Helen Dampier

Simulacrum Diaries: Time, the “moment of writing,” and the diaries of Johanna Brandt-Van Warmelo

Abstract Diary writing is popularly defined around assumptions about the temporal and spatial circumstances of writing, which underpin the kind of knowledge diaries are often understood to “hold.” The epistemological status of diaries is rooted in an assumed ontology, concerning the time/space of their writing and the temporal location of their writer in relation to “entries” in them.This article explores “what happens” to the knowledge a diary is seen to hold when its ontological basis is disturbed by its assumed “present-ness” being shown to be an artful (mis)representation. The case study discussed concerns the published diary Het Concentratie-Kamp van Irene (The Irene Concentration Camp, 1905), as well as the manuscript diary, and the letters written concurrently with the preparation of the former for publication, of a South African woman, Johanna Brandt-Van Warmelo. The diary deals with the authors experiences during six weeks spent as a volunteer worker in Irene concentration camp during the 1899–1902 South African War. In the secondary literature, knowledge claims about the Van Warmelo-Brandt diary not only assume referentiality but also the temporal synonymity of “the moment of writing” with “the scene of what is written about.” In particular, the assumption is that the time of its writing, narrative time in each diary entry, and the temporal location of the writer in relation to the diary entries, are all “of the moment.” However, important temporal disjunctures exist between the Brandt manuscript and published diary. Detailed examples are examined by unpacking the “moments of writing” of the manuscript and the published diary, by reference to family letters written by Brandt-Van Warmelo over the period the diary was being prepared for publication. In doing so, we develop the idea of a “simulacrum diary” in thinking about the relationship between the published and manuscript diaries and the complexities of their moments of writing.

Aftermaths: post/memory, commemoration and the concentration camps of the South African War 1899–1902

theoretical exposition of ‘post/memory’, the rest of this discussion constitutes an exemplification of key aspects of the post/memory process, with the last section of 94 L. Stanley & H. Dampier

Olive Schreiner globalising social inquiry: a feminist analytics of globalization

Globalization theory sees the processes of change it is concerned with as distinctively new, with a feminist analytics part of the newness of the current period too, focusing on some of the specific gender dynamics involved. However, the work of the feminist writer and social theorist Olive Schreiner (1855–1920) challenges, indeed overturns, such assumptions. Similar structural economic and political circumstances to those now called globalization were the focus of Schreiners theorising, with her work demonstrating that ‘its been done before’ in the case of a feminist analytics of global social change. Also, Schreiners feminist interrogation of global change refused any confinement to gender (although it encompassed it), because for her gender was always already interconnected with class, ‘race’ and an array of wider structural forces and changes. Schreiners unfolding analysis of imperialism and the expansionist project in the period 1888 to 1913, and of war, peace and social movements in the period 1914 to 1920, are discussed, in particular by presenting new material from Schreiners extant letters and exploring the significant ways these add to the analysis in her published work. Over 4000 Schreiner letters are extant, are being researched by the Olive Schreiner Letters Project (www.oliveschreinerletters.ed.ac.uk), and provide an unparalleled resource for exploring the emergent analysis of a key feminist theorist.

The Work of Making and the Work it Does: Cultural Sociology and ‘Bringing- Into-Being’ the Cultural Assemblage of the Olive Schreiner Letters

Programmatic ideas regarding cultural sociology and its inter-relationship with cultural production inspired by the work of Inglis et al., Mukerji and Bennett are explored. A particular cultural assemblage, the editorial practices arising in an interdisciplinary project concerned with researching and publishing the letters of South African feminist writer and social theorist Olive Schreiner, is detailed. Four key aspects of the particular ‘bringing-into-being’ which these working practices involve are interrogated, regarding the ‘moment of writing’, archive stories, the ‘editorial moment’ and the involvement of the later reader, with these examined in depth in relation to examples of Schreiner’s letters.

Olive Schreiner, Epistolary Practices and Microhistories: A Cultural Entrepreneur in a Historical Landscape

ABSTRACT Focusing on the letters of the South African feminist writer and social theorist Olive Schreiner (1855–1920), this article explores Schreiners strategic uses of letter-writing as a key tool in her work as a cultural entrepreneur in a number of different social and political contexts. In advocating a microhistory approach which recognizes that macro and micro are interconnected and should be seen as lenses of perspective rather than as separate spheres, we examine various strands of Schreiners ‘cultural project’ and consider how her epistolary activities articulated and furthered this.

The Number of the South African War (1899-1902) Concentration Camp Dead: Standard Stories, Superior Stories and a Forgotten Proto-Nationalist Research Investigation

Tilly extols the power and compass of ‘superior stories’ compared with ‘standard stories’. However, things are not always so clear cut, as the case study discussed here shows. A 1906 – 1914 research investigation headed by P. L. A. Goldman, which has initially concerned with the enumeration and commemoration of the deaths of Boer combatants during the South African War (1899-1902), and later with the deaths of people in the concentration camps established in the commando phase of this war, is explored in detail using archived documents. Now largely forgotten, the investigation was part of a commemorative project which sought to replace competing stories about wartime events with one superior version, as seen from a proto-nationalist viewpoint. Goldman, the official in charge, responded to a range of methodological and practical difficulties in dealing with a huge amount of data received from a wide variety of sources, and eventually produced ‘the number’ as politically and organisationally required. However, another number of the South African War concentration camp dead - different from Goldmans, and also added up incorrectly - concurrently appeared on a national womens memorial, the Vrouemonument, and it is this which has resounded subsequently. The reasons are traced to the character of stories and their power, and the visibility of stories about the concentration camp deaths on the face of the Vrouemonument, but their anonymity within Goldmans production of ‘the number’. Tillys idea of an ‘in-between’ approach to analysing stories by historical sociology is drawn on in exploring this.

‘Going on with our little movement in the hum drum-way which alone is possible in a land like this’: Olive Schreiner and suffrage networks in Britain and South Africa, 1905–1913

ABSTRACT This article explores the letters of South African feminist writer Olive Schreiner (1855–1920) to illuminate connections and tensions between suffrage movements in the imperial metropole and on the colonial periphery. Schreiners letters shed fascinating light on how she used her contacts in the global suffrage movement to advance local suffrage work. They indicate key differences Schreiner identified between the British and South African suffrage movements, including that the latter should be focused on educating women to want the vote. Schreiners emphasis on universal suffrage also brought her into conflict with local suffrage organisations which were willing to accept a racial franchise, and also with key figures in the international suffrage movement.