Despite her uncle's advice not to write about other books, Rita Barnard found that the best way to talk about South Africa's period of apartheid was through examining the literature that described the phenomenon.
Last evening, the Penn English professor introduced her new book, Apartheid and Beyond: South African Writers and the Politics of Place, to a small - but devoted - crowd at the Penn Bookstore.
Barnard began writing her book in 1995, immediately after the election of Nelson Mandela as president of South Africa. "I knew I had to start writing about it right away," she said, "because I knew that my country was about to change."
Her book focuses on how physical segregation and racial discrimination during the apartheid period - lasting from roughly 1948 to 1994 - profoundly affected the social, political and economic realities that exist in South Africa today.
Some of the issues addressed in Apartheid and Beyond are the creation of black townships, passes, prisons and migration as methods of geographical control.
What makes the book unique in her eyes is Barnard's interpretation of works by other authors who have written about apartheid and the politics of place, such as Athol Fugard, Zakes Mda and Nobel Prize-winners J.M. Coetzee and Nadine Gordimer.
One of Barnard's former students, second-year graduate student Gavin Steingo, described Barnard as "a very inspiring person, . someone who really makes you love the subject."
College junior Alexandra Martins, who is from South Africa and attended the event, said she really liked "the idea of using literature to examine politics."
One of the biggest challenges writing this book, Barnard said, was knowing she had to wait for other books and aspects of theorizing to come out before she was able to finally conclude it.
"I call it a 'meditation on transformation,'" she said. "That's why it took me 10 years to write it. . South Africa was a moving target."
Today, South Africa's sense of national identity is suffering because it emerged during a time of increasing globalization. That's why "it has to work hard to market itself to the world," Barnard said.
After meditating on the situation in South Africa, Barnard said she realized the importance of also addressing the apartheid that exists world-wide.
She added that she hopes in her next project to look at these issues on a global scale.
In addition to teaching English, Barnard is the director of Women's Studies and the Alice Paul Center for Research on Women.
