Abstract
Testing Benedict Anderson’s thesis that nations are communities imagined principally in the medium of the printed word, this chapter surveys South African print culture from the decade between the South African War (1899–1902) and the moment of Union (1910). Focusing upon the two written forms identified by Anderson as central in imagining national communities — novels and newspapers — the question posed is: how did print culture contribute to the constitution of the postcolonial South African nation?1 On the basis of this one case study, I reflect briefly upon the relationship between print culture and postcolonial African nationalisms.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Abdurahman, Abdullah, ‘To the Coloured People of South Africa’, APO, 4 June 1910.
Adhikari, Mohamed, ‘Voice of the Coloured Elite: APO, 1909–1923’, in South Africa’s Alternative Press, ed. Les Switzer (Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 127–46.
Anderson, Benedict, The Spectre of Comparisons: Nationalism, Southeast Asia and the World (London: Verso, 1998).
— Under Three Flags: Anarchism and the Anti-Colonial Imagination (London: Verso, 2005).
— Imagined Communities, rev. edn (London: Verso, 2006).
Barber, Karin, ‘Audiences and the Book in Africa’, Current Writing, 13:2 (2001), pp. 9–19.
Barlow, Monica, ‘The Clouded Face of Truth: A Review of the South African Newspaper Press Approaching Union’ (PhD thesis, University of Bristol, 1988).
Beaumont, Jacqueline, ‘The Times at War, 1899–1902’, in The South African War Reappraised, ed. Donal Lowry (Manchester University Press, 2000), pp. 67–149.
Chrisman, Laura, ‘The Imperial Romance’, in The Cambridge History of South African Literature, ed. David Attwell and Derek Attridge (Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 226–45.
Christopher, A. J., ‘A South African Domesday Book: The First Union Census of 1911’, South African Geographical Journal, 92:1 (2010), pp. 22–34.
Couzens, Tim, ‘The Black Press and Black Literature in South Africa, 1900–1950’, English Studies in Africa, 19:2 (1976), pp. 93–9.
Culler, Jonathan, ‘Anderson and the Novel’, in Grounds of Comparison: Around the Work of Benedict Anderson, ed. Jonathan Culler and Pheng Cheah (New York and London: Routledge, 2003), pp. 29–52.
‘Debating Society Scene. Nationalism: True or False? Candidates Walk Out in Protest’, Transvaal Leader, 23 August 1910.
Dehan, Richard, The Dop Doctor (London: William Heinemann, 1910).
Dube, John. ‘Editorial’, Ilanga Lase Natal, 9 April 1909.
Duff, S. E., ‘“Education for Every Son and Daughter of South Africa”: Race, Class, and the Compulsory Education Debate in South Africa’, in Mass Education and the Limits of State-Building, c. 1870–1930, ed. Lawrence Brockliss and Nicola Sheldon (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 261–82.
Godoza, ‘Letter to the Editor’, Ilanga Lase Natal, 19 February 1909.
‘The Guildhall Banquet’, The Times, 10 November 1909.
Hartshorne, Ken, Crisis and Challenge: Black Education, 1910–1990 (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1992).
Hobson, J. A., The War in South Africa (London: Nisbet, 1900).
Hofmeyr, Isabel, Gandhi’s Printing Press: Experiments in Slow Reading (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013).
Jabavu, John Tengo, ‘Editorial’, Imvo Zabantsundu, 9 February 1909.
Kearny, Jack, Representing Dissension: Riot, Rebellion and Resistance in the South African Novel (Pretoria: Unisa Press, 2003).
L., D., ‘South Africa in English Fiction, 1902–1909’, The Bulletin, 3 (October 1909), pp. 187–91.
Leibson, S. G., ‘The South Africa of Fiction’, The State, 7:2 (February 1912), pp. 135–9.
Limb, Peter, Norman Etherington and Peter Midgley (eds), Grappling with the Beast: Indigenous Southern African Responses to Colonialism, 1840–1930 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2010).
Malherbe, Ernst G., Education in South Africa, vol. I: 1652–1922 (Cape Town: Juta, 1925).
— Education and the Poor White. Report of the Carnegie Commission (Stellenbosch: Pro-Ecclesia Drukkery, 1932).
Marks, Shula, ‘War and Union, 1899–1910’, in The Cambridge History of South Africa, vol. 2, ed. Robert Ross, Anne Mager and Bill Nasson (Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 157–210.
Masilela, Ntongela, ‘African Intellectual and Literary Responses to Modernity in South Africa’, in Grappling with the Beast: Indigenous Southern African Responses to Colonialism, 1840–1930, ed. Peter Limb, Norman Etherington and Peter Midgley (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2010), pp. 245–76.
Mendelssohn, Sidney, A South African Bibliography to the Year 1925: Being a Revision and Continuation of Sidney Mendelssohn’s South African Bibliography (1910) (London: Mansell, 1979).
Merrington, Peter, ‘Masques, Monuments and Masons: The 1910 Pageant and the Union of South Africa’, in Literature of Region and Nation, ed. Winnifred M. Bogaards (Saint John: University of New Brunswick Press, 1998), pp. 278–99.
Mesthrie, Uma Shashikant, ‘From Advocacy to Mobilization: Indian Opinion, 1903–1914’, in South Africa’s Alternative Press, ed. Les Switzer (Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 99–126.
Mitford, Bertram, Aletta: A Tale of the Boer Invasion (London: F. V. White, 1900).
Monsman, Gerald, Colonial Voices: The Anglo-African High Romance of Empire (New Orleans: University Press of the South, 2010).
‘Notes and Comments’, The South African Bookman, 1 (August 1910), pp. 1–3.
Odendaal, André, The Founders: The Origins of the ANC and the Struggle for Democracy in South Africa (Auckland Park: Jacana, 2012).
Pells, E. G., European, Coloured and Native Education in South Africa, 1652–1938 (Cape Town: Juta and Company, 1938).
Rosenthal, Eric and L. E. Neame, Today’s News Today: The Story of the Argus Company (Johannesburg: Argus, 1956).
Rossouw, Fransie, South African Printers and Publishers, 1795–1925 (Cape Town: South African Library, 1987).
Schreiner, Olive, Closer Union: A Letter on the South African Union and the Principles of Government (Cape Town: Constitutional Reform Association, 1909).
Seme, Pixley, ‘Native Union’, Imvo Zabantsundu, 24 October 1911.
‘Sir Thomas Cullinan, Meeting at Premier Mine’, The Star, 10 August 1910.
Snyman, J. P. L., The South African Novel in English (1880–1930) (The University of Potchefstroom Press, 1952).
Soga, A. K., ‘Editorial’, Izwi Labantu, 16 March 1909.
Sommer, Doris, ‘Irresistible Romance: The Foundational Fictions of Latin America’, in Nation and Narration, ed. Homi K. Bhabha (London: Routledge, 1990), pp. 71–98.
‘The South African Census’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 15 August 1911.
Starfield, Jane, ‘“Not quite history”: The Autobiographies of H. Selby Msimang and R. V. Selope Thema and the Writing of South African History’, Social Dynamics, 14:2 (1988), pp. 16–35.
Switzer, Les, ‘Bantu World and the Origins of a Captive African Commercial Press’, in South Africa’s Alternative Press: Voices of Protest and Resistance, 1880s–1960s, ed. Les Switzer (Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 189–212.
— ‘Introduction: South Africa’s Alternative Press in Perspective’, in South Africa’s Alternative Press: Voices of Protest and Resistance, 1880s–1960s, ed. Les Switzer (Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 1–53.
Thema, R. V. Selope, ‘Out of Darkness: From Cattle-Herding to the Editor’s Chair’, File AD 1787, South African Institute of Race Relations Papers, University of Witwatersrand.
Trumpener, Katie, Bardic Nationalism: The Romantic Novel and the British Empire (Princeton University Press, 1997).
‘The Union of South Africa’, The Times, 31 May 1910.
Union Statistics for Fifty Years: Jubilee Issue 1910–1960 (Pretoria: Bureau of Census and Statistics, 1960).
Visser, Nic, ‘Postcoloniality of a Special Type: Theory and its Appropriations in South Africa’, Yearbook of English Studies, 27 (1997), pp. 79–94.
‘The War and the Book Trade’, The Bookman, 17:100 (January 1900), pp. 106–7.
Weinstock, Donald J., ‘The Two Boer Wars and the Jameson Raid: A Checklist of Novels in English’, Research in African Literatures, 3:1 (1972), pp. 60–7.
‘What Union Means to Coloured Races: Indian and Coloured People have no Cause to Rejoice’, Indian Opinion, 11 June 1910.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2015 David Johnson
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Johnson, D. (2015). Print Culture and Imagining the Union of South Africa. In: Davis, C., Johnson, D. (eds) The Book in Africa. New Directions in Book History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137401625_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137401625_6
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-48644-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-40162-5
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)