Papers by Serah Kasembeli
English Academy Review
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Journal of African Cultural Studies
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Journal of African Cultural Studies, 2019
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Journal of African Cultural Studies, 2022
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Eastern African Literary and Cultural Studies
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Social Dynamics
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Serah Kasembeli, 2018
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Serah Kasembeli, 2018
This paper adopts the sea as a productive metaphor to
interrogate colonial and apartheid constru... more This paper adopts the sea as a productive metaphor to
interrogate colonial and apartheid constructions that silence
African Indian Ocean cultures. It analyses Therese Benadé’s
debut novel, Kites of Good Fortune (2004) to show that
whereas the novel depicts the Cape Peninsula as an oceanic
crossroads, it rejects the cultural hybridity of the Indian and
the Atlantic Oceans. Here, I look towards the sea to examine
‘oceanic crossings’ as a precursor of servitude, and as
defining as well as complicating slave freedom in its ensuing
construction of cultural hegemonies. I employ the black
Atlantic models of the sea’s function as Middle Passage; Door
of No Return to examine the (im)possibility of natal
restoration in the novel, and determine that the oceanic
crossings of two different slaves narrated in the novel
translate into two different meanings of freedom. My analysis
shows that these two meanings of freedom present the
silencing of the African Indian Ocean cultures amid slavery
and slave freedom. The study of these two meanings of
slavery at the Cape enables a reading of the past and present
together, pointing to continuities of enslavement,
colonialism, apartheid and post-apartheid that silence African
identities and cultures.
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Book Reviews by Serah Kasembeli
Routledge Handbook of African Popular Culture, edited by Grace A. Musila, 2023
(Re)Defining Popular Culture in Africa?
The Routledge Handbook of African Popular Culture, publis... more (Re)Defining Popular Culture in Africa?
The Routledge Handbook of African Popular Culture, published in 2022, is a collection of twenty-three chapters edited by Grace A. Musila. Its publication comes after Popular Culture in Africa: The Episteme of the Everyday, edited by Stephanie Newell and Onookome Okome and published by Routledge in 2014 for the twenty-fifth anniversary of Karin Barber’s seminal text of 1987, “Popular Arts in Africa”. Barber’s ground-breaking essay contextualised popular culture in Africa and became a key reference text for cultural studies scholars in Africa. The Routledge Handbook of African Popular Culture engages with these sister works and extends the discussions on popular culture in Africa.
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Papers by Serah Kasembeli
interrogate colonial and apartheid constructions that silence
African Indian Ocean cultures. It analyses Therese Benadé’s
debut novel, Kites of Good Fortune (2004) to show that
whereas the novel depicts the Cape Peninsula as an oceanic
crossroads, it rejects the cultural hybridity of the Indian and
the Atlantic Oceans. Here, I look towards the sea to examine
‘oceanic crossings’ as a precursor of servitude, and as
defining as well as complicating slave freedom in its ensuing
construction of cultural hegemonies. I employ the black
Atlantic models of the sea’s function as Middle Passage; Door
of No Return to examine the (im)possibility of natal
restoration in the novel, and determine that the oceanic
crossings of two different slaves narrated in the novel
translate into two different meanings of freedom. My analysis
shows that these two meanings of freedom present the
silencing of the African Indian Ocean cultures amid slavery
and slave freedom. The study of these two meanings of
slavery at the Cape enables a reading of the past and present
together, pointing to continuities of enslavement,
colonialism, apartheid and post-apartheid that silence African
identities and cultures.
Book Reviews by Serah Kasembeli
The Routledge Handbook of African Popular Culture, published in 2022, is a collection of twenty-three chapters edited by Grace A. Musila. Its publication comes after Popular Culture in Africa: The Episteme of the Everyday, edited by Stephanie Newell and Onookome Okome and published by Routledge in 2014 for the twenty-fifth anniversary of Karin Barber’s seminal text of 1987, “Popular Arts in Africa”. Barber’s ground-breaking essay contextualised popular culture in Africa and became a key reference text for cultural studies scholars in Africa. The Routledge Handbook of African Popular Culture engages with these sister works and extends the discussions on popular culture in Africa.
interrogate colonial and apartheid constructions that silence
African Indian Ocean cultures. It analyses Therese Benadé’s
debut novel, Kites of Good Fortune (2004) to show that
whereas the novel depicts the Cape Peninsula as an oceanic
crossroads, it rejects the cultural hybridity of the Indian and
the Atlantic Oceans. Here, I look towards the sea to examine
‘oceanic crossings’ as a precursor of servitude, and as
defining as well as complicating slave freedom in its ensuing
construction of cultural hegemonies. I employ the black
Atlantic models of the sea’s function as Middle Passage; Door
of No Return to examine the (im)possibility of natal
restoration in the novel, and determine that the oceanic
crossings of two different slaves narrated in the novel
translate into two different meanings of freedom. My analysis
shows that these two meanings of freedom present the
silencing of the African Indian Ocean cultures amid slavery
and slave freedom. The study of these two meanings of
slavery at the Cape enables a reading of the past and present
together, pointing to continuities of enslavement,
colonialism, apartheid and post-apartheid that silence African
identities and cultures.
The Routledge Handbook of African Popular Culture, published in 2022, is a collection of twenty-three chapters edited by Grace A. Musila. Its publication comes after Popular Culture in Africa: The Episteme of the Everyday, edited by Stephanie Newell and Onookome Okome and published by Routledge in 2014 for the twenty-fifth anniversary of Karin Barber’s seminal text of 1987, “Popular Arts in Africa”. Barber’s ground-breaking essay contextualised popular culture in Africa and became a key reference text for cultural studies scholars in Africa. The Routledge Handbook of African Popular Culture engages with these sister works and extends the discussions on popular culture in Africa.