The rooting system of Leptophloeum Dawson: New material from the upper Devonian, Famennian Witpoort Formation of South Africa
- Prestianni, Cyrille, Gess, Robert W
- Authors: Prestianni, Cyrille , Gess, Robert W
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/72732 , vital:30104 , https://doi.org/10.1016/j.revpalbo.2014.05.007
- Description: The rhizomorphs of Early (Devonian and Early Carboniferous) arborescent lycopsids are known from only a handful of taxa. That of Leptophloeum is previously described from a single fragmentary specimen from China that, in our opinion, has been incorrectly interpreted. Here we describe several relatively well-preserved examples of Leptophloeumrhizomorphs from the Famennian aged Waterloo Farm Lägerstatte of South Africa. We demonstrate an unlobed cormose morphology separated from the microphyll bearing axis by a smooth transition zone. This provides one of the few known examples of a cormose lycopsid rhizomorph dating back to the Devonian. We assign this material and all previously published South African Leptophloeum material to Leptophloeum rhombicum.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Prestianni, Cyrille , Gess, Robert W
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/72732 , vital:30104 , https://doi.org/10.1016/j.revpalbo.2014.05.007
- Description: The rhizomorphs of Early (Devonian and Early Carboniferous) arborescent lycopsids are known from only a handful of taxa. That of Leptophloeum is previously described from a single fragmentary specimen from China that, in our opinion, has been incorrectly interpreted. Here we describe several relatively well-preserved examples of Leptophloeumrhizomorphs from the Famennian aged Waterloo Farm Lägerstatte of South Africa. We demonstrate an unlobed cormose morphology separated from the microphyll bearing axis by a smooth transition zone. This provides one of the few known examples of a cormose lycopsid rhizomorph dating back to the Devonian. We assign this material and all previously published South African Leptophloeum material to Leptophloeum rhombicum.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2014
The struggle for authority in George McCall Theal's Kaffir Folklore
- Authors: Naidu, Samantha
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:26362 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/53942 , https://www.upjournals.co.za/index.php/SAJFS/article/view/1674 , https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9456-8657
- Description: This article focuses specifically on George McCall Theal’s collection of folktale texts, Kaffir Folklore (1882), as an example of an early South African ethnographic publication, and argues that the folktale transcriptions contained therein, although a part of Theal’s general colonialist project, are hybrid, containing the voices of both coloniser and colonised. The key argument is that the presence of the African voices in this text reveals simultaneously that Theal’s editorial aspirations were never absolutely imposed, and that agency and influence (albeit limited) of the colonised Xhosa co-authors were present. The article offers an analysis of the paratext (the preface, the introduction and the explanatory notes) of Kaffir Folkore, rather than a close reading of the tales themselves. To facilitate an understanding of Theal’s editorial practice, Kaffir Folkore is compared to Harold Scheub’s The Xhosa Ntsomi (1975). More generally, drawing on postcolonial folklore and book-history scholarship, the article explores how folklore texts of the colonial era, although contributing to the establishment of a literary and cultural orthodoxy in modern South Africa, constitute a telling hybrid genre, which invites a re-evaluation of colonial relations, and of individual texts themselves. In short, these texts synthesise different literary traditions (European and African), different mediums (the oral and the written), different disciplinary approaches (ethnography, folklore, literature), and most significantly, the voices of different subjects. Kaffir Folklore (1882) epitomises this synthesis
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Naidu, Samantha
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:26362 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/53942 , https://www.upjournals.co.za/index.php/SAJFS/article/view/1674 , https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9456-8657
- Description: This article focuses specifically on George McCall Theal’s collection of folktale texts, Kaffir Folklore (1882), as an example of an early South African ethnographic publication, and argues that the folktale transcriptions contained therein, although a part of Theal’s general colonialist project, are hybrid, containing the voices of both coloniser and colonised. The key argument is that the presence of the African voices in this text reveals simultaneously that Theal’s editorial aspirations were never absolutely imposed, and that agency and influence (albeit limited) of the colonised Xhosa co-authors were present. The article offers an analysis of the paratext (the preface, the introduction and the explanatory notes) of Kaffir Folkore, rather than a close reading of the tales themselves. To facilitate an understanding of Theal’s editorial practice, Kaffir Folkore is compared to Harold Scheub’s The Xhosa Ntsomi (1975). More generally, drawing on postcolonial folklore and book-history scholarship, the article explores how folklore texts of the colonial era, although contributing to the establishment of a literary and cultural orthodoxy in modern South Africa, constitute a telling hybrid genre, which invites a re-evaluation of colonial relations, and of individual texts themselves. In short, these texts synthesise different literary traditions (European and African), different mediums (the oral and the written), different disciplinary approaches (ethnography, folklore, literature), and most significantly, the voices of different subjects. Kaffir Folklore (1882) epitomises this synthesis
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2014
Unclogging the wheels: how the shift from politics to law affects Africa's relationship with the international system
- Authors: Juma, Laurence
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/127123 , vital:35958 , https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/tlcp23amp;div=17amp;g_sent=1amp;casa_token=amp;collection=journals
- Description: Gone are the days when scholars debated whether international law was really law and whether the adjudicatory organs of the international system could effectuate the demands of the international rule of law. 1 This old time debate has, in recent times, given way to temperate and yet decisive acknowledgement of the legal authority of institutions resident within the international system.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Juma, Laurence
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/127123 , vital:35958 , https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/tlcp23amp;div=17amp;g_sent=1amp;casa_token=amp;collection=journals
- Description: Gone are the days when scholars debated whether international law was really law and whether the adjudicatory organs of the international system could effectuate the demands of the international rule of law. 1 This old time debate has, in recent times, given way to temperate and yet decisive acknowledgement of the legal authority of institutions resident within the international system.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2014
Using multivariate analysis and stable isotopes to assess the effects of substrate type on phytobenthos communities
- Dalu, Tatenda, Richoux, Nicole B, Froneman, P William
- Authors: Dalu, Tatenda , Richoux, Nicole B , Froneman, P William
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/68123 , vital:29201 , https://doi.org/10.5268/IW-4.4.719
- Description: Publisher version , For more than a century, artificial substrates have been employed in phytobenthos studies. In the present study, we compared the phytobenthos community structure in a field experiment over 3 seasons (summer, autumn, and winter) on 3 types of artificial substrates (brick, brown clay tiles, and grey clay tiles) and 3 natural substrates (macrophytes, rocks, and sediment) in a small, temperate system. A combination of multivariate analyses (cluster, multi-response permutation procedure, indicator species [IndVal], and canonical correspondence analysis [CCA]) and stable isotope analysis was used. We identified 96 total phytobenthos taxa. Artificial substrates resulted in different substrate communities, as shown by stable isotope analysis, cluster analysis, and a multi-response permutation procedure, with only those communities growing on grey tiles being similar to natural substrate communities. Overall, artificial substrates exhibited slightly higher species richness compared to natural substrates over the 3 seasons, although there were no significant differences (p> 0.05). Phytobenthos grown on brown tiles, rocks, and bricks showed seasonal variability of the carbon isotope δ13C values using one-way ANOVA (p< 0.05). Phytobenthos community structure did not show great seasonal variation; however, CCA identified water flow, conductivity, ammonium, phosphate, and water depth as important in structuring phytobenthos communities on different substrates. IndVal analysis showed that common phytobenthos taxa were not restricted to a single substrate, but preference was generally high for natural substrate, especially rocks, compared to artificial substrates. Substrate microhabitat type seems to influence the communities within the study areas.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Dalu, Tatenda , Richoux, Nicole B , Froneman, P William
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/68123 , vital:29201 , https://doi.org/10.5268/IW-4.4.719
- Description: Publisher version , For more than a century, artificial substrates have been employed in phytobenthos studies. In the present study, we compared the phytobenthos community structure in a field experiment over 3 seasons (summer, autumn, and winter) on 3 types of artificial substrates (brick, brown clay tiles, and grey clay tiles) and 3 natural substrates (macrophytes, rocks, and sediment) in a small, temperate system. A combination of multivariate analyses (cluster, multi-response permutation procedure, indicator species [IndVal], and canonical correspondence analysis [CCA]) and stable isotope analysis was used. We identified 96 total phytobenthos taxa. Artificial substrates resulted in different substrate communities, as shown by stable isotope analysis, cluster analysis, and a multi-response permutation procedure, with only those communities growing on grey tiles being similar to natural substrate communities. Overall, artificial substrates exhibited slightly higher species richness compared to natural substrates over the 3 seasons, although there were no significant differences (p> 0.05). Phytobenthos grown on brown tiles, rocks, and bricks showed seasonal variability of the carbon isotope δ13C values using one-way ANOVA (p< 0.05). Phytobenthos community structure did not show great seasonal variation; however, CCA identified water flow, conductivity, ammonium, phosphate, and water depth as important in structuring phytobenthos communities on different substrates. IndVal analysis showed that common phytobenthos taxa were not restricted to a single substrate, but preference was generally high for natural substrate, especially rocks, compared to artificial substrates. Substrate microhabitat type seems to influence the communities within the study areas.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2014
Writing the violated body : representations of violence against women in Margie Orford’s crime thriller novels
- Authors: Naidu, Samantha
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: Article , text
- Identifier: vital:26361 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/53932 , http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/18125441.2014.904396 , https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9456-8657
- Description: Using the late twentieth-century French feminist notions of écriture féminine and the abject as a starting point, this article considers the various pitfalls, effects and ethical ramifications of representations of violence against the female body in South African crime fiction. How do authors reconcile the entertainment value of such representations with their aims to perform social analysis? This article attempts to answer this question by first describing how violence targeted at the female body is graphically portrayed, and, second, by assessing the effects of these visceral descriptions. Margie Orford’s novels, in particular, the first in the Clare Hart series, Like clockwork (2006), which foregrounds human trafficking, prostitution and gender-based violence, will be examined. In Orford’s Clare Hart series, the female detective figure, the various plots to do with assault, abduction, rape and murder, and the explicit imagery that descriptively conveys such crimes, are narrative techniques employed by Orford to address this scourge, and the patriarchy and sexism of contemporary South African society in general. The article ends by assessing whether a bona fide feminist subgenre of South African crime fiction is being inscribed by Orford
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Naidu, Samantha
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: Article , text
- Identifier: vital:26361 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/53932 , http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/18125441.2014.904396 , https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9456-8657
- Description: Using the late twentieth-century French feminist notions of écriture féminine and the abject as a starting point, this article considers the various pitfalls, effects and ethical ramifications of representations of violence against the female body in South African crime fiction. How do authors reconcile the entertainment value of such representations with their aims to perform social analysis? This article attempts to answer this question by first describing how violence targeted at the female body is graphically portrayed, and, second, by assessing the effects of these visceral descriptions. Margie Orford’s novels, in particular, the first in the Clare Hart series, Like clockwork (2006), which foregrounds human trafficking, prostitution and gender-based violence, will be examined. In Orford’s Clare Hart series, the female detective figure, the various plots to do with assault, abduction, rape and murder, and the explicit imagery that descriptively conveys such crimes, are narrative techniques employed by Orford to address this scourge, and the patriarchy and sexism of contemporary South African society in general. The article ends by assessing whether a bona fide feminist subgenre of South African crime fiction is being inscribed by Orford
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2014