Pumla Dineo Gqola Explained

Nationality:South African
Occupation:Academic, writer, gender activist
Alma Mater:
Discipline:Literature
Workplaces:Nelson Mandela University
Sub Discipline:Postcolonial literature, African literature, African feminism
Birth Date: df=yes 3 December 1972
Awards:Alan Paton Award (2016)

Pumla Dineo Gqola (born 3 December 1972) is a South African academic, writer, and gender activist, best known for her 2015 book Rape: A South African Nightmare, which won the 2016 Alan Paton Award.[1] She is a professor of literature at Nelson Mandela University, where she holds the South African Research Chair in African Feminist Imaginations.[2]

Education and career

Gqola was born on born 3 December 1972 and grew up in Alice in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. She has a BA(Hons) and MA from the University of Cape Town,[3] an MA from the University of Warwick, and a DPhil in postcolonial studies from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.[4] [5]

She worked at the University of the Free State from 1997 to 2005, and from 2007 to 2017 she was attached to the University of the Witwatersrand, where she was associate professor, and later full professor, in literary, media and gender studies at the School of Literature and Language Studies.[6] In 2018, she was appointed Dean of Research at the University of Fort Hare. In 2019, she was appointed to the Department of Higher Education Ministerial Task Team responsible for advising on gender-based violence in South African universities. She has also been Chief Research Specialist at the Human Sciences Research Council.

She was a patron of Etisalat Prize for Literature (alongside Billy Kahora, Dele Olojede, Ellah Wakatama, Kole Omotoso and Margaret Busby), launched in 2013 to celebrate first-time African writers of published books of fiction.[7]

In May 2020, she joined the Centre for Women and Gender Studies at Nelson Mandela University, where she is a professor in literature, specialising in African and postcolonial literature, African feminism, and slave memory. In late 2020, she was awarded a National Research Foundation Research Chair in African Feminist Imaginations, dedicated to interdisciplinary gender scholarship. Her articles for public audiences have appeared in publications including the New Frame and the New York Times.[8] [9]

Works

Gqola's first book, What is Slavery to Me?: Postcolonial/Slave Memory in Post-Apartheid South Africa (2010) is an academic, interdisciplinary study of slave memory in South Africa and its significance for contemporary gender and race dynamics.[10] [11] It was longlisted for the 2011 Alan Paton Award.[12] A Renegade Called Simphiwe (2013) is about South African singer Simphiwe Dana, and combines biography with cultural analysis.[13]

Gqola is best known for her two books about rape culture – Rape: A South African Nightmare (2015) and Female Fear Factory: Gender and Patriarchy under Racial Capitalism (2021). She has also published a collection of essays, Reflecting Rogue: Inside the Mind of a Feminist (2018), which was favourably received[14] [15] [16] and longlisted for the 2018 Alan Paton Award.[17]

Rape: A South African Nightmare

In Rape (2015), written for public audiences, Gqola examines the history, workings, and social functions of sexual violence in South Africa. She argues that rape is an act of power and violence, rather than a sex act, and in South Africa is normalised and legitimised by various social norms, images, and attitudes.[18] Gqola introduces the notion of the "female fear factory," also the subject of her most recent book, Female Fear Factory (2021),[19] to refer to the social discourses with she claims regulate women's behaviour through "the manufacture of female fear," especially by the subtle but ubiquitous assertion of male ownership over their bodies.[20] She argues that these discourses are strengthened by the public prominence of hyper-masculine figures such as Jacob Zuma, Julius Malema, Kenny Kunene, and Oscar Pistorius, and she dedicates a chapter to analysing the public and media response to the Jacob Zuma rape trial of 2005-6.

Rape received positive reviews,[21] [22] [23] [24] [25] with the Daily Maverick calling it "brilliant and distressing."[26] It won the 2016 Alan Paton Award.[27] Chair of Judges Achmat Dangor said it was "fearless" and "nuanced and cogently argued".[28]

Female Fear Factory

In Female Fear Factory (2019), Gqola explores in detail how female fear is created and maintained around the world by patriarchal cultures in order to control women and other marginalised groups.[29] Her core argument to address the "female fear factory" is confrontation, to “refuse to keep quiet when trivialisation happens in front of us in public” as this “make[s] more cracks in patriarchy’s manufacture of female fear”.[30] Female Fear Factory received positive reviews,[31] [32] [33] with fellow academic Jamie Martin labelling it a "timely and critical contribution" to South African feminist thinking.

Bibliography

Books

As editor

Selected articles

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Rape. 2021-11-08. NB Publishers.
  2. Web site: 2020-11-16. New NRF SARCHI Chair in African Feminist Imaginations for Mandela Uni. 2021-11-08. Nelson Mandela University.
  3. Gqola, Pumla Dineo (1999). "Black woman, you are on your own: images of black women in Staffrider short stories, 1978–1982" (MA thesis).
  4. Gqola, Pumla Dineo (2004). "Shackled memories and elusive discourses? Colonial slavery and the contemporary cultural and artistic imagination in South Africa" (PhD thesis).
  5. Web site: 2017-07-05. Professor Gqola appointed as the new Dean of Research. 2021-11-08. University of Fort Hare.
  6. Web site: 2011-03-15. What is Slavery to Me?. 2021-11-08. Wits University Press. en-US.
  7. [Toni Kan|Kan, Toni]
  8. Web site: Pumla Dineo Gqola. 2021-11-08. New Frame.
  9. News: Gqola. Pumla Dineo. 2020-12-02. Zanele Muholi Walks In With the Ancestors. en-US. The New York Times. 2021-11-08. 0362-4331.
  10. Murray. Jessica. 2013-05-01. An interdisciplinary investigation of memory and representation: book review. Historia. 58. 1. 250–252. 10520/EJC136179 .
  11. Barbara. Boswell. 2012. What is Slavery to Me? Postcolonial/Slave Memory in Post-Apartheid South Africa by Pumla Dineo Gqola. Postcolonial Text. 7. 1. 10.18772/12010045072. 978-1-86814-692-5 .
  12. Web site: 2011-05-09. The 2011 Sunday Times Alan Paton Award Longlist. 2021-11-08. Sunday Times. en.
  13. Ramugondo. Elelwani L.. 2015. Book Review: Pumla Dineo Gqola. A Renegade Called Simphiwe. JENdA: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies. en-US. 26. 1530-5686.
  14. News: 2017-09-01. Reflecting Rogue by Pumla Dineo Gqola. Fairlady. 2021-11-08.
  15. Web site: Naidoo. Prakash. 2017-08-10. Essays by Pumla Dineo Gqola. 2021-11-08. Business Day. en-ZA.
  16. Web site: Sosibo. Kwanele. 2017-08-11. A beautiful feminist mind divorced from self-indulgence. 2021-11-08. The Mail & Guardian. en-ZA.
  17. Web site: Malec. Jennifer. 2018-04-03. 2018 Alan Paton Award for Non-fiction longlist announced. 2021-11-08. The Johannesburg Review of Books. en-US.
  18. Pumla Dineo, Gqola (2015). Rape: A South African Nightmare. Johannesburg: MF Books. p. 22.
  19. Mafolo, Karabo (2021-07-25). "Pumla Gqola: Dismantling the 'female fear factory' of patriarchal policing and violence against women". Daily Maverick. Retrieved 2021-11-08.
  20. Pumla Dineo, Gqola (2015). Rape: A South African Nightmare. Johannesburg: MF Books. p. 80.
  21. Zikalala. Zukolwenkosi. 2016-04-02. A nation awakened out of its sleep paralysis: A review of Pumla Dineo Gqola's Rape: A South African Nightmare. Agenda. 30. 2. 153–158. 10.1080/10130950.2016.1218122. 151968461 . 1013-0950.
  22. Nicholson. Tamaryn Jane. 2016. A call to action. Psychology in Society. 52 . 52. 121–124. 10.17159/2309-8708/2016/n52a15. 1015-6046.
  23. Kgalemang, Malebogo; Setume, Sinzokuhle D. (2016). "Pumla Dineo Gqola's Rape: A South African Nightmare"(PDF). Pula: Botswana Journal of African Studies. 30 (2).
  24. Bennett, Jane (2017). "Rape: A South African Nightmare, by Pumla Dineo Gqola" (PDF). Feminist Africa. 22: 233–238.
  25. Buti. Mokheseng Richard. 2016-07-02. Pumla Dineo Gqola. Rape: A South African Nightmare. International Feminist Journal of Politics. 18. 3. 507–508. 10.1080/14616742.2016.1191285. 148526508 . 1461-6742.
  26. Davis, Rebecca (24 September 2015). "Review – Rape: A South African Nightmare". Daily Maverick. Retrieved 2021-11-08.
  27. Web site: 2016-06-25 . Pumla Dineo Gqola and Nkosinathi Sithole win the 2016 Sunday Times Literary Awards . 2021-11-08 . Sunday Times . en.
  28. Mulgrew, Nick (29 June 2016). "2016 Sunday Times Literary Award Winners Announced". PEN South Africa. Retrieved 2021-11-08.
  29. Book: Gqola, Pumla Dineo . Female Fear Factory . Melinda Ferguson Books . 2021 . 978-1-990973-09-3 . Cape Town . 27–39 . en.
  30. Book: Gqola, Pumla Dineo . Female Fear Factory . Melinda Ferguson Books . 2021 . 978-1-990973-09-3 . Cape Town . 39 . en.
  31. Martin . Jamie . 2021 . Review of Pumla Dineo Gqola's Female Fear Factory . International Journal of Critical Diversity Studies . 4 . 2 . 77–80 . 48687063 . JSTOR.
  32. Web site: Collins . Gail . 2 November 2022 . Review: Female Fear Factory by Pumla Dineo Gqola . 9 May 2024 . African Business.
  33. Web site: Sipungu . Thoko . 2 February 2022 . Book review: rewriting the script on patriarchal violence in South Africa . 9 May 2024 . The Conversation.
  34. Web site: De Groot. Sue. 2021-06-27. 'Patriarchy needs fear': Pumla Dineo Gqola's new book on how women are kept afraid. 2021-11-08. Sunday Times. en-ZA.
  35. Web site: Miriam Tlali. 2021-11-08. The Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC). en-us.

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