
Associate Professor Meg Samuelson
Associate Professor
School of Humanities
Faculty of Arts
Eligible to supervise Masters and PhD - email supervisor to discuss availability.
I joined the Department of English & Creative Writing at the University of Adelaide in 2017, after holding positions at the University of Cape Town and Stellenbosch University in South Africa.
My research and teaching interests include: African and South African literatures; Australian literatures; Anthropocene thought and the environmental humanities; coastal and maritime literary and cultural studies; critical theory and literary debates; Indian Ocean studies; postcolonial, global south, southern hemisphere and world literatures; women's writing and theories of gender. I work primarily on literary texts, but also have projects that focus on photography and film, and other cultural forms. I welcome enquiries from prospective MPhil and PhD students interested in these or cognate areas.
I currently serve as postgraduate coordinator in the Department of English & Creative Writing and chair of the School of Humanities Research Committee and am a member of the JM Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice and the Fay Gale Centre for Research on Gender at the University of Adelaide. I lead the research themes 'Stories from the South' in the School of Humanities and 'Transnationalism' in the JM Coetzee Centre. I am also an associate member of the Observatory for the Societies of the Indian Ocean (University of Reunion, Reunion Island, France) and of Oceanic Humanities in the Global South (Wiser, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa) and hold an honorary appointment as associate professor extraordinary in English at Stellenbosch University (South Africa). I serve on the editorial/advisory boards of a number of academic journals and book series and co-edit the Palgrave MacMillan series on Maritime Literature and Culture.
- My Research
- Career
- Publications
- Grants and Funding
- Teaching
- Supervision
- Professional Activities
- Contact
CURRENT BOOK PROJECTS IN PROGRESS
- 'The Sea and Shore in South African Literatures: Tidelines'. Work in progress. Contracted with Palgrave Macmillan for publication in 2021.
- 'Amphibian Aesthetics: Writing from the African Indian Ocean Littoral'. Work in progress.
- 'Photographic Culture in Zanzibar, 1868-2018'. Co-authored with Pamila Gupta. Work in progress.
CURRENT ARTICLES & BOOK CHAPTERS IN PROGRESS
- 'Dis/composing Waters: K. Sello Duiker's Thirteen Cents'. Under preparation for special issue of Interventions: A Journal of Postcolonial Studies on 'Reading for Water in Southern African Literature', ed. Isabel Hofmeyr, Charne Lavery and Sarah Nuttall.
- 'Hydro-epistemologies of the Oceanic South: Thinking through Turbulence, Drift and Other Fluid Dynamics'. Under preparation for special issue of Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities on 'Water', ed. Tomek Sikora and Ewa Macura-Nnamdi.
- 'Fire/Bushfire'. Under preparation for Energized: Keywords for a New Politics of Energy and Environment, ed. Imre Szeman and Jennifer Wenzel. West Virginia University Press (Energy and Society Series).
- 'Literary Scholarship as the Practice of Care'. Forthcoming in Literary Humanities in the Global South: The Case of University Pedagogies, ed. Dan Ojwang and Khwezi Mkhize. Routledge (Transdisiplinary Souths Series).
See PUBLICATIONS for my forthcoming and published research
RESEARCH PRESENTATIONS, SELECTED & RECENT
Conference keynote addresses
- 'Reparative Aesthetics: Enduring Violence and the Practice of Care'. Dissensus in the Postcolonial Anglophone World: History, Politics and Aesthetics. Université de Lille, France. 31 Jan-1 Feb 2019.
- ‘Coastal Thought: Keywords from 40 Cs’. Indian Ocean: Ecotones, Contact Zones, and Third Spaces. Ecotones 3. Observatory for Indian Ocean Societies, University of Reunion; EMMA (Université Paul Valéry Montpellier 3) & MIGRINTER (CNRS-Université de Poitiers), Saint-Denis, Reunion, France, 14-16 June 2018.
- ‘From Manichean to Amphibian Aesthetics: Narrating and Framing the Eastern African Indian Ocean Littoral’. Textualities of Space: Connections, Intricacies, and Intimacies. 2nd Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies Conference. Makerere University and Stellenbosch University, Kampala, Uganda, 20-22 August 2015.
- ‘The Blue Metropolis: Writing on Water in Contemporary South African Cities’. Cities in Flux: Metropolitan Spaces in South African Literary and Visual Texts. University of Basel, Switzerland, 9-10 June 2015.
- ‘From Indian Ocean Pasts to African-Asian Presents: Before the Cape, From the Cape, @ the Cape’. Re-Thinking African-Asian Relationships: Changing Realities—New Concepts. AFRASO, Goethe University, Frankfurt, and Confucius Centre, Stellenbosch University, Cape Town, South Africa, 25-27 March 2015.
Selected other unpublished presentations (since 2015)
- 'Tidal Knowledge, Tidal Form: Ocean Dynamics and Creative-Critical Practice' (forthcoming). Oceanic Imaginations: Fluid Histories and Mobile Cultures. Virtual Workshop, Columbia University, New York, 6-8 May 2021. Invited.
- ‘Doubling, drift, depth and melt: the haunts of the oceanic south’ (forthcoming). Returning to the Gothic Ocean: Maritime, Marine and Aquatic Uncanny in Southern Waters. Virtual Symposium, James Cooke University and University of Melbourne, 12 February 2021. Invited.
- 'Waterways of Knowing: Thinking from the South and at the Ends of the World'. Post-Imperial Oceanics. Online Conference, University of California at Berkeley, 4-5 November 2020. Invited.
- 'An Indian Ocean Australia? Toward an archipelagic paradigm'. Reading and Writing Australian Literature, ASAL2020 Virtual Conference, 29 June-2 July 2020.
- 'Thinking with pandemics, pangolins and poets'. The ZOO/m Salon: The Situation We Find Ourselves In. Department of English and Creative Writing, University of Adelaide, 19 June 2020.
- 'Moving frames and circulating subjects: photographic reflections on Indian Ocean Africa'. Indian Ocean: Circulations and Representations. Conference. NILUS Project and University of Lisbon, Lisbon, 5-6 December 2019. Invited and funded.
- ‘Reading for Water in Thirteen Cents’. Reading for Water, Online Workshop, ‘Oceanic Humanities for the Global South’, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2 October 2020. Invited.
- 'Freddie's first photographer...'. Cloth and Paper: Queer Materialities. History Trust and Migration Museum, Adelaide, 16 May 2019. Invited.
- ‘Writing Southern Worlds: The Case of J.M. Coetzee’. World Literature: Postcolonial Perspectives. University Delhi, University of Potsdam & Thesis Eleven Centre for Cultural Sociology at La Trobe University, Delhi, India, 15-17 March 2018. Invited and funded.
- ‘Toward the Blue Southern Hemisphere’, Further South. Roundtable. ‘Other Worlds’ ARC Discovery Project & Department of English and Creative Writing, University of Adelaide, Australia, 15 February 2018. Invited.
- ‘Writing sexual and “slow” violence in dehumanizing and more-than-human times: Lauretta Ngcobo’s And they didn’t die and Karen Jayes’s For the Mercy of Water’. Representations of Gendered Violence in Cultural Texts of the Global South. University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, 5-6 December 2017. Invited and funded.
- ‘Indian Ocean/Southern Ocean: Thinking across the South’. Conference of the Observatory of Indian Ocean Societies, University of Reunion, Saint-Denis, Reunion, 23-24 November 2017. Invited and funded.
- ‘Blue perspectives on the (post)colonial Anthropocene in two novels from South Africa’. H2O: Life and Death. Symposium. JM Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice, University of Adelaide, Australia, 15-16 September 2017.
- ‘Thinking from the Cape to the Southern Ocean’. From Ponte to Perth. Another Antipodes Gallery & Thesis Eleven Centre for Cultural Sociology at La Trobe University, Freemantle, Australia, 30 June 2017. Invited and funded.
- ‘On the (South African) beach: shifting frames’. Writing Place, Pushing Genre: Adventures across South African and Australia. Curtin University & Thesis Eleven Centre for Cultural Sociology at La Trobe University, Perth, Australia, 29 June 2017. Invited and funded.
- ‘Neoliberal citadels or the city-in-common? From the ‘architecture of fear’ to the practice of care in post-apartheid South African literature’. Mapping the Emotional Cityscape: Spaces, Performances and Emotion in Urban Life, ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, University of Adelaide, Australia, 18 September 2017.
- ‘Literatures of the World and for the Planet—African Positions: An introduction’. Plenary session of panel ‘Literatures of the world and for the planet’, Ideas of Postcolonial Culture: 17th Triennial Conference of the Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (ACLALS). Stellenbosch University & University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa, 14 July 2016. Organiser.
- ‘Amphibian aesthetics: an integrative category for cultural analysis of the African Indian Ocean littoral?’ Cosmopolitan Currents in the Indian Ocean: New Conceptual Models for Studying Cultural Integration and Change. New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, UAE, 15-17 March 2015. Invited and funded.
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Appointments
Date Position Institution name 2019 Associate Professor The University of Adelaide 2018 Associate Professor Extraordinary Stellenbosch University 2017 - 2018 Lecturer The University of Adelaide 2013 - 2017 Associate Professor University of Cape Town 2009 - 2012 Associate Professor Stellenbosch University 2007 - 2008 Senior Lecturer Stellenbosch University 2005 - 2006 Lecturer Stellenbosch University 2002 - 2003 Visiting Scholar University of California at Berkeley -
Awards and Achievements
Date Type Title Institution Name Country Amount 2017 Achievement Internationally Acclaimed Researcher (B2) Rating National Research Foundation of South Africa South Africa ZAR160,000 2017 Research Award Women's Research Excellence Award The University of Adelaide Australia $5000 2015 Award Merit Award (Research and Teaching) University of Cape Town South Africa ZAR66,000 2014 Research Award Young Researcher Award College of Fellows, University of Cape Town South Africa ZAR30,000 2007 Research Award Rector's Award for Research Excellence Stellenbosch University South Africa — 2000 Scholarship AW Mellon Fellowship University of Cape Town South Africa — -
Education
Date Institution name Country Title 2005 University of Cape Town South Africa PhD 1999 University of Leeds United Kingdom MA (Commonwealth and Postcolonial Literatures) 1997 University of Cape Town South Africa BA (Hons)
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Journals
Year Citation 2021 Samuelson, M. (2021). 'Accepted 12/03/2020 An "international author, but in a different sense": J.M. Coetzee and "literatures of the south"'. Thesis Eleven. 2021 Samuelson, M. (2021). Accepted 15/10/2020 Thinking the Anthropocene South. Contemporary Literature. 2019 Samuelson, M., & Lavery, C. (2019). The Oceanic South. English Language Notes, 57(1), 37-50.
Scopus2 WoS22018 Samuelson, M. (2018). Thinking with sharks: racial terror, species extinction and other Anthropocene fault lines. Australian Humanities Review, (63), 31-47. 2018 Samuelson, M. (2018). “You’ll never forget what your camera remembers”: image-things and changing times in Capital Art Studio, Zanzibar’. Critical Arts: A Journal of South-North Cultural Studies, 32(1), 75-91.
2017 Samuelson, M. (2017). African textualities: travelling forms and subjects–an introduction. Social Dynamics, 43(1), 1-7.
2017 Samuelson, M. (2017). Searching for stoke in Indian Ocean surf zones: surfaris, offshoring and the shore-break. Journal of the Indian Ocean Region, 13(3), 311-325.
2017 Samuelson, M., & Boehmer, E. (2017). ‘Writing Migrant Lives in the South: A Conversation’. Sydney Review of Books. 2017 Samuelson, M. (2017). Coastal form: amphibian positions, wider worlds, and planetary horizons on the African Indian Ocean littoral. Comparative Literature, 69(1), 16-24.
Scopus6 WoS42016 Samuelson, M. (2016). Literature in the world: a view from Cape Town. PMLA, 131(5), 1544-1547.
2016 Samuelson, M. (2016). Reading nostalgia and beyond: the hermeneutics of suspicion and race; and, learning to read, again, with Zoë Wicomb. English in Africa, 43(3), 117-139.
2016 Samuelson, M. (2016). Producing a world of remains in Indian Ocean Africa: discrepant time, melancholy affect and the subject of transport in Capital Art Studio, Stone Town, Zanzibar. African Studies, 75(2), 233-256.
Scopus2 WoS12016 Samuelson, M. (2016). Rendering the Cape-as-port: Sea-Mountain, Cape of Storms/Good Hope, Adamastor and local-world literary formations. Journal of Southern African Studies, 42(3), 523-537.
Scopus4 WoS32015 Samuelson, M. (2015). Richard Rive: a partial biography. SOCIAL DYNAMICS-A JOURNAL OF AFRICAN STUDIES, 41(1), 204-207.
2014 Samuelson, M. (2014). Re-telling freedom in Otelo Burning: the beach, surf noir, and Bildung at the Lamontville pool. Journal of African Cultural Studies, 26(3), 307-323.
WoS12014 Samuelson, M. (2014). Yvette Christiansë's Oceanic Genealogies and the Colonial Archive: Castaways and Generations from Eastern Africa to the South Atlantic. Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies, 1(1-2), 27-38.
2014 Samuelson, M. (2014). (Un)lawful subjects of company. Interventions, 16(6), 795-817.
Scopus5 WoS22014 Samuelson, M., & Thompson, G. (2014). Interview with Sara Blecher and Sihle Xaba: The making and meanings of Otelo Burning. Journal of African Cultural Studies, 26(3), 352-361.
2014 Samuelson, M., & Thompson, G. (2014). Introduction. Journal of African Cultural Studies, 26(3), 303-306.
2013 Samuelson, M. (2013). Sea-changes, dark tides and littoral states: oceans and coastlines in post-apartheid South African narratives. Alternation, (6), 9-28. 2013 Samuelson, M. (2013). Narrative cartographies, ‘beautiful things’ and littoral states in Abdulrazak Gurnah's By the Sea. English Studies in Africa, 56(1), 78-90.
Scopus7 WoS42012 Samuelson, M. (2012). Crossing the Indian Ocean and wading through the littoral: cosmopolitan visions in Amitav Ghosh’s ‘antique land’ and ‘tide country’. Cultural Dynamics, 24(2-3), 189-205.
2012 Samuelson, M. (2012). Abdulrazak Gurnah’s fictions of the Swahili coast: littoral locations and amphibian aesthetics. Social Dynamics, 38(3), 499-515.
Scopus12 WoS92012 Samuelson, M. (2012). Textual subjects in motion: letters, literature and print medium in an Indian-South African exchange (1928-1946). PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, 9(1), 1-19.
2012 Samuelson, M. (2012). Nature and/as Thing(s) in the Emergent Literary City. The Johannesburg Salon, 5. 2011 Samuelson, M. (2011). Vera, Yvonne.
2011 Transitions & Translations Research. (2011). Theorising Africa in local and global imaginaries: a PANGeA workshop. SOCIAL DYNAMICS-A JOURNAL OF THE CENTRE FOR AFRICAN STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN, 37(3), 430-433.
2011 Samuelson, M., & Musila, G. (2011). Locations and locutions: Which Africa, whose Africa?. Social Dynamics, 37(3), 424-426.
Scopus3 WoS32011 Samuelson, M. (2011). Orienting the Cape: a 'white' woman writing Islam in South Africa. Social Dynamics, 37(3), 363-378.
Scopus4 WoS52011 Samuelson, M. (2011). Reading Zoë Wicomb's cosmopolitan, domestic and recursive settings. Current Writing, 23(2), 88-92.
Scopus12010 Samuelson, M. (2010). Oceanic histories and protean poetics: The surge of the sea in Zoë Wicomb's fiction. Journal of Southern African Studies, 36(3), 543-557.
Scopus13 WoS82010 Samuelson, M. (2010). (Un)settled states: Indian Ocean passages, performative belonging and restless mobility in post-apartheid South African fiction. Social Dynamics, 36(2), 272-287.
Scopus10 WoS82010 Samuelson, M. (2010). Scripting connections: Reflections on the 'post-transitional'. English Studies in Africa, 53(1), 113-117.
Scopus15 WoS182010 Gamba, H., Michael, C. A., & Samuelson, M. (2010). Symposium: Global Africa: Travels, transfer, transformation Festschrift for Brenda Cooper: Introduction. Social Dynamics, 36(2), 235-238.
2009 Samuelson, M. (2009). Editorial: Social Dynamics. Social Dynamics, 35(2), 211-212.
2008 Samuelson, M. (2008). 'Lose your mother, kill your child': The passage of slavery and its afterlife in narratives by Yvette Christiansë and Saidiya Hartman. English Studies in Africa, 51(2), 38-48.
Scopus11 WoS102008 Samuelson, M. (2008). Walking through the door and inhabiting the house: South African literary culture and criticism after the transition. English Studies in Africa, 51(1), 130-137.
Scopus17 WoS232008 Samuelson, M. (2008). The urban palimpsest: Re–presenting Sophiatown. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 44(1), 63-75.
Scopus162007 Samuelson, M. (2007). Re-imagining South Africa via a passage to India: M.K. Jeffreys's archive of the Indian Ocean world. Social Dynamics, 33(2), 61-85.
Scopus7 WoS82007 Samuelson, M. (2007). The city beyond the border: the urban worlds of Duiker, Mpe and Vera. African Identities, 5(2), 247-260.
2007 Samuelson, M. (2007). The disfigured body of the female guerrilla: (De)militarization, sexual violence, and redomestication in Zoë Wicomb's David's Story. Signs, 32(4), 833-856.
Scopus24 WoS162007 Samuelson, M. (2007). Yvonne Vera's Bulawayo: modernity, (im)mobility, music and memory. Research in African Literatures, 38(2), 22-35.
Scopus11 WoS72007 Driver, D., & Samuelson, M. (2007). History's Intimate invasions: Yvonne Vera's The Stone Virgins. English Studies in Africa, 50(2), 101-120.
Scopus5 WoS32007 Viljoen, S., & Samuelson, M. (2007). Editorial. Social Dynamics, 33(2), 1-2.
2007 Samuelson, M. (2007). South African Literatures in the Indian Ocean World. Quarterly Changbi, 130-133. 2007 SAMUELSON, M. E. G. (2007). Katrin Berndt, (Bayreuth African Studies 73; Bayreuth: Thielmann & Breitinger, 2005). ISBN 3-927510-88-2, € 29.95.. Matatu, 34(1), 233-235.
2006 Samuelson, M. (2006). Historical Time, Gender and the “New” South Africa in Zakes Mda’s The Heart of Redness. Global South, 2(2), 15-18. 2006 Samuelson, M. (2006). Memory, Mourning and Melancholia: Post-Conflict Fiction from Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Journal of Social Studies, 111, 1-20. 2005 Samuelson, M. (2005). Sala Kahle, Yvonne Vera. Current Writing, 17(2), 1-2.
2005 Samuelson, M. (2005). “Home and the world”: The contestation of social fictions in three South African women's memoirs. English Academy Review, 22(1), 32-42.
Scopus22005 Distiller, N., & Samuelson, M. (2005). "Denying the Coloured Mother": Gender and Race in South Africa. L'Homme, 16(2).
2005 Samuelson, M. (2005). 'Home and the world': three South African women's memoirs and the contestation of social fictions. English Academy Review: Southern African Journal of English Studies, 22, 32-42. 2003 Samuelson, M. (2003). Cracked vases and untidy seams: Narrative structure and closure in the truth and reconciliation commission and South African Fiction. Current Writing, 15(2), 63-76.
Scopus72002 Samuelson, M. (2002). The rainbow womb: rape and race in South African fiction of the transition. Kunapipi, 24(1-2), 88-100. 2000 Samuelson, M. (2000). Reading the Maternal Voice in Sindiwe Magona's To My Children's Children and Mother to Mother. MFS Modern Fiction Studies, 46(1), 227-245.
— Samuelson, M. (n.d.). A community of letters on the Indian Ocean rim: Friendship, fraternity and (Af-filial) love. English in Africa, 35(1).
— Samuelson, M. (n.d.). Vera, Yvonne.
— Dooley, G., Boehmer, E., & Samuelson, M. (n.d.). Writing southern spaces: or, Grappling with Patriarchy in Darkest Africa: Elleke Boehmer in conversation with Gillian Dooley and others. Writers in Conversation, 6(2).
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Books
Year Citation 2021 Samuelson, M. (2021). Claiming the City in South African Literature. Routledge. 2007 Samuelson, M. (2007). Remembering the Nation, Dismembering Women? Stories of the South African Transition. Scottsville, South Africa: U of KwaZulu-Natal P. 2004 Rasebotsa, N., Samuelson, M., & Thomas, K. (2004). Nobody Ever Said AIDS Poems and Stories from Southern Africa. -
Book Chapters
Year Citation 2021 Samuelson, M. (2021). "Re-enchanting the world" from Mozambique: the African Anthropocene and Mia Couto's Poetics of the Planet. In S. Cooke, & P. Denney (Eds.), Transcultural Ecocriticism: Indigenous, Romantic and Global Perspectives.. Bloomsbury.. 2021 Samuelson, M. (2021). Coastal Form: Writing from the African Indian Ocean Littoral. In F. E. Nabutanyi, D. S. Kahyana, & D. Dipio (Eds.), Narrative, Agency and Subjectivity: Writing and Contemporary Eastern African Peripheral Subjectivities. Kampala: Fountain Press. 2021 Samuelson, M. (2021). Accepted 13/07/2020 Blueness and Light in the Art of Gail Jones. In A. Uhlmann (Ed.), Inner Worlds: The Fiction of Gail Jones. University of Sydney Press. 2021 Samuelson, M., & Gupta, P. (2021). Accepted 16/09/2020 Moving Frames and Circulating Subjects: Reflections on Capital Art Studio, Zanzibar. In A. M. Leite, & M. Banasiak (Eds.), Indian Ocean Circulations and Representations. Peter Lang. 2020 Samuelson, M. (2020). Coastal Thought: An Alphabet Spanning the Seas.. In M. Arnold, C. Duboin, & J. Misrahi-Barak (Eds.), Borders and Ecotones in the Indian Ocean: Cultural and Literary Perspectives.. Montpellier: Presses universitaires de la Méditerranée. 2020 Samuelson, M. (2020). The Oceans. In S. Helgesson, B. Neumann, & G. Rippl (Eds.), Handbook of Anglophone World Literatures. (Vol. 13, pp. 375-394). Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter.
2020 Samuelson, M. (2020). Scenes and Settings: Foe, Boyhood, Youth, Slow Man. In J. Zimbler (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to JM Coetzee (pp. 29-44). Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
2019 Samuelson, M. (2019). Poaching plots, plastic forms and ambiguous goods: Ways of telling the China-in-Africa story in the Anthropocene Age. In U. Ruppert, & R. Anthony (Eds.), Reconfiguring Trans-Regionalism in the Global South – African Asian Encounters. (pp. 97-116). London, United Kingdom: Palgrave MacMillan.
2019 Samuelson, M. (2019). Forma costeira: posições anfíbias, mundos maiores e horizontes planetários no litoral do Oceano Índico africano’. In A. M. Leite, E. Brugioni, & J. Falconi (Eds.), Estudos Sobre O Oceano Índico: Antologia de Textos Teóricos (pp. 141-154). Lisboa: Biblioteca National de Portugal. 2017 Samuelson, M. (2017). Unsettling Homes and the Provincial-Cosmopolitan Point of View in Zoë Wicomb’s October. In D. Attridge, & K. Easton (Eds.), Zoë Wicomb and the Translocal. New York; USA: Routledge. 2016 Samuelson, M. (2016). Literary inscriptions on the South African beach: Ambiguous settings, ambivalent textualities. In The Beach in Anglophone Literatures and Cultures: Reading Littoral Space (pp. 121-138). Routledge.
2015 Samuelson, M. (2015). Literary inscriptions on the South African Beach: Ambiguous settings, ambivalent textualities. In U. Kluwick, & V. Richter (Eds.), The Beach in Anglophone Literatures and Cultures: Reading Littoral Space (pp. 121-138). Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Scopus12015 Samuelson, M. (2015). Crossing the Indian Ocean and wading through the littoral: cosmopolitan visions in Amitav Ghosh's 'antique land' and 'tide country'. In S. Gabriel, & F. Rosa (Eds.), Cosmopolitan Asia: Littoral Epistemologies of the Global South (pp. 105-122). London: Routledge.
Scopus22013 Samuelson, M. (2013). Historical Time, Gender and the ‘New’ South Africa in Zakes Mda’s Heart of Redness’.. In S. Sen, & K. Ghani (Eds.), Exploring the Global South: Voices, Ideas, Histories. Ed. Samita Sen and Kashshaf Ghani. (pp. 111-117). Amsterdam: Global South SEPHIS. 2012 Samuelson, M. (2012). Writing women. In The Cambridge History of South African Literature (pp. 757-778). Cambridge University Press.
2012 Samuelson, M. (2012). Textual circuits and intimate relations: A community of letters across the Indian Ocean. In A. Van der Vlies (Ed.), Print, Text and Book Histories in Southern Africa (pp. 87-108). Johannesburg: Wits University Press. 2012 Samuelson, M. (2012). Writing women. In D. Attwell, & D. Attridge (Eds.), The Cambridge History of South African Literature (pp. 757-778). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Scopus22010 Samuelson, M. (2010). The Urban Palimpsest: Re-Presenting Sophiatown. In R. Primorac (Ed.), African City Textualities (pp. 63-75). London: Routledge. 2010 Samuelson, M. (2010). Cceanic charades: the female figures of M.K. Jeffreys's Passage to India. In Hofmeyr, & P. Gupta (Eds.), Eyes Across the Water: Navigating the Indian Ocean. University of South Africa Press. 2010 Samuelson, M. (2010). Making home on the Indian Ocean rim: relocations in South African literature. In A. Jamal, & S. Moorthy (Eds.), Indian Ocean Studies: Cultural, Social and Political Perspectives (pp. 298-317). Routledge.
Scopus22009 Samuelson, M. (2009). Nongqawuse, National Time and (Female) Authorship in The Heart of Redness. In Ways of Writing: Critical Essays on Zakes Mda (pp. 229-253). Scottsville, South Africa: U of KwaZulu-Natal P. 2008 Samuelson, M. (2008). The Disfigured Body of the Female Guerrilla: (De)Militarization, Sexual Violence and Re-Domestication in Zoë Wicomb’s David’s Story. In K. Alexander, & M. Hawkesworth (Eds.), War & Terror: Feminist Perspectives (pp. 88-112). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2008 Samuelson, M. (2008). The City Beyond the Border: The Urban Worlds of Duiker, Mpe and Vera.. In F. Demissie (Ed.), Postcolonial African Cities. Imperial Legacies and Postcolonial Predicament. London: Routledge. 2006 Samuelson, M. (2006). Fictional Representations of Rape in South African Fiction of the Transition. In Africa, Europe, and (Post)Colonialism: Racism, Migration and Disapora in African Literatures (pp. 183-193). Bayreuth, Germany: Bayreuth University. 2005 Samuelson, M. (2005). Crossing borders with words: Sello Duiker, Phaswane Mpe & Yvonne Vera. In M. Mzamane (Ed.), Words Gone Two Soon (pp. 196-201). Johannesburg: Skotaville Press. 2004 Samuelson, M. (2004). The Mother-as-Witness: Reading 'Mother to Mother' alongside South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In S. Koyana (Ed.), Sindiwe Magona: The First Decade (pp. 127-144). Pietermarizburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal. 2004 Driver, D., & Samuelson, M. (2004). History's intimate invasions: Yvonne Vera's The Stone Virgins. In B. Weiss (Ed.), The end of unheard narratives: contemporary perspectives on Southern African literatures (pp. 175-208). Heidelberg: Kalliope. 2003 Driver, D. (2003). Schreiner, Oliver Emilie Albertina. In Encyclopedia of African literature (1st ed., pp. 484). Routledge.
2002 Samuelson, M. (2002). 'A River in My Mouth': Writing the Voice in Under the Tongue. In Sign and Taboo: Perspectives on the Poetic Fiction of Yvonne Vera (pp. 15-24). Oxford, England: Currey. 2002 Samuelson, M. (2002). Re-Membering the Body: Rape and Recovery in Without a Name. In Sign and Taboo: Perspectives on the Poetic Fiction of Yvonne Vera (pp. 93-100). Oxford, England: Currey. 2001 Samuelson, M. (2001). Lifting the Veil of Romance: A Reading of Lord Jim. In Conrad at the Millennium: Modernism, Postmodernism, Postcolonialism (pp. 345-360). Boulder, CO--Lublin, Poland: Social Science Monographs--Maria Curie-Skłodowska University. -
Original Creative Works
Year Citation 2018 Publication status: Published online
NTRO sub category: 3 Written work
Title: Beach
Authors: Samuelson M
Publisher URL: http://somatosphere.net/
Place of publication: Somatosphere website
Publication date: 2018
Journal: Somatosphere: Science, Medicine, Anthropology
Title of Outlet: somatosphere.net
Extent: online publication
ERA Research Statement - 2000 character limit: Research background: Making use of the personal voice and ‘snapshots’, while reflecting on personal experience and observations, the essay seeks to think from – and with – Muizenberg beach (Cape Town, South Africa) in order to elaborate the ways in which the beach acts as a sentinel that keeps watch on the Anthropocene while bringing into question the shared nature of the anthropocenic condition. It makes use of participant-observation techniques (including photographs and fieldnotes gathered over five years and a decade of surfing, swimming and walking on this shore). The essay is also informed by extensive research into the cultural and social meanings of beaches in general, and the history of this beach in particular, as well as into scholarly debates on the Anthropocene in the Humanities.
Research contribution: The mode of the personal essay is used to advance understandings of states of immersion in the neoliberal Anthropocene. Reflections on genre highlight the significance of representational form in shaping and orienting such understandings. The personal voice is also used to craft a bridge between the familiar recreational setting of the beach and scholarly and theoretical debates on the Anthropocene and social inequality.
Research significance: The essay was invited for a workshop on “Toxicity, Waste and Detritus in the Global South: Africa and Beyond” and selected for publication in a special collection of essays published in the online forum Somatosphere and edited by Pamila Gupta (Witwatersrand, South Africa) and Gabrielle Hecht (Stanford, USA). It demonstrates the significance of the beach as a nature-culture space through which to apprehend the implications of the Anthropocene in an uneven world. It was used to conclude the final section of the special collection on “Futures”, and thus fulfils an important framing function within the collection as a whole.
Source URL: http://somatosphere.net/?s=Beach
Verification-status: Verified
Record created at source: 2 February 2018
Named research project grants:
- Between Indian and Pacific Oceans: Reframing Australian Literatures. Australia Research Council (ARC) Special Research Initiative in Australian Culture, History and Society, 2021-2023 (SR200200704). Value: $178,000 Chief Investigator (lead CI: Mandy Treagus)
- South African Settings and Australian Connections. Faculty Research Active Grant Scheme (FRAGS), Faculty of Arts, The University of Adelaide, 2017. Value: AU$5,000.
- African Textualities: Mobilities, Translations, Frames. African Collaboration Grant, Programme for the Enhancement of Research Capacity, University of Cape Town, 2014-2016. Value: ZAR175,000.00.
- Coastal Cultures, Oceanic Africa & Thinking from the Cape: Literary and Cultural Positions. National Research Foundation (NRF), South Africa. Competitive Programme for Rated Researchers (CPRR), 2014-2016 (Grant Number 87809). Value: ZAR400,000.00 plus ZAR320,000.00 in graduate funding.
- Intimate Relations between South Africa and South (East) Asia Stellenbosch University Research Grant Award, 2009-2010. Value: ZAR50,000.00.
- Southern African Subjectivities: Roots and Routes in Literary and Cultural Studies. Thuthuka Programme for emerging researchers, National Research Foundation (NRF), South Africa, 2006-2011. Value: approx. ZAR200,000.00 plus approx. ZAR1.5 million in graduate/staff development funding.
Current
- ENGL2071-Anthropocene Arts: Nature-Cultures in Crisis. Offered in S1 in even years.
- ENGL3106-Writing Southern Worlds. Offered in S1 in odd years.
- ENGL3050-Ways of Reading (English Major Capstone Course). Offered in S2 annually.
Previous
- ENGL4001-English Honours Critical Thinking (2017-2020)
- ENGL4003-English Honors Thesis (2018)
- ENGL1016-Landmarks in Literature (2017)
- ENGL2047-World Literatures in English (2017)
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Current Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)
Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name 2020 Principal Supervisor Creative Criticism Master of Philosophy Master Part Time Mr Terry Peter Hughes 2020 Principal Supervisor Fishing in Moby-Dick, Omeros, and Carpentaria Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Matthew Hunter Couper 2019 Principal Supervisor Mapping the Murray: a Bioregional Approach to Character and Narrative Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Owen John Everitt 2019 Co-Supervisor A Search for Country in Australian Literature Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Samuel Jesse Cox 2019 Principal Supervisor Reading-as-Witnessing in the Trans-Indigenous Literacy Archive: a Study of Lee Maracle and Alexis Wright Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Laura Rose Hamilton 2018 Principal Supervisor 'The Other in Ourselves': The Ethics, Aesthetics, and Epistemologies of Feminist (Auto) Ethnography Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Miss Celine Michelle Zerna 2018 Principal Supervisor Iya Kafayat: A Novel (Creative Component)
A Grammar of Play in a Postcolongy of a Postcolony (Exegesis)Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Olujide Babatunde Adebayo-Begun 2017 Co-Supervisor Kookaburra: anti-tales of laughing doom Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Gretta Jade Mitchell 2017 Principal Supervisor Generational differences in Speculative Perspectives of the Antropocene Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Ruby Rose Niemann -
Past Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)
Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name 2017 - 2019 Co-Supervisor The Poetic Invitation: Exploring manifold experience in easy poems Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Mr Paul Turley -
Other Supervision Activities
Date Role Research Topic Location Program Supervision Type Student Load Student Name 2018 - ongoing External Supervisor Antagonistic Reading: Vilifying Readers in Modernist and Global Anglophone Fiction. University of Notre Dame (USA) — Doctorate — Eric Williams 2016 - ongoing External Supervisor Littoral literatures: amphibious politics in South African writings University of Cape Town — Doctorate Full Time Maria Geustyn 2016 - 2017 Principal Supervisor Stories "lodged in goods": Reading the thing-culture of The Thousand and One Nights University of Cape Town — Master Full Time Sophy Kohler 2016 - 2017 Principal Supervisor From "sad black stories" to "useful tragedy": Trajectories of hope in Johannesburg in Kgebetli Moele's Room 207 and Perfect Hlongwane's Jozi University of Cape Town — Master Full Time Kathleen Samson 2016 - 2016 Principal Supervisor Creating an African Literary Canon University of Cape Town — Postdoctorate Full Time Doseline Wanjiru Kiguru 2016 - 2016 Principal Supervisor Archipelagic fictions: Sindbad the Sailor, Alan Villiers and travel in the Indian Ocean University of Cape Town — Master Full Time Andrew Hofmeyr 2015 - 2016 Principal Supervisor EcoGothic fiction from Contemporary Urban Africa: Excluded Subjects and Dark Environmentalism University of Cape Town — Master Full Time Esthie Hugo 2015 - 2016 Principal Supervisor Reading Petrocultures in the Niger Delta: An Eco-Critical Enquiry University of Cape Town — Postdoctorate Full Time Philip Onos Aghoghovwia 2014 - 2017 Principal Supervisor Return to the Scene of the Crime: Representing Homecoming in Postcolonial Fiction University of Cape Town — Doctorate Full Time Kamil Naicker 2013 - 2016 Principal Supervisor Power and Transgression: Margins, Crossings and Monstrous Women in Selected Works of Bharati Mukherjee and Angela Carter University of Cape Town — Doctorate Full Time Corinne Abel 2013 - 2016 Principal Supervisor "My name is Afrika": Setswana Genealogies, Trans-Atlantic Interlocutions, and NOW-Time in Keorapetse Kgositsile's Life and Work University of Cape Town — Doctorate Full Time Portia Uhuru Phalafala 2013 - 2013 Principal Supervisor Imagining Postcolonial Urban Space in Work by Ivan Vladislavic and other Southern African Writers University of Cape Town — Postdoctorate Full Time Kudzayi Ngara 2011 - 2015 Principal Supervisor Zimbabwe Women Writers from 1950 to the Present: Re-creating Gender Images University of Stellenbosch — Doctorate Full Time Faith Mkwesha 2011 - 2013 Principal Supervisor The Art of Looking Sideways: Representations of Slave Subjectivity in Post-Apartheid Fiction University of Stellenbosch — Master Full Time Maria Geustyn 2011 - 2013 Co-Supervisor The Narrativisation of Post-2000 Zimbabwe in the Shona Popular Song-Genre: An Appraisal Approach University of Stellenbosch — Doctorate Full Time Mickias Musiyiwa 2011 - 2012 Principal Supervisor Spicing South Africa: Representations of Food and Culinary Traditions in Post-Apartheid Literature, Cookery Books and Art University of Stellenbosch — Master Full Time Esthie de Beer 2011 - 2012 Principal Supervisor White Women Writing the (Post)Colony: Creolité, Home and Estrangement in Novels by Marguerite Duras, Jean Rhys and Marlene van Niekerk University of Stellenbosch — Master Full Time Caren van Houwelingen 2010 - 2014 Principal Supervisor Writing Women in Uganda and South Africa: Emerging narratives from post-repressive states University of Stellenbosch — Doctorate Full Time Lynda Gichanda Spencer 2010 - 2013 Principal Supervisor Confession, Ethics and Embodiment in the Poetry of Joan Metelerkamp and Antjie Krog University of Stellenbosch — Doctorate Full Time Christine Weyer 2010 - 2013 Principal Supervisor Imagining the Zimbabwean City: 1950 to 2010 University of Stellenbosch — Doctorate Full Time Kizito Z. Muchemwa 2010 - 2013 Principal Supervisor Diasporic Imaginaries: Memory and Negotiation of Belonging in East African and South African Indian Narratives University of Stellenbosch — Doctorate Full Time James Ocita 2010 - 2011 Principal Supervisor Marginality in Post-TRC Texts: Storytelling and Representational Acts University of Stellenbosch — Master Full Time H. Grace Kim 2010 - 2010 Principal Supervisor Bearing Witness to Trauma: Representations of the Rwandan Genocide', Stellenbosch University University of Stellenbosch — Master Full Time Karin Samuel 2009 - 2009 Principal Supervisor Re-visiting History, Re-discovering Identity in Black British Fictions of the 21st Century: Caryl Phillips's A Distant Shore and Buchi Emecheta's The New Tribe University of Stellenbosch — Master Full Time Sydoine Moudouma 2008 - 2018 External Supervisor Speaking Others-Speaking the Self: A Study of the Textual Construction of Selfhood in Three South African Texts Linnaeus University — Doctorate Part Time Jenny Simeus 2008 - 2010 Principal Supervisor Romantic Children, Brazen Girls? An Exploration of the Girl-child's Representation in and around Nabokov's Lolita and Three Derivative Novels University of Stellenbosch — Master Part Time Sandra Visser 2008 - 2010 Co-Supervisor An Examination of Prison, Criminality and Power in Selected Contemporary Kenyan and South African Narratives University of Stellenbosch — Doctorate Full Time Isaac Ndlovu 2008 - 2009 Principal Supervisor Becoming the Third Generation: Negotiating Modern Selves in Nigerian Bildungsromane of the 21st Century University of Stellenbosch — Master Full Time W. Jaco Smit 2008 - 2009 Principal Supervisor Grace and The Township Housewife: Excavating Black Women's Magazines from the 1960s University of Stellenbosch — Master Full Time Nicolette Louw
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Committee Memberships
Date Role Committee Institution Country 2019 - ongoing Member The JM Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice Management Committee The University of Adelaide Australia 2019 - ongoing Chair School of Humanities Research Committee The University of Adelaide Australia 2019 - ongoing Member Faculty of Arts Research Committee The University of Adelaide Australia 2019 - ongoing Member Higher Degree Research Committee Faculty of Arts, University of Adelaide Australia 2016 - 2017 Member University Book Award Committee University of Cape Town South Africa 2016 - 2017 Member Hosting a Conference Committee University of Cape Town South Africa 2016 - 2017 Chair Departmental Research Committee University of Cape Town South Africa 2016 - 2016 Member Panel of Judges-UJ Prize for South African Writing University of Johannesburg South Africa 2016 - 2016 Member Specialist Committee for Evaluation and Rating: Literary Studies, Languages and Linguistics National Research Foundation South Africa 2014 - 2016 Member Faculty Staffing Committee University of Cape Town South Africa 2014 - 2015 Chair Departmental Advisory & Management Committee University of Cape Town South Africa 2014 - 2015 Member Dean's Advisory Committee University of Cape Town South Africa 2013 - 2016 Member Faculty Masters Dissertation Examination Committee University of Cape Town South Africa 2013 - 2013 Chair Departmental Research Committee University of Cape Town South Africa 2010 - 2011 Member Graduate School Coordinating Committee Stellenbosch University South Africa 2010 - 2010 Member Faculty Creative Outputs Committee Stellenbosch University South Africa 2009 - 2011 Member Faculty Research Committee Stellenbosch University South Africa 2008 - 2011 Member Departmental Postgraduate Committee Stellenbosch University South Africa -
Memberships
Date Role Membership Country 2018 - 2022 Member Oceanic Humanities for the Global South, University of Witwatersrand South Africa 2017 - ongoing Member JM Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice, University of Adelaide Australia 2017 - ongoing Member Fay Gale Centre for Research on Gender, University of Adelaide Australia 2017 - ongoing Member DIRE (Déplacements, Identités, Regards, Ecritures) Research Centre, Observatory for the Societies of the Indian Ocean, University of Reunion Réunion -
Consulting/Advisories
Date Institution Department Organisation Type Country 2019 - 2019 Yale-NUS College English School or college Singapore -
Editorial Boards
Date Role Editorial Board Name Institution Country 2021 - 2022 Board Member Prose Studies: history, theory, criticism Taylor & Francis United States 2020 - ongoing Board Member Transnational Literature Bath Spa United Kingdom 2018 - 2022 Board Member ariel: A Review of International English Literature University of Calgary; Johns Hopkins University Press Canada 2017 - ongoing Editor Palgrave Studies in Maritime Literature and Culture Palgrave MacMillan United Kingdom 2015 - ongoing Board Member Bloomsbury's Literature as World Literature Book Series Bloomsbury United States 2013 - ongoing Board Member Boydell & Brewer's African Articulations Book Series Boydell & Brewer United Kingdom 2012 - ongoing Board Member Journal of African Cultural Studies SOAS, University of London; Taylor & Francis United Kingdom 2012 - ongoing Board Member Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies Taylor & Francis United Kingdom 2012 - 2017 Board Member Social Dynamics-A Journal of African Studies University of Cape Town; Taylor & Francis South Africa 2011 - ongoing Board Member English in Africa Rhodes University South Africa 2009 - 2019 Board Member Imbizo University of South Africa; Taylor & Francis South Africa 2009 - ongoing Board Member Current Writing University of KwaZulu Natal; Taylor & Francis South Africa 2007 - ongoing Board Member English Studies in Africa University of the Witwatersrand; Taylor & Francis South Africa 2007 - 2011 Editor-In-chief Social Dynamics-A Journal of African Studies University of Cape Town; Taylor & Francis South Africa 2007 - 2010 Associate Editor English Academy Review: Southern African Journal of English Studies Taylor & Francis; University of the Witwatersrand South Africa -
Offices Held
Date Office Name Institution Country 2019 - ongoing Postgraduate Coordinator (English and Creative Writing) The Univeristy of Adelaide Australia 2018 - ongoing Research Theme Leader (Transnationalism)--JM Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice The University of Adelaide Australia 2016 - 2017 PhD Convenor (Department of English) University of Cape Town South Africa 2014 - 2015 Head of the Department of English University of Cape Town South Africa 2014 - 2015 Project Manager: Man Booker International 2015 at the University of Cape Town University of Cape Town South Africa 2013 - 2013 Postgraduate Convenor (Department of English) University of Cape Town South Africa 2010 - 2011 Research Theme Leader (Transitions & Translations)--Flagship Project, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences , and PANGeA Africa-wide network Stellenbosch University South Africa 2008 - 2010 Research Coordinator (English Department) Stellenbosch University South Africa
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