Begging the questions

Producing Shakespeare for post-apartheid South African schools

Bibliographic Data

ID3658842
AuthorsNatasha Distiller (University of Cape Town, corresponding author)
Year2009
Volume35
Issue1
Pages177-191
Publication date2009-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Dynamics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0253-3952 • E-ISSN: 1940-7874
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/02533950802667335
OpenAlexW2082407752
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited22

This paper examines some of the ways 'Shakespeare' is functioning in the post‐apartheid education system. It is not based on education or textbook theory. Rather, it seeks to test some of the assertions of new historicist and cultural materialist theories by analysing the ideological work performed by editions of Macbeth produced for post‐apartheid schools. It asks questions about Shakespeare in the South African school classroom, and about the relationship of work produced in universities to the broader educational, and cultural, context. Keywords: ShakespeareSouth African educationeditions of Macbethuniversity theory Acknowledgements I would like to thank the reviewers who commented on this paper with such insight. I greatly appreciate their useful comments and suggestions for improvements. This paper draws on the 'Shakespeare in Schools' project, funded by the South African National Research Foundation, GUN no. 2053874. This project interviewed 46 teachers, and Western Cape Department of Education English Subject officials, by means of questionnaires and focus groups, in order to ascertain how Shakespeare was being taught in Grade 12 classrooms in the Western Cape, and to attempt to quantify teachers' reasons for why Shakespeare should be taught in South Africa. For more details, see Distiller (Citation2005). Notes 1. The study of English literature during apartheid was a complex enterprise for most South African learners. Questions were often raised about what literature was appropriate for black South African children, which was related to questions about what literature teaching could and should accomplish. Answers varied according to the political starting point of researchers, from the worst kind of conservatively Christianised 'liberalism' (Mullineux Citation1988, Coetzee Citation1997) to more sensible attempts to review the arguments and to engage with some of the complexities of the South African situation (Walters and England Citation1988, Lenahan Citation1994). 2. 'Learner' is the parlance of the South African Department of Education. The terms 'student', 'pupil' and 'learner' are used interchangeably in this paper. 3. These readings are 20 years old in the academy, and are no longer new. That they have never penetrated the readings of Macbeth at schools or in popular culture is precisely one of the points at issue here. 4. 'Matric', the final year of high school, is, under the post‐apartheid education system, called Grade 12. The language of this comment may date it. Equally, it may indicate that the intended recipients – prospective purchasers – are not current students. 5. Plays earmarked for removal included Anthony and Cleopatra and Othello (for being racist), Julius Caesar ('because it elevates men') and King Lear (for being 'full of violence and despair') (Sunday Times, Citationn.d.). See also BBC News (Citation2001). 6. The other authors discussed are H.I.E. Dhlomo, Mbulelo Mzamane and Ahmed Essop

Begging · Epistemology · Ideology · Library science · Materialism · Pedagogy · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Gender Studies · History · Law · Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism

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