Reading Spaces in South Africa, 1850-1920s (Elements in Publishing and Book Culture)

Dick, Archie L.

Cambridge University Press（2020/11発売）

• 製本 Paperback:紙装版/ペーパーバック版／ページ数 75 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9781108814706
• DDC分類 028.9096809034

Full Description

Voluntary societies and government initiatives stimulated the growth of reading communities in South Africa in the second half of the nineteenth century. A system of Parliamentary grants to establish public libraries in country towns and villages nurtured a lively reading culture. A condition was that the library should be open free-of-charge to the general public. This became one more reading space, and others included book societies, reading societies, literary societies, debating societies, mechanics institutes, and mutual improvement societies. This Element explains how reading communities used these spaces to promote cultural and literary development in a unique ethos of improvement, and to raise political awareness in South Africa's colonial transition to a Union government and racial segregation.

Contents

1. Introduction; 2. Becoming literate, becoming literary; 3. Reading, writing, debating, reciting; 4. Dickens on the page, the podium, and the stage; 5. The fiction Charlie Immelman read, and the films he watched; 6. The Cape's global Islamic printing networks; 7. Conclusion.