Kelwyn Sole describes some of the issues and trends in contemporary English-language poetry in South Africa. Focusing on the current fashionability of poetry and the aura that surrounds the figure of the poet in the media and public sphere, he summarizes some of the uses being made of poetry at the moment. On the one hand, it is being utilized as a tool of nation-building and an advertising medium for big business. On the other it is being mobilized by poets (...) as a means of social critique and an expression of anger vis-à-vis current structures of power. Questions are asked of the susceptibility of lyric poetry in particular to usage by political and business elites as a means to assist the construction, in its audiences, of a consumerist sense of self; as well as to provide models of citizenship in tune with the discursive priorities of the South African state in its current, capitalist form. (shrink)

The current rhetoric of “Africanization” ostensibly refers back to pan-African or national-liberationist ideals. However, the “transformation agendas” of South African higher education institutions, of which “Africanization” forms an integral part, have been shown to be closely linked with the commercialization and corporatization of the university, and with elite nationalism. Many African academics across the continent have articulated this development in terms of a sense of loss. This article investigates that sense of loss. To the extent that African intellectuals expected their (...) visions for political and social transformation to be taken over by the postcolonial developmentalist state, their hopes were dashed by national chauvinism, by the recession of the state and the tightening grip of repression. Rather than revisiting nationalism and “indigeneity” as potentially critical forces, this article cautions against such reclamations, proposing a renewal of the emancipatory aims of higher education focused on the teaching-learning relationship. (shrink)