A selection.

2021

This thesis examines the role that speculative fiction plays in imagining the city spaces of the future. Considering the rapid pace of change that has marked post-apartheid South Africa as an impetus for emerging literary traditions within contemporary South African speculative fiction, the argument begins by sketching the connections between South Africa's transition to democracy and the emerging speculative texts which mark this period. Positioning speculative fiction as an umbrella term that incorporates a wide selection of generic traditions, the thesis engages with dystopian impulses, science fiction, magical realism and apocalyptic rhetoric. Through theoretical explication, close reading, and textual comparison, the argument initiates a dialogue between genre theory and urban theory as a means of (re)imagining and (re)mapping the city spaces of post-apartheid Cape Town and Johannesburg

2016

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.

Politikon, 1978

This article focusses on South Africa's position regarding the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; an issue which was pushed into prominence by the Russian allegation in August 1977 that the Republic was on the verge of testing a nuclear device. The Soviet Union's objective was to embarrass the Western powers during the Lagos Conference on Apartheid, as well as to bring them in disrepute among African countries during the sessions of various United Nations bodies where South Africa's nuclear potential was discussed. Subsequent reaction from especially the United States shows that the Carter Administration will use continued nuclear cooperation with the Republic as a lever to press for political change and to secure South Africa's adherence to the NPT. The Republic has however steadfastly declined to sign the NPT. although it has made clear on several occasions that it will not allow its uranium sales to be used to increase the number of nuclear-weapon states. South Africa's refusal to sign the NPT does not necessarily reflect any desire to acquire nuclear weapons, but rather a fear that the application of "safeguards" might be economically harmful to the Republic's uranium mining industry, while the development of a new enrichment process has finally raised real concerns about possible commercial espionage. It would seem very unlikely that South Africa has in actual fact produced a nuclear device, but it would also seem imperative for the Republic neither to surrender nor to exercise the nuclear option-especially seen in the light of the peculiar politico-economic and military-strategic position it finds itself in in the international arena. South Africa's high-level nuclear technology is seen as a valuable diplomatic and strategic bargaining counter with the super powers, as well as with Black Africa. The Republic is in potential conflict with African states over its racial policies, and should its present superiority in conventional weapons be eroded by UN mandatory arms embargoes, South African strategists may begin to consider a nuclear deterrent not only as feasible, but indeed as absolutely essential. Presently, however, it is difficult to see the military value of nuclear weapons for a state whose main threat takes the form of insurgency promoted from beyond its borders. •This is the text of a talk given to the Transkei Branch of the SAIIA in Umtata on 16 November, 1977, and is based on short comments made at the Institute's monthly meeting on current international developments on

Nuclear Trends South Africa , 2024

Nuclear Trends South Africa is my newsletter on the evolving South Africa nuclear landscape as the country considers it nuclear future. This is the second issue, published on 17 November 2024.

History Compass, 2010

In March 1993, South African State President F. W. de Klerk stunned the world with an announcement that the South African Apartheid Government had developed six and a half nuclear bombs during a top-secret 15-year programme. A number of factors led to the decision to develop nuclear weapons; the most important being Pretoria’s fear from the mid-1970s that a communist takeover in Southern Africa was imminent and that they needed a suitable deterrent to ensure the security of South Africa and their own position of power. It was specifically the involvement of Cuba and the Soviet Union in the Angolan Civil War that led Pretoria to a formal decision in 1978 to develop a limited nuclear capability. At the end of the 1980s, however, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola, the independence of Namibia, and the imminent democratisation of South Africa brought a rapid end to the perceived ideological and security threat to South Africa and indeed made the deterrence factor of the nuclear arsenal obsolete. In August 1989, Pretoria decided to destroy the arsenal, thereby becoming the first country to voluntarily destroy a nuclear arsenal before acceding to the NPT, which happened in July 1991. This article provides a chronological overview of Apartheid South Africa’s development of a nuclear arsenal, within the framework of the Cold War.

International Security, 2002

The case has been made that through the post-apartheid transition, notions such as 'South African literature' have come to outlive their usefulness. Transnationality, the global knowledge economy, and the influence of poststructural and postcolonial theory are cited as factors which have diminished the analytic worth of a nationally defined canon. Critics have also pointed to an emergent cultural heteroglossia associated with the loss of the anti-apartheid project. Since 1994, many literary and popular texts written within or about South Africa, or by South African authors, have explored a wide range of themes and genres, lending support to this view. I argue, however, that growing instability around matters of social justice will continue to impose itself on the attention of writers, and that the conventions of South African writing will be modified rather than abandoned. I argue further that a case can be made for a criticism that is cognisant of the conversation between local and global, but is equally cognisant of how the national space itself both concentrates and splinters the material engaged by more cross-cutting forms of theory. The argument is related to 'post-transition' narratives that show elements of continuity and rupture: Rumours by Mongane Wally Serote, Wall of Days (2010) by Alastair Bruce, The Smell of Apples (1995) by Mark Behr and Bad Sex (2011) by Leon de Kock.

African Identities, 2014

In this essay we demonstrate how the burgeoning field of South African crime fiction has responded to the birth and development of a democratic, post-apartheid South African state. First, an overview of South African crime fiction in the last twenty years is presented. Then the essay presents an argument for South African crime fiction to be regarded as the 'new political novel', based on its capacity for socio-political analysis. In the following section, the genre-snob debate and the resurgence of such terms as 'lowbrow' and 'highbrow' are considered in relation to crime fiction and the role it plays in the socio-cultural arena of post-apartheid South Africa. We conclude with a comment on the significance of popular literary genres for democracy and critical discourses which underpin that democracy. The essay shows that crime fiction is a strong tool for socio-political analysis in a democratic South Africa, because it promotes critical discourse in society, despite it being deemed lowbrow or ideologically ambiguous.

After the formal end of the apartheid period in 1994, some writers and critics expressed a sense of unease about the future of South African literature. Yet, the post-apartheid period has produced an array of texts on topics not previously part of South African literary discourse. Writing from the transitional period for the most part turned inward, working in or against the confessional mode modeled by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. During the current post-transitional period, marked loosely by the publication of J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace in 1999, a younger generation of writers has begun to represent new social issues surrounding difference and inequality, especially representations of Black women, gays and lesbians, and migrants. Recent critical approaches to this literature have offered valuable conceptual tools for further research.