Department of Afrikaans and Theory of Literature

Prof W Stables

School of Arts
Department: Afrikaans and Theory of Literature
Associate Professor
Tel: 012 352 4121
E-mail: stablw@unisa.ac.za

Qualifications

  • PhD (Dublin)

Currently teaching

  • THL2601
  • THL2603
  • THL3705
  • THL4801

Fields of academic interests

  • 19th- and 20th-century literature;
  • Continental philosophy;
  • Literary criticism and theory (especially deconstruction and psychoanalysis);
  • Political theory (including Marx and Benjamin);
  • History and theory of the novel;
  • Literature and visual culture

Journal articles

1. “The Song at the End of the Future: On the (Mouse) People.” Textual Practice 36.5 (2022): 806-830.

2. “K.’s Debt: The Economy of The Trial.” CR: The New Centennial Review 21.2 (2021): 191-232.

3. “‘The time of that other interpretation’: Gesture, Symptom and Rilke’s The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge.” New German Critique 48.3 (2021): 165-198.

4. “What is the Matter? A Meditation on Illegible Writing.” New Literary History 52.3 (2021): 285-309.

5. “Action Time: Freud’s ‘The Moses of Michelangelo’.” Angelaki: Journal for the Theoretical Humanities 25.5 (2020): 50-66.

6. “Bartleby’s Remains: Originality, Language, Event.” Orbis Litterarum 74.6 (2019): 411-429.

7. “Passages with Benjamin: Reading The Arcades Project.” Cultural Critique 105 (2019): 135-176.

8. “Judging Words: The Task of Criticism.” Textual Practice 33.9 (2019): 1535-1553.

Professional positions, fellowships & awards

  • URC Research Fellowship (University of the Witwatersrand)
  •  Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities (University of Cape Town)
  •  Sylvia Naish Research Fellowship (University of London)
  •  DAAD Research Fellowship (Freie Universität Berlin)