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This work studies three twenty-first century novels by Richard Powers, Dave Eggers and Don DeLillo as representative of a new trend of US fiction concerned with the topic of the technological augmentation of the human condition. The different chapters provide, from the double perspective of the optimistic transhumanist philosophy and the more balanced approach of critical posthumanism, an overview of the narrative strategies used by the writers to explore the possibilities that biotechnology, digital technologies and cryonics open up to transcend our human limitations, while also warning their readers of their most nefarious consequences. Ultimately, the book puts forward the claim that even if the writers approach the subject from a variety of perspectives and using different narrative styles and techniques, they all share a critical posthumanist fear that an unrestrained and unquestioned use of technology for enhancement purposes may bring about disembodiment and dehumanization.
This book provides a comprehensive overview of printmaking in South Africa, replacing the now outdated monograph by F. L. Alexander. It discusses historically artists who made major contributions within each of the printmaking techniques, giving great detail on contemporary South African art. It is also a handbook on artists working in various mediums and gives full explanations of each work chosen for the exhibition at the 1998 South African National Arts Festival, lists 785 known printmakers born after 1900, and illustrates the work of 89 important artists. It is an essential guide to this important aspect of South African art.
Drawing on novel case studies, this book provides the first substantive theoretical framework for understanding transitional justice and visual art.
'Age is irrelevant, unless you happen to be a bottle of wine' Joan Collins. Keren Smedley is passionate about altering outdated stereotypes about age and helping people to change their beliefs and attitudes to ageing. As a professional life coach - for Saga among other organizations - she has been asked every kind of question you could imagine, and some you couldn't, about the uncertainties and problems of today's baby boomer. Whether it's about sexuality, money, relationships, health, friends, planning for the future, the best selection of those questions is contained here in WHO'S THAT WOMAN IN THE MIRROR? You will be impressed by the wisdom of the answers - and the endless variety of the questions. Like an extended problem page for baby boomers, this book will inform as it entertains.
From 1952 to 1981, South Africa’s apartheid government ran an art school for the training of African art teachers at Indaleni, in what is today KwaZulu-Natal. The Art of Life in South Africa is the story of the students, teachers, art, and politics that circulated through a small school, housed in a remote former mission station. It is the story of a community that made its way through the travails of white supremacist South Africa and demonstrates how the art students and teachers made together became the art of their lives. Daniel Magaziner radically reframes apartheid-era South African history. Against the dominant narrative of apartheid oppression and black resistance, as well as recen...
The essays collected here investigate art made by women in South Africa between 1910, the year of Union, and 1994, the year of the first democratic election. During this period, complex political circumstances and the impact of modernism in South Africa affected the production of images and objects. The essays explore the ways in which the socio-political circumstances associated with twentieth-century modernity had a paradoxical impact on women. If some were empowered, others were disadvantaged: while some were able to further their social and cultural development and expression, the advancement of others was impeded. The contributors study the lives and achievements of women - named and un...
“When you say, ‘Black is Beautiful,’ what in fact you are saying . . . is: Man, you are okay as you are; begin to look upon yourself as a human being.” With such statements, Stephen Biko became the voice of Black Consciousness. And with Biko’s brutal death in the custody of the South African police, he became a martyr, an enduring symbol of the horrors of apartheid. Through the lens of visual culture, Biko’s Ghost reveals how the man and the ideology he promoted have profoundly influenced liberation politics and race discourse—in South Africa and around the globe—ever since. Tracing the linked histories of Black Consciousness and its most famous proponent, Biko’s Ghost expl...
Encompassing black-and-white linoleum cuts made at community art centres in the 1960s and 1970s, resistance posters and other political art of the 1980s, and the wide variety of subjects and techniques explored by artists in printships over the last two decades, printmaking has been a driving force in contemporary South African artistic and political expression. Impressions from South Africa: 1965 to Now, published to accompany an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, introduces the vital role of printmaking through works by more than twenty artists in the Museum's collection. The volume features prints by John Muafangejo and Dan Rakgoathe, a selection of posters produced for anti-apartheid coalitions in the 1980s, and nuanced political work by SueWilliamson, Norman Catherine andWilliam Kentridge. The book features many more recent projects, demonstrating the contemporary relevance of the medium in South Africa today. The work, presented in a generous plate section, is contextualized in an introduction by Judith B. Hecker, and accompanied by brief biographies of the artists, a timeline of relevant events in South African history, and a selected bibliography.
Which of the possible futures might be a good future, and how do we know? Stephanie Bender looks at contemporary films and novels to address major ethical challenges of the future: the ecological catastrophe, digitalisation and biotechnology. She proposes that fiction and its modes of aesthetic simulation and emotional engagement offer a different way of knowing and judging possible futures. From a critical posthumanist angle, she discusses works ranging from Don DeLillo's Zero K (2017) and Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam Trilogy (2003-2013) to Kim Stanley Robinson's New York 2140 as well as Avatar (2009), and Blade Runner 2049 (2017) among many others.
For the first time, the 92-metre frieze of the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria, one of the largest historical narratives in marble, has been made the subject of a book. The pictorial narrative of the Boer pioneers who conquered South Africa’s interior during the 'Great Trek' (1835-52) represents a crucial period of South Africa’s past. Conceptualising the frieze both reflected on and contributed to the country’s socio-political debates in the 1930s and 1940s when it was made. The book considers the active role the Monument played in the rise of Afrikaner nationalism and the development of apartheid, as well as its place in post-apartheid heritage. The frieze is unique in that it provi...