scrutiny2, which publishes issues in English studies in Southern Africa calls for papers commemorating the life and work of Lauretta Ngcobo (1931-2015). Ngcobo was a pioneering black feminist writer, committed political activist, teacher, and writer. She became one of the first black South African women to publish a novel in English. Her published titles includes Cross of gold (1981), her first novel, and her most acclaimed work, and And they didn’t die (1990), which theorized the intersectional nature of African women’s oppression. Ngcobo also edited two volumes of essays, Let it be told: essays by Black women writers in Britain (1987), and Prodigal daughters: stories of South African women in exile (2012).
Topics to be covered may include:
- Ngcobo’s feminist legacies
- Ngcobo as literary critic/on South African literary criticism
- Black feminist resistance in And they didn’t die
- Rereading Cross of gold in post-apartheid South Africa
- Ngcobo as Black Consciousness writer
- Ngcobo’s exilic consciousness
- Men and masculinities in Ngcobo’s fiction
- Ngcobo’s fiction in comparative perspective with other feminist and/or Black Consciousness work
- Ngcobo as art activist
- Poetry on Ngcobo
Please send abstracts of 300 words for this special issue to Barbara Boswell (barbara.boswell@wits.ac.za) or Victoria Collis-Buthelezi (victoria.collis.buthelezi.uct@gmail.com) July 15 2016, with complete essays expected by Sept. 30 2016.
About scrutiny2
Accredited with the South African Department of Higher Education and Training, scrutiny2, a double blind peer-reviewed journal, publishes original manuscripts on theoretical and practical concerns in English literary studies in southern Africa, particularly tertiary education. Uniquely southern African approaches to southern African concerns are sought, although manuscripts of a more general nature will be considered. The journal is aimed at an audience of specialists in English literary studies. While the dominant form of manuscripts published will be the scholarly article, the journal will also publish poetry, as well as other forms of writing such as the essay, review essay, conference report and polemical position piece.