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Professor David Johnson
Profile summary
- Professor of Literature
- Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences
- School of Arts & Humanities
- English & Creative Writing
- david.johnson
Professional biography
I joined The Open University in 1999. In the 1980s, I completed a law degree and MA in English at the University of Cape Town, and then in 1992 a PhD at Sussex University. Before joining The Open University, I taught for five years in South Africa at the University of Kwazulu-Natal (Durban).
Research interests
My research interests include Post-colonial Literature and Theory, Shakespeare Studies, Southern African Studies, Law and Literature, and Eighteenth-Century Travel Writing. I have written three monographs, Shakespeare and South Africa (Oxford University Press, 1996), Imagining the Cape Colony. History, Literature and the South African Nation (Edinburgh University Press/ UCT Press, 2012), and Dreaming of Freedom in South Africa. Literature between Critique and Utopia (Edinburgh Univeristy Press/ UCT Press, 2020); was the principal author with Steve Pete and Max du Plessis of Jurisprudence: A South African Perspective (Butterworths, 2001); and was the co-editor with Prem Poddar of A Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures in English (Edinburgh/ Columbia University Press, 2005) and with Caroline Davis of The Book in Africa: Critical Debates (Palgrave, 2015). I was series editor with Ania Loomba of the Edinburgh University Press series Postcolonial Literary Studies, and am series editor of the ongoing Edinburgh University Press series Key Texts in Anti-colonial Thought. I was also a co-investigator on the AHRC-funded project ‘The Indian Ocean: Narratives of Literature and Law’.
Teaching interests
My teaching interests lie principally in Postcolonial Literature, and especially Southern African literature and history. However, during the last decade, I have written Open University teaching material on a variety of writers, and across a range of periods and genres (Shakespeare, Swift, Goethe, Byron, Cugoano, Bushman Folklore, Grassic Gibbon, post-apartheid poetry, Calvino, Salih and Le Guin). Some of this teaching material has been co-published: with Richard Danson Brown Shakespeare 1609: ‘Cymbeline’ and the ‘Sonnets’ (Macmillan, 2000); edited with Richard Danson Brown A Shakespeare Reader: Sources and Criticism (Macmillan, 2000); edited The Popular and the Canonical. Debating Twentieth-Century Literature 1940-2000 (Routledge, 2005); edited with Suman Gupta A Twentieth-Century Literature Reader: Texts and Debates (Routledge, 2005); and edited with Anita Pacheco The Renaissance and Long Eighteenth Century (Bloomsbury, 2012).
Research Activity
Research groups
| Name | Type | Parent Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Postcolonial Literatures Research Group | Group | Faculty of Arts |
| Romantic Period Research Group | Group | Faculty of Arts |
Publications
Journal articles
Johnson, David
Wasafiri, 34(1) (pp. 52-57)
Clements Kadalie, the ICU, and the Language of Freedom (2015-12)
Johnson, David
English in Africa, 42(3) (pp. 43-69)
Fanon’s travels in postcolonial theory and post-apartheid politics (2013-04)
Johnson, David
College Literature, 40(2) (pp. 52-80)
Representations of Cape Slavery in South African Literature (2012)
Johnson, David
History Compass, 10(8) (pp. 549-561)
Introduction to Samuel Eusebius Hudson's The Virtuoso (c. 1790) (2011-05)
Johnson, David
English in Africa, 38(1) (pp. 9-15)
Representing Cape slavery: Literature, law, and history (2010-12)
Johnson, David
Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 46(5) (pp. 504-516)
British models of colonial governance: Adam Smith and John Bruce on the Cape Colony (2010)
Johnson, David
The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation, 51(1-2) (pp. 103-127)
Historical and literary re-iterations of Dutch settler Republicanism (2010)
Johnson, David
South African Historical Journal, 62(3) (pp. 463-486)
Remembering the Khoikhoi victory over Dom Francisco Almeida at the Cape in 1510 (2009-03)
Johnson, David
Postcolonial Studies, 12(1) (pp. 107-130)
Representing the Cape 'Hottentots', from the French Enlightenment to post-apartheid South Africa (2007-07)
Johnson, David
Eighteenth-Century Studies, 40(4) (pp. 525-552)
Literatures of nation and migration: Charles Mungoshi, Nadine Gordimer, and the postcolonial (2001)
Johnson, David
Alternation, 8(2) (pp. 36-54)
Editorial: Travellers' tales: alternative traditions (2001)
Johnson, David
Wasafiri(34) (pp. 1-2)
De Mist, Race and Nation (1998)
Johnson, David
Alternation, 5(1) (pp. 85-97)
Literature for the rainbow nation: The case of sol Plaatje's Mhudi (1994)
Johnson, David
Journal of Literary Studies, 10(3-4) (pp. 345-358)
Importing metropolitan Post-colonials (1994)
Johnson, David
Current Writing, 6(1) (pp. 73-85)
Starting Positions: the Social Function of Literature in the Cape (1993-12)
Johnson, David
Journal of Southern African Studies, 19(4) (pp. 615-633)
Aspects of a Liberal Education: Late Nineteenth-Century Attitudes to Race, from Cambridge to the Cape Colony (1993)
Johnson, David
History Workshop Journal, 36(1) (pp. 162-182)
Authored books
Johnson, David
ISBN : 9781474430210 | Publisher : Edinburgh University Press | Published : Edinburgh
Imagining the Cape Colony. History, Literature and the South African Nation (2011-12)
Johnson, David
ISBN : 9780748643080 | Publisher : Edinburgh University Press | Published : Edinburgh
Jurisprudence: a South African perspective (2001)
Johnson, David; Pete, Steve and Du Plessis, Max
ISBN : 409034126 | Publisher : Butterworths | Published : Durban, South Africa
Shakespeare and South Africa (1996)
Johnson, David
ISBN : 978-0198183150 | Publisher : Clarendon Press | Published : Oxford
Book chapters
Johnson, David
In: Deckard, Sharae and Varma, Rashmi eds. Marxism, Postcolonial Theory and the Future of Critique: Critical Engagements with Benita Parry. Routledge Research in Postcolonial Literatures (pp. 191-212)
ISBN : 9781138186118 | Publisher : Routledge | Published : New York
Anti-apartheid people's histories and post-apartheid nationalist biographies (2017-12-12)
Johnson, David
In: Choudry, Aziz and Vally, Salim eds. Reflections on Knowledge, Learning and Social Movements: History's Schools (pp. 88-103)
ISBN : 9781138059108 | Publisher : Routledge | Published : London and New York
Coriolanus in South Africa (2015-08-31)
Johnson, David
In: Smith, Bruce R. ed. The World's Shakespeare, 1660-Present. The Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare (pp. 1235-1241)
ISBN : 9780521113946 | Publisher : Cambridge University Press | Published : Cambridge, UK
Print culture and imagining the Union of South Africa (2015-03)
Johnson, David
In: Davis, Caroline and Johnson, David eds. The Book in Africa: Critical Debates. New Direction in Book History (pp. 105-127)
ISBN : 9781137401618 | Publisher : Palgrave Macmillan | Published : Basingstoke
Literary and Cultural Criticism in South Africa (2012)
Johnson, David
In: Attwell, David and Attridge, Derek eds. The Cambridge History of South African Literature (pp. 818-837)
ISBN : 9780521199285 | Publisher : Cambridge University Press | Published : Cambridge
Migrancy and Thabo Mbeki's African Renaissance (2007)
Johnson, David
In: Gupta, Suman and Omoniyi, Tope eds. The cultures of economic migration: international perspectives. Studies in migration and diaspora (pp. 127-140)
ISBN : 978 0 7546 7070 4 | Publisher : Ashgate | Published : Aldershot
African land for the American empire: the proto-imperialism of Benjamin Stout (2005-04)
Johnson, David
In: Hooper, Glenn ed. Landscape and empire, 1770-2000 (pp. 45-64)
ISBN : 754606872 | Publisher : Ashgate | Published : Aldershot, UK
Theorizing the Loss of Land: Griqua Land Claims in Southern Africa, 1874-1998 (2003-12)
Johnson, David
In: Eng, David L. and Kazanjian, David eds. Loss: the politics of mourning (pp. 278-299)
ISBN : 520232356 | Publisher : University of California Press | Published : Berkeley, US
Land, identity and social conflict: the World Bank and South Africa's post-apartheid land reform (2003)
Johnson, David
In: Gupta, Suman; Basu, Tapan and Chattarji, Subarno eds. India in the age of globalization : contemporary discourses and texts (pp. 275-298)
ISBN : 8187614129 | Publisher : Nehru Memorial Museum and Library | Published : New Delhi, India
Talking about Revolution: Lady Anne Barnard in France, Ireland and the Cape Colony (2002-10-04)
Johnson, David
In: Hooper, Glenn and Graham, Colin eds. Irish and Postcolonial Writing: History, Theory, Practice (pp. 157-177)
ISBN : 0 3339 2966 7 | Publisher : Macmillan/Palgrave | Published : Basingstoke, UK
Violence and philosophy: Nathaniel Merriman, A. W. Schlegel and Jack Cade (2000-03-23)
Johnson, David
In: Joughin, John J. ed. Philosophical Shakespeares (pp. 68-85)
ISBN : 9780415173889 | Publisher : Routledge | Published : London
'The first rainbow nation? The Griqua in Post-apartheid South Africa' (2000-03-20)
Johnson, David
In: Poddar, Prem ed. Translating Nations. Dolphin (30) (pp. 115-128)
ISBN : 87-7288-381-2 | Publisher : Aarhus University Press | Published : Aarhus
From the colonial to the post-colonial: Shakespeare and education in Africa (1998-09-03)
Johnson, David
In: Loomba, Ania and Orkin, Martin eds. Post-colonial Shakespeares (pp. 218-234)
ISBN : 9780415173865 | Publisher : Routledge | Published : London
South African Criticism (1994)
Johnson, David
In: Benson, Eugene and Conolly, L. W. eds. The Routledge Encyclopaedia of Post-colonial Literatures in English (pp. 306-309)
Publisher : Routledge
Edited book
Davis, Caroline and Johnson, David eds.
New Directions in Book History
ISBN : 9781137401618 | Publisher : Palgrave Macmillan | Published : Basingstoke
A Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures in English (2005)
Poddar, Prem and Johnson, David eds.
ISBN : 748618554 | Publisher : Edinburgh University Press | Published : Edinburgh, UK
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