2019 ◽  
pp. 250-259
Author(s):  
Anya M. Wallace ◽  
Jillian Hernandez
Keyword(s):  
Black Women ◽  
South African ◽  
Female Sexuality ◽  
Essay Writing ◽  
Women's Lives ◽  
Collection Selection ◽  
Women And Girls ◽  
Young Black Women ◽  
Black Queer ◽  
Writing Practice

The Book of Joy is an exhibition for which we have compiled an eclectic collection of images, poems, and interview transcripts culled from our research on queer young black women’s sexualities and arts-based community work. Taking our cue from the practice and passion of Zanele Muholi, a black queer South African artist and activist based in Johannesburg who generates portraits of queer communities, we purposefully stray from our scholarly essay writing practice here in order to situate an evocative and more direct accounting of black queer young women’s erotics within the larger framework of this anthology. Although the work of our participants is nevertheless mediated through our process of collection, selection, framing, and ordering, we, like Zanele, believe that the creative expression and documentation of queer black lives is a significant politic. This project stems from the desire to witness and consume representations of Black female sexuality that are diverse, full, and comprehensive. In curating this exhibition, we draw on our action research designed to facilitate collective learning experiences with young Black women and girls in regards to visual culture, sex, sexuality, and pleasure. When the discussion of black queer young women’s lives is either non-existent or saturated by the overwhelming realities of harassment, trauma, depression, and violence that can also mark them, a focus on pleasure becomes an urgent project.

The Three-dimensional structure of frozen-hydrated nudaurelia capensis β virus

1987 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 650-651
Author(s):  
N. H. Olson ◽  
T. S. Baker ◽  
Wu Bo Mu ◽  
J. E. Johnson ◽  
D. A. Hendry
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Rna Virus ◽  
Carbon Film ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Dimensional Structure ◽  
Electron Dose ◽  
Total Electron ◽  
Three Dimensional Structure ◽  
Negative Stain ◽  
Dimensional Reconstruction

Nudaurelia capensis β virus (NβV) is an RNA virus of the South African Pine Emperor moth, Nudaurelia cytherea capensis (Lepidoptera: Saturniidae). The NβV capsid is a T = 4 icosahedron that contains 60T = 240 subunits of the coat protein (Mr = 61,000). A three-dimensional reconstruction of the NβV capsid was previously computed from visions embedded in negative stain suspended over holes in a carbon film. We have re-examined the three-dimensional structure of NβV, using cryo-microscopy to examine the native, unstained structure of the virion and to provide a initial phasing model for high-resolution x-ray crystallographic studiesNβV was purified and prepared for cryo-microscopy as described. Micrographs were recorded ∼1 - 2 μm underfocus at a magnification of 49,000X with a total electron dose of about 1800 e-/nm2.

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