Metamorphosis and Sexuality
Reading the Strange Passions of Disgrace
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9250669 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Pamela Cooper (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2005 |
| Volume | 36 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 22-39 |
| Publication date | 2005-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Research in African Literatures (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0034-5210 • E-ISSN: 1527-2044 |
| Publisher | Indiana University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.2979/ral.2005.36.4.22 |
| OpenAlex | W2051106273 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
| References cited | 10 |
This essay investigates the processes of change in Disgrace as they are articulated through sexuality and related to the sociopolitical shifts underway in postapartheid South Africa. I argue that sexuality becomes a trope in the novel for wider historical changes: a way of engaging the complex social relations of the "new" South Africa and relating them to the conventional assumptions of the past. Through his protagonist Lurie, a literary scholar, Coetzee situates both sexual desire and social transformation in the epistemological framework of the Western intellectual tradition: the novel's many references to literary works and myth activate this framework. By examining sexuality specifically in the perspective of these allusions, I show that Coetzee's vision of change is inseparable from the unresolved destiny of Anglo-European traditions in South Africa, as well as from the ghosts of colonialism and the modes of knowledge and representation that it bequeathed
Art · Biology · Human sexuality · Linguistics · Literature · Metamorphosis · Passions · Psychoanalysis · Reading (process) · Sociology · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues · Ecology · French Historical and Cultural Studies · Gender Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · History · Philosophy · Psychology
| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,32 |
| Citation span | 2007 - 2018 (12) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |