10.06.2021

Reclaiming the Female Body in the Short Story "Remote Control": Reading from an Unpublished Collection, 6.00 – 8.00 p.m. CEST

Research Alum Dr. Josiah Nyanda (University of the Witwatersrand) reads from his fiction at the seminar series "Bodies, Power, Norms". The seminar series is organized jointly by the Center for Gender and Diversity Research and Network and Alums Relations.

Speaker
Josiah Nyanda (PhD) holds a doctoral degree in English from the University of the Witwatersrand. He lectures English and Critical Thinking at the same University. His area of research interest is life writing, in particular, political biographies and autobiographies from Africa. He worked as Chief Hansard Editor at the Parliament of Zimbabwe, and was a high school teacher for 10 years. He has also worked as the English desk editor for the Pan African Parliament, and has done some rapporteuring work for the Sadc Parliamentary Forum. He served as a data analyst for the Committee on the new Constitution in Zimbabwe (COPAC), and trained rapporteurs for the same Committee. Besides majoring in English, Josiah also holds a diploma in Journalism.

Abstract
In between the pages of the Narrative of the life of Fredrick Douglas, Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the life of a slave girl, Zora Neal Hurston’s Their eyes were watching god, Penny Laurie’s Meat Market: Female flesh under capitalism, Paul Gilroy’s The Black Atlantic, and In the lyrics of The Rolling Stones’ ‘Beast of Burden’, H.E.R’s ‘I can’t Breathe’, and modern day hashtag protest movements, the female body has endured the double tragedy of being the beast of burden feasted upon by the capital economy and traditional male hegemony.

Recently, the prison style Covid-19 lockdowns, quarantine, restrictions, isolation and curfews have exposed the female body to further abuse and violence from their hitherto and erstwhile oppressors. This government sanctioned domestic imprisonment has exposed modern culture’s obsession with controlling women’s bodies (Penny Laurie). Resultantly, gender-based violence has been declared a second pandemic – in South Africa.

However, the same culture and capital economy that condemn the female body to perpetual servitude also condemn women when they defend and reclaim their bodies. The law and police heavy handedness in dealing with protesting women deserve exposure.

What is society’s view of a woman who uses unorthodox means to defend and reclaim her body? When the law has failed to protect women, should that law be used to judge and condemn women when they take control of their bodies?

My presentation seeks to address these and more questions through a personally written short story titled ‘Remote Control’ (Nyanda unpublished) taken from a collection of seventeen Covid-19 inspired stories that are still work in progress.

Please send an email to to receive the zoom link.

ECTS points for students of the University of Tübingen: By attending the seminar series during the summer term and submitting an essay on a chosen topic, students can obtain 1 ECTS point. Please see ALMA for more information.

Poster of Bodies, Power, Norms. Blurred figures walking over zebra crossing.

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