“College girls don't faint”

The legacy of elsewhere

Bibliographic Data

ID20156648
AuthorsPamela Ryan (University of South Africa, corresponding author)
Year2004
Volume20
Issue1-2
Pages25-47
Publication date2004-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Literary Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0256-4718 • E-ISSN: 1753-5387
PublisherUnisa Press (PUBLISHER • ZA)
DOI10.1080/02564710408530342
OpenAlexW2064421656
LanguageEN
References cited15

This article is an attempt to pursue a localised cultural history of private girls’ schooling in Natal during the apartheid era. Using an autobiographical lens, it looks at the traces of Victorian rhetoric and its codification within a feminine/feminist militarism evident in the speeches and songs as well as social and cultural practices of Durban Girls’ College, a Presbyterian school in Durban. Using archival material and memory, my own and others’, to trace the signs of “Englishness” in the formation of identity in white girls coming from mainly privileged backgrounds, I direct a self‐reflexive gaze at the effects of such schooling on attitudes to race and culture prevalent at the time. In parallel, however, I also examine some archival material from Inanda Seminary, College's “sister” school, which has a different provenance, but which also catered for the privileged members of Zulu society. While I do not pretend to engage in a fully developed comparison of these schools, I hope to show that similar expectations about conduct and class were brought to bear on white and black girls in Natal during a specific historical period

Aesthetics · Art · Militarism · Political science · Rhetoric · Sociology · Zulu · Gender Roles and Identity Studies · Gender Studies · Historical Education Studies Worldwide · History · Law · South African History and Culture

Tools

Open DOISci-HubOpen Access