Short description
How can social identity formation be understood in terms of poetry and painting? Can it be argued that these signifying practices, as systems of meaning, effectively mirror the transformation and mutations of identity in society?
Long description
How can social identity formation be understood in terms of poetry and painting? Through analysis of the work of Breyten Breytenbach, the essays in this collection investigate the way in which identity is constituted in text and image. The book draws on debates around identity formation and (self)representation in art and writing. By extension, the essays also point to ways in which these Breytenbach case-studies relate to other contemporary identity formations in South Africa. Breytenbach's art and writing have, since the early sixties, been important sites of political and cultural struggle. They foreshadow the shift and play of social identities which have evolved since the first democratic elections in 1994, be they of the Afrikaans mother-tongue speaker, the exile and outsider or - surprisingly - the recently emerged taalstryder. Extending beyond the literary and art historical perspective from which Breytenbach's work is usually viewed, this collection situates his work in a broader framework and seeks to elucidate identity formation in terms of the I (or eye) position in the discourse of graphic and visual signs.