1800s
19th
20th
A01=Jennifer Wenzel
academic
african
anticolonial
apartheid
Author_Jennifer Wenzel
birsa munda
Category=JHMC
Category=NHH
Category=NHTB
century
colonial
colonialism
death
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
equality
famine
ghost dance
government
historical
history
interdisciplinary
intertextuality
justice
liberation
oppression
political
politics
postcolonial
prophecy
race
racism
regional
scholarly
south africa
tragedy
tribal
tribe
uprising
xhosa
Product details
- ISBN 9780226893488
- Weight: 482g
- Dimensions: 17 x 23mm
- Publication Date: 01 Aug 2009
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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In 1856 and 1857, in response to a prophet's command, the Xhosa people of southern Africa killed their cattle and ceased planting crops; the resulting famine cost tens of thousands of lives. Much like other millenarian, anti colonial movements - such as the Ghost Dance in North America and the Birsa Munda uprising in India - these actions were meant to transform the world and liberate the Xhosa from oppression. Despite the movement's momentous failure to achieve that goal, the event has continued to exert a powerful pull on the South African imagination ever since. It is these afterlives of the prophecy that Jennifer Wenzel explores in "Bulletproof". Wenzel examines literary and historical texts to show how writers have manipulated images and ideas associated with the cattle killing - harvest, sacrifice, rebirth, devastation - to speak to their contemporary predicaments. Widening her lens, Wenzel also looks at how past failure can both inspire and constrain movements for justice in the present, and her brilliant insights into the cultural implications of prophecy will fascinate readers across a wide variety of disciplines.
Jennifer Wenzel is assistant professor of English at the University of Michigan.
