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BackgroundGiven the high levels of homophobia that exist in South Africa, including in its schools and universities, it is imperative that university lecturers develop integrated and transdisciplinary curriculums to educate pre-service teachers about sexuality and to empower them to incorporate lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI)-inclusive resources into their own classrooms.AimThis study aimed to contribute to the scholarship of teaching and learning by reflecting on how English literary studies can contribute to sexuality education.SettingThe context for this study is a specific undergraduate English module that forms part of the foundation phase and intermediate phase teacher education curriculums at the University of Johannesburg.MethodsThis study is a self-reflective analysis of how the methodology of close reading, which is central to English literary studies, can be used to support sexuality education.ResultsDespite the prevalence of homophobia in South African society, when undergraduate students in this English module (n = 356) were asked to write an essay about the representation of same-sex sexuality in a short animated film, none of them made homophobic comments.ConclusionPaying particular attention to the analytical methodology of close reading, the author argues that a narrow focus on the storytelling techniques used within a narrative text – in a way that deliberately excludes students’ personal opinions about same-sex sexualities – offers a powerful way of facilitating a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of homophobia and heteronormativity.

This article traces both the centrality and fragility of the figure of the heterosexual white male to the moral and ideological core of the apartheid regime. Through a comparative reading of Zakes Mda’s The Madonna of Excelsior (2002) and Gerald Kraak’s Ice in the Lungs (2006), the article examines how apartheid’s Immorality Act functioned as the legislative mechanism to produce and police heteronormative whiteness. The randomness and unpredictability of sexual desire in both historical novels expose the tenuousness of this idealised heteronormative whiteness that lay at the centre of the apartheid project. Situated within the moral panic and political turmoil of the 1970s, the novels identify sex as a powerful lens through which to read the history of apartheid. While Mda’s satirical novel focuses on transgressive interracial sexual desire, Kraak’s realist text explores same-sex desire and intimacy. My reading of the two novels engages with the political history of apartheid’s sexual policing and insists on the inextricable entanglement of its heteronormative and racial supremacist provisions. The traditional ideological centrality of the vulnerable white woman is displaced in the novels by white men whose transgressive sexual desires for black women (in Mda’s novel) and other white men (in Kraak’s) refuse the certainty and naturalness of heteronormative whiteness.

In A Monologue in Two Voices, Sandra Saayman argues that Breyten Breytenbach’s poetry and prose should be read alongside his paintings and drawings. The book focuses particularly on the literary and visual texts that Breytenbach produced during and about his imprisonment in the 1970s and 1980s. Saayman considers not only representations of the personal experiences of the author/artist but she also identifies instances in which Breytenbach engages with broader political issues including the death of Steve Biko, progressive Afrikaner identities, and postapartheid nationalism. Much of the book’s archival and academic value lies in its beautiful reproductions of more than 40 of Breytenbach’s drawings and paintings, including nine pencil drawings that have never before appeared in print.

BackgroundThe measures imposed to curb the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in early 2020 meant that many higher education institutions (HEIs) had to shift rapidly to remote teaching and learning (RTL). Given the unique demands of teacher education programmes, the question of the extent to which RTL and similar modes of teaching and learning are suited to the preparation of primary school teachers to teach in South African schools is an important one.AimThe aim of the study was to explore the experiences and perceptions of teacher educators (TEs) towards this rapid shift to RTL.SettingThe study took place in one department in a faculty of education in an urban South African university.MethodsThis study took the form of a qualitative case study. Data was gathered by means semistructured individual interviews and focus group discussions.ResultsFirstly, it was found that mixed responses to the change to RTL at the outset gave way to a general consensus about the long-term value of blended learning. Secondly, it was found that the change to RTL had a positive effect on TEs’ teaching, given increased familiarity with, and integration of, technology, as well as the accompanying revisions to both pedagogy and curricula. Thirdly, the data showed that TEs perceived RTL as limiting because of two main factors, namely students’ lack of information and communication technology (ICT) resources and because, in their estimation, teacher education uniquely requires contact teaching. Finally, it was found that the change to RTL created additional psychological stressors for both students and staff.ConclusionBased on this study’s findings, the authors advocate for more recognition and support for the emotional work performed by TEs during times of transition. They also argue that TEs should be given more responsibility in moulding blended teaching and learning practices according to their experiences of the successes and challenges of RTL.

In this article we provide a close reading of selected poems written during creative writing workshops at a drug rehabilitation centre. We argue that these poems expose some of the uncertainties and complexities that characterise the representation of identity in experiences of addiction and recovery. We show that the speakers in these poems attempt to imagine and represent their experiences in language through a number of structuring binaries. These binaries include those between the speaker’s experiences of active addiction and recovery, and the speaker’s personal experience versus societal expectations and perceptions. Our reading of these poems is informed by the clinical context in which they were written, and our analysis reflects the bifurcation that governs this liminal space. Individual agency in these different spheres is approached in a very tentative way, and the speakers in these poems are shown to have trouble envisioning the future at the same time as their pasts appear unsettled. We argue finally that while current discourses and vocabularies surrounding addiction seem incomplete and inadequate for the expression of some complex experiences, poetry provides a platform that accommodates ambivalence and a multiplicity of meanings. (On)afhanklinke betekenis: Voorstellings van verslawing en herstel in geselekteerde gedigte geskryf in ’n rehabilitasiesentrum. Hierdie artikel ondersoek ’n aantal geselekteerde gedigte wat geskryf is tydens kreatiewe skryfwerkswinkels aangebied by ’n dwelmrehabilitasiekliniek. Ons voer aan dat hierdie gedigte sommige onsekerhede en kompleksiteite blootlê wat die representasie van identiteit in ervarings van verslawing en herstel kenmerk. Ons toon aan dat die sprekers in hierdie gedigte probeer het om hulle ervarings deur ’n aantal binêre teenstellings in taal te versinnebeeld. Dít sluit in die teenstelling tussen die spreker se ervaring van aktiewe verslawing en herstel, en die spreker se persoonlike ervaring teenoor maatskaplike verwagtinge en persepsies. Ons interpretasies van hierdie gedigte word gerig deur die kliniese konteks waarbinne hulle geskep is, terwyl ons ontleding die splitsing weerspieël wat hierdie liminale ruimte oorheers. Individuele agentskap binne hierdie verskillende gebiede word op tentatiewe wyse benader, en daar word aangedui hoe die sprekers in hierdie gedigte met moeite ’n toekoms insien terwyl hul verledes terselfdertyd rusteloos voorkom. Uiteindelik argumenteer ons dat terwyl teenswoordige diskoerse en uitdrukkingsmoontlikhede betreffende verslawing onvolledig en onvoldoende blyk te wees vir die uiting van veelvuldige ervarings, bied juis die poësie ’n platform wat teenstrydighede en menigvuldige betekenisse kan akkommodeer.

Part 2 of the novel details his experiences in Cape Town as he makes sense of the intersections of race and nationality while navigating the turmoil of being a young foreign national who is desperate to escape the high expectations of his family and the broader Rwandan diaspora in Namibia. The probability of Maxime, a Congolese immigrant who lied to refugee status determination officers about throwing a stone at the president's motorcade during a protest, and subsequently being pursued by the military police from Kinshasa to Lumbubashi before escaping to Zambia, commuting by bus and truck to Cape Town, holding an entire rugby-mad Newlands restaurant hostage on the day the Springboks played the All Blacks was as ludicrous as one ant threatening to storm and take Table Mountain. On multiple occasions, the protagonist experiences both overt and casual racism in Cape Town, including when a security guard only asks the black and coloured people to sign in and out of a university residence; and when a white friend, Andrew, expresses surprise that it is Séraphin \"of all the black guys\" (439) who becomes sexually involved with his love interest.

Through a comparative reading of four queer-themed South African short stories published in the 2010s, this article argues that recent South African short fiction brings new subtleties and nuances to the straightforward and often-unproblematized valorization of queer \"visibility.\" The article contends that the stories foreground the intersectionality of queer visibility in post-apartheid South Africa—pointing to some of the ways in which the contemporary South African moment continues to be defined by hetero-patriarchal norms, class disparities, and racialized divisions. The article further examines how the stories create textured queer visibilities that humanize queer subjectivities and subvert dominant racialized and gendered discourses in the post-apartheid present.

A Gap in the Hedge begins with a somewhat obscure declaration from the narrator: “I reckon it’s very mean to cut a man out of the world and leave only his shadow. What if it gets lonely, misses itself? Because it does, you know?” (7).