Miss Katie Reid

Post:

Research Student (Centre for Colonial and Postcolonial Studies)

What is this?

Role

I am a Dphil Student in Colonial and Postcolonial Cultures in the School of English, sponsored by the AHRC.

My DPhil research explores the various modes of the work of Ivan Vladislavic - South African fiction-writer, keenly sought after editor, and reflexive art-essayist - whose role as Social Studies and Fiction editor at interventionist, anti-apartheid publishing house Ravan Press in the 1980s included editing the groundbreaking anti-apartheid protest magazine Staffrider, and whose work to date involves a broad range of 'joint' projects with visual artists, photographers, urbanists, and architects. Through this range of working practises and projects, which are typically interdiscursive in production, if not in their final versions as literary products, and which continue to engage with the unfinished event of apartheid in a range of subtle and complex negotiations of postapartheid Johannesburg, I investigate contexts of reception for anglophone South African writing in the 'world' literary space. 

Qualifications

MA, Critical Theory, University of Sussex, UK: 2008-9.

BA Hons, English Literature, University of Sussex, UK: 2005-8.

Activities

Co-founder, contributor and editor of the blog Africa in Words.

Member of the Sussex Africa Centre Postgraduate Steering Committee (2013-14).

Co-founder/convenor, with Steph Newell, of the annual African Popular Cultures Workshop (2012).

Co-organiser weekly School of English Colloquium (2010-2011).

Co-organiser, with Bethan Stevens, Picture this: postcards and letters beyond text, March 25-26, 2011.
Interdisciplinary conference, exhibition and mixed-media Postcards Competition. 'Picture this' had reciprocal links to Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, the Brighton Illustrators Group, and the publishers Myriad Editions, funded by the AHRC under their Beyond Text initiative, Roberts funding and the School of English at Sussex.

Publications

Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 52.1: 2017. 'Introduction to the symposium: Ivan Vladislavić, writing visual culture, and the globalization of a South African “artworld”'. Co-authored with James Graham, University of Middlesex, also co-editor of special symposium.

Africa, 82.2: 2012. Review article: 'Migratory shape-shifting in African Literary Criticism'. (Brenda Cooper, A New Generation of African Writers: Migration, Material Culture and Language, (2008);  Arlene A. Elder, Narrative Shape-shifting: Myth, Humor and History in the Fiction of Ben Okri, B. Kojo Laing, Yvonne Vera, (2009); Aedin Ni Loingsigh, Postcolonial Eyes: Intercontinental Travel in Francophone African Literature, (2009); Oyekan Owomoyela, The Columbia Guide to West African Literature in English Since 1945, (2008).)

Textual Practice, 25.2: 2011. Book Review: Karen Ikas and Gerhard Wagner (eds), Communicating in the Third Space, (Abingdon, Oxon, and New York: Routledge, 2009).

Fiction

I have short fiction pieces published in Leaf magazine: 'Small' - Leaf 1: June, 2009; 'The Score' - Leaf 2: November, 2009.

Teaching

I am a senior teaching fellow and associate lecturer, having taught across a number of universities in the South-East UK since 2011 (some details below).

Senior Teaching Fellow - SOAS, University of London (Global Englishes, Jan, 2017- . Critical and literary theory, including: 'Ways of (Decolonizing) Reading'; 'The Novel and its Others').
Senior Associate Lecturer, University of Brighton (2017. 'Critical Traditions in Western Thought'; 'Approaching Narrative').
Visiting Lecturer, University of Brighton (2015. 'Culture and Conflict - South Africa').
Associate Lecturer, University of Chichester (English, UG: 2013- modules on literary theory and postcolonial literatures).
Senior Associate Lecturer, University of Portsmouth (English, UG, 2011- . Literary theory and postcolonial literatures, including: 'The Tropical Gothic'; 'Indian Literature after the Millennium'; 'Postmodern Literatures'; 'Literary Prizes').
University of Sussex (School of English, UG: 2011 - 2013. Texts in Time; co-teaching The Literatures of Africa)

Funding/Awards

Open competition AHRC Doctoral Scheme funding. Fees and Maintenance (p/t 2009).

Harry Ransom Center Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, University of Texas at Austin, 2011-2012.

AHRC Student-Led Initiative Beyond Text Scheme funding: 'Picture this' Conference, Exhibition and Postcards Competition (maximum bid), 2010-2011.

Roberts Funding and School of English match-fund, University of Sussex: Picture This Postcards Competition booklet publication of winning entries, 2010.

Media

Live interview with Nancy Richards for South Africa's SAfm 'Word of Mouth' feature on the Literature show (2 June, 2013), discussing the blog Africa in Words.

Professional Development

October 2010 - May 2011 
ELTP (English Literature Teaching Programme) Training Course, University of Sussex.

September 2010 
OJS: Open Access Publishing, University of Sussex

February 2010
Profolio Doctoral Researcher workshops, University of Sussex 

Select Research/conference Papers

'"An eye-witness account": Ivan Vladislavic & South African Literary Subcultures'. With Tom Penfold (University of Johannesburg):  'Silence, Opposition & Challenge in South African Literary Journals'. Joint Seminar: Centre for English Studies and Southern Africa Seminar Series, University of London. SOAS, London (October, 2015).

''Dead Letters' and post-apartheid South Africa: Ivan Vladislavic's Double Negative'. Yours Sincerely: The Rise and Fall of the Letter – Conference, Events and Exhibition, Portico Library, Manchester (June, 2013).

'Interminable post-apartheid? Ivan Vladislavic's 'collaborative' South African voice'. Writing South Africa Now, Faculty of English, University of Cambridge (July, 2013).

Roundtable: 'Pulp Fiction'. Franschhoek Literary Festival, 2013. South Africa (May, 2013).

'Travelling the Literary Marketplace: Ivan Vladislavic's 'Joburg and What-What'. Postcolonial and Related Literatures Graduate Seminar, Faculty of English, University of Cambridge (November, 2012).

'Defining the ‘post-’ in the post-millennial context: Ivan Vladislavic and the South African literary marketplace.' African Studies Association UK Biennial Conference, Leeds (September, 2012).

''Worlds do fold out of them’ (Ivan Vladislavic): the Dead Letters of Vladislavic’s Double Negative.' SOAS Africa Department Research Seminar, UK (May, 2012).

'Destinal failure and the archive: letter forms and narrative in Zoe Wicomb and Ivan Vladislavic'. ‘Under Construction: Gateways and Walls’: EACLALS Triennial Conference, Istanbul (April, 2011).

''Posting' Apartheid South Africa: Vladislavic, Wicomb, Behr', Picture this: postcards and letters beyond text. University of Sussex, UK (March, 2011).

'The Palm-Wine Drinkard and the literary marketplace'. IAS Early Career Summer School, Theory for a Global Age: The Place of Africa?, University of Warwick, UK (July, 2010).

‘“As it will profit for both of us”: corrective Tutuola and the publication of The Palm-Wine Drinkard’. School of English DPhil Colloquium, University of Sussex, UK (June, 2010).