Conference Abstracts
46. Stobie, Cheryl; University of KwaZulu-Natal,
South Africa:
"Somatics, Space, Surprise: Creative Dissonance over Time"
This paper explores issues of liminality, hybridity
and transition, all of which call into question the confidence of
the colonialist enterprise. Referring to Homi Bhabha's notion of
the Third Space, Marjorie Garber's discussion of the potential of
the "third," and Njabulo Ndebele's vision of social change
in the South African post-apartheid context, I develop the notion
of "creative dissonance" as a conceptual tool. I examine
two examples from the past to illustrate this notion. The first
example is of 12th century church architecture from England and
Ireland, elements of which call into question various binaries such
as sacred and profane. The second example is Bushman paintings in
South Africa, particularly those of therianthropes, which illustrate
Deleuze and Guattari's "becoming-animal." I then turn
to a consideration of the cityscape of Durban as representative
of contemporary social shifts within South Africa. Using visual
material and written descriptions to convey a sense of a city in
flux, I examine the position of gendered human subjects in this
setting. I conclude by discussing the representation of the city
of Tangier by South African human rights lecturer, Barbara Adair,
in her debut novel, In Tangier We Killed the Blue Parrot. I speculate
why at this moment a South African author should choose to write
a novel about life in Tangier, and the significance of this postcolonial
dialogue.
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