Founded In    1999
Published   quarterly
Language(s)   English
     

Fields of Interest

 

Humanities and Social Sciences

     
ISSN   1543-1304
     
Publisher   Routledge (Taylor and Francis)
     
Editorial Board

Lead Editor:
Andrew van der Vlies - Queen Mary University of London, UK

Editors:
Shane Graham - Utah State University, USA
Karin Shapiro - Duke University, USA

Reviews Editors:
Derek Catsam - University of Texas of the Permian Basin, USA
Annel Pieterse - University of the Western Cape, South Africa
Monica Popescu - McGill University, Canada
Tiffany Willoughby-Herard - University of California, Irvine, USA

International Editorial Board:
Rita Barnard - University of Pennsylvania, USA
Louise Bethlehem - Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Kerry Bystrom - Bard College, USA/Germany
Carrol Clarkson - University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
Nadia Davids - University of Cape Town, South Africa
Michele Elam - Stanford University, USA
Norman Etherington - University of Western Australia, Australia
Jeremy Foster - Cornell University, USA
Albert Grundling - University of Stellenbosch, South Africa
Rick Halpern - University of Toronto, Canada
Stefan Helgesson - Stockholm University, Sweden
Jon Hyslop - Colgate University, USA
Tsitsi Jaji - Duke University, USA
Christopher J. Lee - Lafayette College, USA
Simon Lewis - College of Charleston, USA
Alex Lichtenstein - Indiana University Bloomington, USA
Peter Limb - Michigan State University, USA
Zine Magubane - Boston College, USA
Mandisa Mbali - University of Stellenbosch, South Africa
David Chioni Moore - Macalester College, USA
Brenna Munro - University of Miami, USA
Dana Phillips - Towson University, USA
Peter Rachleff - Macalester College, USA
Pallavi Rastogi - Louisiana State University, USA
Stéphane Robolin - Rutgers University, USA
Steven Robins - University of Stellenbosch, South Africa
Christopher Saunders - University of Cape Town, South Africa
Thula Simpson - University of Pretoria, South Africa
Michael Titlestad - University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
Hedley Twidle - University of Cape Town, South Africa
Robert Vinson - College of William and Mary, USA
Jennifer Wenzel - Columbia University, USA
Luvuyo Wotshela - University of Fort Hare, South Africa

Founding Editor:
Andrew Offenburger - Yale University, USA

Submission Guidelines and Editorial Policies
     
Mailing Address
     

Safundi Publications
P.O. Box 206788
New Haven, CT 06520
(203) 548-9155 / Phone
(203) 548-9177 / Fax
info@safundi.com

Safundi: The Journal of South African and American Studies

ALTTEXT

Safundi -- "S" represents "South Africa," "a" stands for "America," and "fundi" comes from the Xhosa verb, "-funda," which translates as "to read/learn."

Safundi is an online community of scholars, professionals, and others interested in comparing and contrasting the United States of America with the Republic of South Africa.

Our journal, Safundi: The Journal of South African and American Studies, is the centerpiece of our online community. We believe that analyzing the two countries in a comparative and transnational context enhances our perspective on each, individually. While new comparative research is the focus of the journal, we also publish articles specifically addressing one country, provided the articles are of interest to the comparative scholar. Furthermore, our subject matter is as permeable as any country's border: we will consider research addressing other colonial and postcolonial states in Southern Africa and North America.

Articles that Safundi publishes are academic in nature. Research papers are reviewed as they are submitted. Scholarly essays are welcomed. Any topic may be addressed. We hope to provide our readers with a diverse and insightful collection of articles in each issue.

We publish on a quarterly basis. Our journal is peer-reviewed. Submissions are vetted by the editors-in-chief and the editorial board before they are accepted for publication.

The views expressed in the articles are those of the authors and not of the editors or of Safundi itself.

 

» Visit Journal Web Site

May 2002, Issue 09

Ripple of Hope in the Land of Apartheid: Robert F. Kennedy in South Africa, June 4th-9th, 1966


Through the use of a multimedia website, Shore examines the historical context and significance of Senator Robert Kennedy's June 1966 visit to South Africa.

Youth, Popular Culture, and Identity: American Influences on South Africa and Lesotho


Beginning in the early twentieth century and continuing through today, American culture in general, and more specifically African-American culture and identity, has played a significant role in the construction of identity, popular culture, and the struggle for equality in southern Africa. Of particular interest is how American culture (particularly the African-American component), mediated through South Africa, has impacted the political and cultural identity of Basotho youth in the 1990s. Basotho and South African youth identify with aspects of American culture that provide them with new meanings, which help negotiate their landscape. As an enclave in South Africa, Lesotho not only illustrates the impact of aspects of American culture on South Africa, but in this case has also contributed to a decreasing national identity that is being replaced by an increased identification with South Africa.

Women in the Interregnum: Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and Nadine Gordimer’s July’s People


This essay is a comparative study of two novels about women caught in a liminal position, as the society in which they live enters a period of profound change. Both protagonists are irresistibly drawn to the possibilities of change, even though these possibilities are indefinable and their pursuit perilous and traumatic, because the women find themselves marginalized by the present patriarchal structure of society, in which they find no fulfilling role. Moreover, this society in each case is a historical anomaly�further marginalizing each protagonist�although the beginning of transition points toward a form of potential normalization: one of these societies is New Orleans in the late nineteenth century, the other South Africa a century later. The authors of the fictive depictions of these societies are the American Kate Chopin, who died in 1904, and South African Nadine Gordimer, born in 1923; obviously, therefore, Chopin could not have read Gordimer�s work, and there is no actual evidence that the well-read Gordimer has in fact read Chopin�s. It is all the more interesting, then, that their female protagonists should experience the upheavals of societal transformation in such remarkably similar ways. The parallels suggest that there is a universal element not only to the struggles of a new society attempting to define itself, but also to the struggles of women attempting to define a position for themselves within it. As the experiences of Chopin�s and Gordimer�s protagonists reveal, the options available to women during an interregnum are far more complex and ambiguous than simply rejecting the old and embracing the new.

South African and North American Treks


The author comparatively reviews The Great Treks. The Transformation of Southern Africa, 1815-1854, by Norman Etherington. London: Pearson, 2001, 366pp. ISBN 0582 315670

Multicultural Feminism Transforming Democracy


The author discusses Critical Race Feminism and Kimberl� Crenshaw�s observation that the theoretical erasure of Black women in legal scholarship leads to their actual erasure in the law. This concept serves as a point of departure to look for answers to the following question: What protection do Black women receive under the constitutions of the United States and South Africa?

Other Issues

July 2013, Volume 14, Number 3
April 2007, Volume 8, Number 2
January 2007, Volume 8, Number 1
Deterritorializing American Culture, 23
Safundi Issue 22, Issue 22
George Fredrickson's White Supremacy , Issue 21
October 2005, Issue 20
July 2005, Issue 19
April 2005, Issue 18
January 2005, Issue 17
October 2004, Issue 16
July 2004, Issue 15
April 2004, Issue 13-14
October 2003, Issue 12
July 2003, Issue 11
April 2003, Issue 10
February 2002, Issue 08
November 2001, Issue 07
July 2001, Issue 06
April 2001, Issue 05
January 2001, Issue 04
October 2000, Issue 03
July 2000, Issue 02