South African Scholars Research Articles

Understanding What One Reads I–III by Jan Lambrecht

Reviewed by: Understanding What One Reads I–III by Jan Lambrecht Paul B. Decock Lambrecht, Jan. 2003, 2011, 2015. Understanding What One Reads I–III. Annua Nuntia Lovaniensia 46, 64, 71. Edited by Veronica Koperski. Leuven: Peeters. ISBN 978-9042913029; 978-9042925311; 978-9042931718. Pp. 303; 343; 323. $38; $74; $85. Professor Jan Lambrecht, former Dean of the Faculty of Theology at the Catholic University of Leuven, and afterwards also a professor at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, is not unknown among South African scholars. In 1991, he was one of the contributors to the Festschrift for Prof. Andrie B. du Toit, Teologie in Konteks, with an article entitled, "A Call to Witness by All: Evangelisation in 1 Thessalonians." These three volumes bring together Lambrecht's 99 more recent shorter studies, especially on the Synoptic Gospels and Pauline literature. The title of these volumes recalls the encounter between Philip and the Ethiopian in Acts 8. As Veronica Koperski (one of Lambrecht's former doctoral students in Leuven) explains in her Preface to the first volume: "Professor Jan Lambrecht has long followed the model of Philip in helping non-specialists, as well as students of the bible, understand what they are reading in the sacred text. However, he also directed attention toward his own better understanding in dialogue with fellow biblical scholars." These short studies are the fruits of his vast experience, which he has built up over the course of more than 50 years of academic involvement in biblical studies. His doctoral thesis in biblical studies was published in 1967 as Die Redaktion der Markus-Apokalypse: Literarische Analyse und Strukturuntersuchung (Analecta Biblica 28). Since then, Professor Lambrecht has continued to work on the Synoptic Gospels, while he also extended his explorations to the Pauline literature. His involvement in Pauline studies bore fruits in his Commentary on Second Corinthians in the Sacra Pagina series (1999). As a result of his doctoral work, apocalyptic has also remained an interest of his. It will be remembered that he was the chairperson of the 1979 Colloquium Biblicum Lovaniense on the Johannine Apocalypse and Apocalyptic in the NT (published in 1980 as L'Apocalypse johannique et l'Apocalyptique dans le Nouveau Testament, BETL 53). Hence, it is not at all surprising that these volumes contain two studies on the Apocalypse of John. [End Page 237] Generally, one can characterise these studies as critical dialogues with current publications of biblical scholars; the approach is usually a "close reading" based on grammar and literary features of the texts. This is what makes these volumes so stimulating. For instance, he turns our attention to a statement by Hans Dieter Betz in his presidential lecture at the Pretoria General Meeting of the SNTS (1999), where Betz commented on 1 Cor 15 and Paul's understanding of the "inner human being": "The outer human being and the inner human being must not be distinguished as body and soul; they "are the two aspects of the same ἄνθρωπος (Lambrecht 2003:219, referring to Betz 2000; NTS 46:334). Lambrecht then raises the question: "does 2 Cor 4, 7–5, 10 justify the view of the body as a 'spiritual' entity?" (2003, 219). This refers to the statement of Betz: "While the σάρξ is regarded as mere perishability, the σῶμα is a "spiritual" entity destined for imperishability" (NTS 46:328). The following titles covering the field of Pauline studies give an idea of the nature of this collection: "The Confirmation of the Promises (Romans 15, 8)" responds to the exegesis by Thomas Söding (I:167–173). "Knowledge and Love (1 Corinthians 8:1–13)" takes as point of departure the studies by J. Delobel, J. F. M. Smit and A. Denaux (I:174–187). "The Spirit and Jesus (1 Corinthians 12:3)" responds to Johan Vos and puts forward a new proposal (I:188–204). "Ecocentric or Anthtropocentric: A Reading of Romans 8:18–25" is a dialogue with the recent works by H. A. Hahne, R. Jewett, J. Moo and Hunt-Horrell-Southgate. Lambrecht concludes: "Romans 8, 19–22, however, cannot be explained in the way Jewett does it. The passage does not point to the ecological problems we face today nor...

The Emphasis to the History of the South African Liberation Struggle in the Nation’s Universities

This article analyses the emphasis given to the teaching of the South African liberation struggle history at the country’s universities. Although this history has been analyzed in books, chapters, journal articles, conference papers, theses,and dissertations by South African scholars working in various disciplines, it is generally underrepresented in the curricula of the country’s universities. This absence stems, at least in part, from the racial segregation that divided South African universities until the end of Apartheid in 1994. Today, the overwhelming majority of lecturers devote, on average, six or fewer of their annual class sessions to the subject, when most university modules run from seven to fourteen weeks. Despite the limited time given to topics on South African liberation struggle history, a majority of academics surveyed in history and political science departments believe that their institution’s undergraduate curriculum deals sufficiently with the history. Thus, aside from some notable exceptions, South African departments of history and political science have failed to integrate this eld within the broader study of national history. As a result, most university-educated South Africans lack post-secondary formal study on the history of the liberation struggle, a reality that affects the development of research and scholarship on this topic.

Editorial

Editorial

Sociological research and collaboration in South Africa: Past and present

Sociological research in South Africa presents characteristic features in line with its historical and political phases. This article maps the production of sociological research in South Africa during the apartheid and democratic periods. The data used in the article were drawn from the publication records of South African scholars stored in the database of the Web of Science (WoS). A total of 2342 publications representing the period 1970–2015 was sampled for this scientometric analysis. Employing appropriate statistical tests, the article examines the role of collaboration in the production of sociological knowledge in South Africa, and the relationships that exist among collaboration, international partnerships, subject areas and citations. The analysis shows that South African sociological research has distinctive characteristics that represent the two periods of study. It has benefitted from collaboration, both domestic and international. Collaboration continues to grow in specific subject fields of sociological research in South Africa, and has importance in the visibility of sociological research in the country.

A Critical Investigation of the Relevance and Potential of IDPS as a Local Governance Instrument for Pursuing Social Justice in South Africa

Unlike the situation in the past, when local government’s role was limited to service delivery, local government is now constitutionally mandated to play an expanded developmental role. As a “co-responsible” sphere of government, local government is obliged to contribute towards realising the transformative constitutional mandate aimed at social justice. South African scholars and jurists share the view that social justice is primarily concerned with the eradication of poverty and extreme inequalities in access to basic services, and aims to ensure that poor people command sufficient material resources to facilitate their equal participation in socio-political life. In order to enable municipalities to fulfil their broad constitutional mandate, the system of integrated development planning (IDPs) came into effect in South Africa in 2000. Each municipality is obliged to design, adopt and implement an integrated development plan in order to achieve its expanded constitutional mandate. The IDP is considered to be the chief legally prescribed governance instrument for South African municipalities. The purpose of this article is to explore and critically investigate the relevance and potential of IDPs in contributing towards the achievement of social justice in South Africa. This article argues inter alia that the multitude of sectors that converge in an IDP makes it directly relevant and gives it enormous potential to contribute towards social justice because, depending on the context, municipalities could include and implement strategies that specifically respond to diverse areas of human need. In this regard, the legal and policy frameworks for IDPs provide a structured scheme that could be used by municipalities to prioritise and meet the basic needs of especially the poor. Despite its potential, it is argued that the ability of IDPs to respond to the basic needs of the poor is largely constrained by a series of implementation challenges partly attributed to the underlying legal and policy framework.

Editorial

When PER (acronym for the Afrikaans journal title Potchefstroomse Elektroniese Regstydskrif, but also suggesting the Latin connotations of causation, durability and facilitation) first appeared in November 1998, there was an awareness of the incongruity of the notion of a law journal not being published in tangible form by an established law publisher on the one hand, and on the other of the inevitability of things to come. The editorial stated:
 "In this era of an unstoppable increase in information on offer and improved means of communication, it is inevitable that the exchange of juristic ideas should develop and escalate electronically, by internet. A problem already challenging the time starved legal user of the electronic medium, is to separate the wheat from the chaff. For many people it is relatively easy to publish something on the Web. It is, however, just as demanding to produce quality in this manner as through any other medium, be it primitive or avant garde."
 From the outset the Potchefstroomse Elektroniese Regstydskrif (PER) / Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal (PELJ) was focused on maintaining high editorial standards, producing material for legal scholars worth reading. Probably still the most widely cited contribution to PER/PELJ (on Ubuntu by Justice Yvonne Mokgoro) appeared in the first volume. Papers delivered (referred to as orationes) by prominent scholars and judges are often published in PER/PELJ, and double-blind peer review practices are maintained throughout, except for the orationes.
 From time to time guest editors are invited to produce single or special editions. Renowned South African and foreign scholars are regularly approached to review submissions to PER/PELJ, and the editorial board is composed of prominent internationally recognised academics and judges.
 Since 2003, PER/PELJ has taken its place among a range of renowned internationally accredited journals, currently listed and indexed inter alia by IBSS, DOAJ, SSRN, AJOL, Boloka, SciELO, HeinOnline, and Web of Knowledge.
 In 2016, PER/PELJ migrated to this online journal system, and contributions accepted for publication are now published continuously as soon as the finally edited version becomes available.
 We are entirely grateful to our authors, reviewers and readers who have always believed in the scholarly quality of the contributions. You have been instrumental in the phenomenal growth of the journal over the last 18 years.
 We are proud to announce the first contribution of 2016 entitled “Remedial Principles and Meaningful Engagement in Education Rights Disputes” by the renowned author, Sandy Liebenberg, who is a distinguished professor and HF Oppenheimer Chair in Human Rights Law, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa.
 Editor-in-Chief: Christa RautenbachandFounding Editor: Francois Venter
 
 

Evaluation of Modified Patient Health Questionnaire-9 Teen in South African Adolescents.

Background:This report describes the findings of the survey conducted by South African Depression and Anxiety Group (SADAG) in a cohort of disadvantaged South African adolescent scholars in which PHQ-9 teen version was modified and adapted (PHQ-9M) to improve the response rate.Method:PHQ-9M was administered to 2025 secondary students of 35 schools over 2 years in Gauteng Province, South Africa.Results:The mean age was 15.8 years. 23% of respondents scored 9 or above, 26.7% reported suicidal ideations in last month, 21.8% reported lifetime suicide attempts and 9.3% had severe functional impairment. PHQ-9M showed a fair internal consistency and face validity in this study.Conclusion:The PHQ-9M could be useful in conducting surveys in settings of low mental health literacy after further evaluation of its psychometric properties. The high rates of suicidal ideations, suicide attempts, and functional impairment in this population suggest the need for preventive interventions.

Philipp Melanchthon: A short introduction

Philipp Melanchthon was one of the most influential theologians of the Reformation of the 16th century. He was responsible for transforming the secondary and tertiary educational systems in Germany. He was responsible for a new theological curriculum. He wrote the first Protestant ‘systematic theology’ and was the author of the Confessio Augustana. He is called the ‘teacher of Germany and Europe’. In spite of all the praises, most South Africans know very little about this important theologian. In this year of jubilee, it is imperative that a short introduction to his life and work be published – in the hope that he would receive more attention in future from South African scholars.

Justice and the Missional Framework Document of the Dutch Reformed Church

This article engages with the Missional Framework Document of the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) from the perspectives of solidarity with the poor and justice for South African society. The democratic South Africa continues to face significant socio-economic problems and an increasingly dissatisfied population. In the light of this, the article presents an introductory conversation with the Missional Framework Document in order to ask whether it offers an adequate response to South Africa�s current contextual challenges. The lens through which this article will engage the Framework Document is the theological paradigm of justice, specifically the theory of justice presented by Nicholas Wolterstorff as well as some important contributions from contemporary South African scholars who advocate for a theology from the margins of society. It is contended that the DRC remains a predominantly white middle-class church. This social, economic and political location has an impact on the missional theology of the church as expressed in the Framework Document. Hence, we engage with the Missional Theology of the DRC by means of a paradigm that operates from the �underside� or the economic, political and social �margins� of South African society. We argue that any missional theology aimed at furthering God�s Kingdom in South Africa at present must develop in community with the marginalised majority of the nation. The critical engagement with the Framework Document will be done by sketching a theological landscape where current contextual realities are brought into relief against a kairos moment on which the efficacy of this church�s mission, indeed its public work and witness, is being called into question.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This interdisciplinary study in Systematic Theology and Ethics engages the missional theology found in the Missional Framework Document of the Dutch Reformed Church. Methodologically, the research advocates for a contextual engagement with the missional theology proposed by this important document. The outcome of this contextual theological consideration is an invitation for the Church to consider the ethics of justice as an important aspect of their approach to faithful Christian mission in the South African social, economic and political context.

Book review: Sally Swartz. 2015. Homeless wanderers: Movement and mental illness in the Cape Colony in the nineteenth century

<p>No abstract available. </p>

Framing the problem of rape in South Africa: Gender, race, class and state histories

With rates of rape in South Africa among the highest in the world, the significance of context has surfaced repeatedly in South African scholarship on rape. Most commonly, rape is understood as a symptom of deep and pervasive gender inequality, historical, social and economic legacies of apartheid as well as post-apartheid state discourses that have normalized rape and enabled it to be tolerated. In addition, the role of masculinities has received significant attention, linked to social and economic histories and contemporary political narratives. This article considers how scholarly discussions on rape in South Africa are evolving. Applying a critical sociological lens of enquiry to the ways in which the problem of rape is constructed, it outlines the significance of state histories in understandings of rape in South Africa today, the explicit and implicit ways in which research and writing on rape is racialized and classed, and considers the implications of this.

A worthy tribute to a South African giant

No abstract available.

Developing an appropriate land use methodology to promote spatially just, formal retail areas in developing countries: The case of the City of Cape Town, South Africa

South African scholars have increasingly recognized that the prevailing management system for land use is one not relevant to the current spatial needs of the country's settlements. These include, in particular, the need to create sustainable, spatially just and resilient settlements and to develop land in a manner that promotes efficient urban development. The debate in the South African literature on land use management has, with a few notable exceptions, yet to venture into the specific mechanics of how to fix this system, ways the system can be used to create a spatially just urban form, or its applicability in formal retail areas.This paper addresses these questions within the context of formal retail areas and the zoning category that these are typically found in, namely that of the General Business zone. This paper initially investigates the current exclusionary nature of formal retail areas in the context of South Africa and within Cape Town and how this is linked to the more macro patterns of spatial exclusion within Cape Town. It is argued that within the context of Cape Town there is a need to focus on both commercial, particularly formal retail, as well as residential, areas with regard to the project of creating a more spatially just city. It is subsequently demonstrated, firstly, how zoning scheme provisions could be used as a mechanism to address these patterns of exclusion in formal retail areas, specifically exploring provisions that would encourage inclusion of informal and microenterprises within shopping malls. Secondly, it is demonstrated how provisions can be included that create a safer and more inviting environment for public transport users and poorer employees and consumers, in formal retail areas.The contribution of this paper is to initiate a long overdue conversation regarding the relationship between land use management and social justice within a developing world context, and in formal retail areas, and aims to set out ways in which land use management can be made more relevant; both for South African cities and cities in other developing countries.

Towards a “New Africanity”: Southern Connectivities and Lusofonia in Imraan Coovadia’s Alternate History in The Institute for Taxi Poetry

One of the central developments in post-transitional South African literature has been a seeming shift towards an increasing transnational connectivity, as well as an incipient dialogue with other parts of the African continent. This article reads Imraan Coovadia’s 2012 novel, The Institute for Taxi Poetry, as part of a larger body of works that demonstrates a rethinking of the country’s “Africanity” (Smith 2012). South African authors, particularly since 2000, have explored the country’s post-apartheid opening up to the African continent, but also highlighted ongoing closures and ruptures. Coovadia’s alternate history stands out from these works in its radical rethinking of South Africa’s relations with other parts of Africa by envisaging the country’s past, present and future through a Lusophone lens. Rather than focusing primarily on western Lusophone elsewhere, references to the Lusophone South, including Lusophone Africa, as well as other African countries, are central to the novel’s alternative imaginary. With this reshuffling of conventional centre–periphery relations, Coovadia, I argue, writes into being a new form of Southern connectivity. The alternate history genre allows the author to question the traditional classificatory grids that have dominated South African scholarship in the past and ask for new critical vocabularies that transcend accounts of the country’s journey on merely “black and white [ … ] roads” (Serote cited in Coovadia 2012). Yet the relationship between Coovadia’s counterfactual world and the reader’s extra-textual reality is of a palimpsestic rather than oppositional nature. Contrary to more conventional counterhistories, in which the counterfactual narrative and the historical foil are frequently opposed to each other, we find continuous overlayings and overlappings of the two in Coovadia’s text. The constant reminders of the historical foil from which the novel deviates become a dominating textual strategy that both invokes and critiques the decentring of other African countries in post-apartheid South Africa.

Review of de Wet, C. 2015 Preaching Bondage: John Chrysostom and the Discourse of Slavery in Early Christianity

This first book of an exciting young South African scholar is based on his doctoral research, but bears only a pale resemblance to his doctoral dissertation. Rather, it constitutes a much more mature reflection on hissubject - the discourse of slavery in Late Antiquity - shaped by further engagement and discussion with a wide circle of scholars from a range of disciplines. Pitched as a project in cultural historiography, it asks large questions about the legacy of slavery, challenging current complacency byexposing largely unconscious and socially problematic discourses of domination that continue to persist into the present. This book may be about the period of Late Antiquity, but it draws a long trajectory from the Classical Greek and Roman past into Hellenistic Judaism, Early Christianity, the 'crisis of masculinity' of the 4th century, and well beyond.Similarly, while the focus is the discourse of a single late-fourth-century author, the Syrian priest John Chrysostom, subsequently bishop of the Eastern imperial capital, Constantinople, De Wet provides a model for the analysis of other late-ancient authors on the topic, as well as demonstrating the pervasiveness within Christian circles of the main threads of this particular writer's approach. In essence, the book offers a major contribution to the history of ideas in Western thought, delineating how a core set of ideas, transformed through a Christian lens, led to the passiveacceptance of the (gendered) oppression of other human beings. The implications of the study presented in these pages are extensive and this is a book to be read by scholars across a wide range of interests and disciplines.

Fathering volkekunde: race and culture in the ethnological writings of Werner Eiselen, Stellenbosch University, 1926–1936

Werner Willi Max Eiselen (1899–1977) has been celebrated for having consolidated the liberal functionalist school of social anthropology in South Africa. In the standard androcentric narrative, David Hammond-Tooke (1997) argues that during his decade-long tenure as head of “Bantology” at Stellenbosch University between 1926 and 1936, and in close collaboration with Isaac Schapera (1905–2003), Werner Eiselen developed the tradition of social anthropology founded in the five years before his appointment by Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown (1881–1955) at the University of Cape Town. This essay fundamentally challenges this narrative. Through a close reading of the political and ethnological writings of Meinhof-trained Eiselen, it argues that race rather than culture was the central theme in his Stellenbosch years, especially during the mid- to late 1920s. Racial classification, racial science and Afrikaner nationalism played a central role in the alternative ethnological tradition that Eiselen self-consciously crafted at Stellenbosch University. His partial shift in emphasis from race to culture in his relatively sparse ethnological writings of the early to mid-1930s was prompted by another German mentor, the linguist Diedrich Westermann (1887–1956), rather than by South African liberal scholars like Isaac Schapera.

Corrigendum: South African scholars make Thomson Reuters ‘Highly Cited Researchers 2014’

Corrigendum: South African scholars make Thomson Reuters ‘Highly Cited Researchers 2014’

South African scholars make Thomson Reuters ‘Highly Cited Researchers 2014’ (with corrigendum)

Evaluating individual and institutional scientific performance is an essential component of research assessment, and outcomes of such evaluations play a key role in institutional research strategies, including funding schemes, staffing and international recognition. In a recent communication by Slippers et al. entitled 'Global trends and opportunities for development of African research universities', featured in the January/February 2015 edition of the South African Journal of Science, they observed that: The demand for demonstrating the relevance and impact of research at higher education institutions is increasing at the same time, particularly in developing nations in which funders are becoming impatient with a perceived lack of results.

Tribute André Brink: In defiance of boundaries

With the death of the South African novelist, playwright, literary critic, translator and scholar, Andre Brink, on 6 February 2015, just seven months after Nadine Gordimer's on 13 July 2014, a crucial epoch of South African literature and history inexorably moves to a close. Like Gordimer, Brink had been among the few particularly distinguished white South African writers whose denunciation of white privilege and enunciation of enlightened humane values potentially applicable to all humankind did not only become the presiding concern of their art but was also expressed in their heretical association with the ANC (that is, rather than the National Party or better still the Broederbond). Brink apparently suffered an aneurism over Brazzaville on a KLM flight from Europe to South Africa. Perhaps, there could not have been a more emblematic way to die for a writer who envisaged all his life as a symbolic crossing of frontiers and saw the negotiation of the cultural and intellectual distance between Europe and Africa as the core of his life-long endeavour.

PUBLISHING SOUTH AFRICAN SCHOLARSHIP IN THE GLOBAL ACADEMIC COMMUNITY.

South Africa's academic publishing history has been profoundly influenced by its colonial heritage. This is reflected in the publication of Transactions of the South African Philosophical Society (later, the Royal Society of South Africa) from 1878. Although the Society and journal sought to promote original research about South Africa, it was modelled after the Royal Society in London and formed part of an imperial scientific community. As the local higher education institutions grew more independent and research-focused, local scholarly publishing developed as well, with university presses playing an increasingly important role. The University of South Africa (Unisa) Press started publishing departmental journals in the 1950s, with a focus on journals that 'speak to the student', and it is today the only South African university press with an active journals publishing programme. As external funding declined and the country became intellectually isolated in the high apartheid period, the Press managed to attract journals that could no longer be subsidized by learned societies and other universities. More recently, new co-publishing arrangements have brought South African journals back into an international intellectual community. Although some argue that this constitutes a re-colonization of South African knowledge production, it is also an innovative strategy for positioning local research in a global context.