Centre for Multilingualism and Diversities Research (CMDR) Projects
- they take a rather conservative approach by confining themselves only to canonical, print genres
- they make a gesture towards literatures in other languages but end up explicitly or implicitly reasserting the centrality of (written) literature in English
- or they treat the literatures in the different languages as discrete entities.
The current project differs from other previous attempts in five significant ways.
- Firstly, it draws in subject experts who have already worked substantially in the different literatures of the region, but who have not necessarily been in dialogue with each other.
- Secondly, it is fully cognisant of current developments in the field of the interdisciplines of literary and cultural studies, and includes in its purview areas/genres such as creative non-fiction, human-animal studies, publishing studies, environmental studies (in particular multispecies relations in the age of the Anthropocene), popular performance, lbgtq+ studies, creative writing, Khoisan studies, and digital/comic narrative/film, to name a few.
- Thirdly, it takes seriously the role of translation and retranslation in understanding a field and region marked by the multiplicity of its languages, especially – but not only – in making available for debate many African language texts which have been unavailable to any but those proficient in early versions of those, or which were ‘mistranslated’ by white scholars or colonial official.
- Fourthly, drawing in linguists and their concept of multilingual citizenship and multilingual landscaping, which emphasise not the co-existence of discrete language systems (which has been the traditional understanding of multilingualism), but instead the ways in which speakers/writers as agents move constantly across and between languages and discourses, the project eschews the approach of many previous projects which compared and contrasted, say, English, Afrikaans, Xhosa, and Zulu literatures, for an approach which sees the boundaries between them as fluid, porous and uncertain, despite the colonial and apartheid states’ attempts to enforce separation and segregation.
- Finally, the project does not regard the geographical confines of the country South Africa as delimiting its interest, but also situates South African literatures within the shifting global space of the transnational.
Aims
The chair aims to:
The chair aims to:
- help to produce a new generation of academics and researchers
- produce a substantial body of published work, in which we seek new ways of thinking and working across languages and literatures
- strengthen the research capacity of the faculty in the field of literary and cultural studies
- promote creative work as well as critical research
- seek ways to engage communities outside academia though initiatives in translation and creative writing to ensure that previously or otherwise marginalised voices receive attention and find publication.
Student Fellowships
There are currently two Postdoctoral students, two Doctoral students and three Master’s students funded through the Research Chair.
Recent Publications
2020. Finding My Way: Reflections on South African Literature. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press. (202 pages) (Republished by Routledge in 2024)
2021. “Afterthoughts: Multilingual Citizenship, Humans, Environments and Histories”. In: Zannie Bock and Chris Stroud (eds). Language and Decoloniality in Higher Education: Reclaiming Voices from the South. London: Bloomsbury: 201-215.
2023. “The Society of the Text: The Oral Literature of the /Xam Bushmen”. In: Julie Grant and Keyan Tomaselli (eds). Rethinking Khoe and San Indigeneity, Language and Culture in Southern Africa. Oxford and New York: Routledge: 239-58.
2023. (Co-authored with Kobus Moolman and Nkosinathi Sithole). “Introduction”. In: Brown, Duncan, Kobus Moolman and Nkosinathi Sithole (eds). Notes from the Body: Health, Illness, Trauma. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press: 1-16.
2023. “Unmade”. In: Brown, Duncan, Kobus Moolman and Nkosinathi Sithole (eds). Notes from the Body: Health, Illness, Trauma. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press: 232-9.
2023. (Co-edited with Kobus Moolman and Nkosinathi Sithole). Notes from the Body: Health, llness, Trauma. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press. (256 pages)
2023. (Co-authored with Knut G Nustad and Heather Swanson). “Hatching Conflicts: Trout Reproduction, Properties of Water, and Property Ownership in South Africa. Ethnos 89 (3): 418-437.
2025. (Co-authored with Craig Thom).“The Making of a (Wild) Fish”. Environmental Humanities 17 (2): 411-29.
2025. “In Praise of Stone”. Current Writing 37 (1): 1-11.
2025. (Co-authored with Knut G Nustad and Heather Swanson). “Bodies in Landscapes: Entanglements of Trout and Waters in South Africa”. Submitted to Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space. https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486251365166
2026. “The Trout Opera: A South-South Reading – Thinking with Fish”. Current Writing. (In Press.)
2026. “Fish Sentience, Conservation and the Ethics of Catch and Release Fishing”. Journal of Sustainability Education (In press.)
update coming soon...
update coming soon...
Principal Investigator: Dr Robyn Tyler
Office: Old Arts Building
Email: rrtyler@uwc.ac.za
The Bilingual Learning Materials project (2022-2026), funded by the NRF, develops and trials science learning materials for primary schools in marginalized languages of the Western Cape. Led by Dr Robyn Tyler, the project explores how isiXhosa and Kaaps are used alongside English in bilingual materials and in classrooms. 'iSayensi Yethu' and 'Osse Science' are groundbreaking in their incorporation of these marginalized languages in high status texts in education. Language ideologies and translanguaging in a schooling context of coloniality are key theoretical concerns of the project. https://bua-lit.org.za/projects/isayensi-yethu/
Office: Old Arts Building
Email: rrtyler@uwc.ac.za
The Bilingual Learning Materials project (2022-2026), funded by the NRF, develops and trials science learning materials for primary schools in marginalized languages of the Western Cape. Led by Dr Robyn Tyler, the project explores how isiXhosa and Kaaps are used alongside English in bilingual materials and in classrooms. 'iSayensi Yethu' and 'Osse Science' are groundbreaking in their incorporation of these marginalized languages in high status texts in education. Language ideologies and translanguaging in a schooling context of coloniality are key theoretical concerns of the project. https://bua-lit.org.za/projects/isayensi-yethu/
