Luan Staphorst

Luan Staphorst
DPhil Candidate
Lincoln College
luan.staphorst@lincoln.ox.ac.uk

Thesis title: Between Archive and Afterlife: Translationality, Desire, and |xam Orature in South African Letters

Supervisor: Professor Elleke Boehmer

Doctoral research: This dissertation engages with questions of the desire for and emergence of language in and through literature over time, how this particular desire relates to forging ethical and epistemic relations with the (Animal and non-Animal) Other, and how analysing a Southern literary system could offer an alternative understanding of such a poetics of translationality. The Bleek and Lloyd archive of |xam orature and the various forms of textualisation the archive has experienced over the past century in the South African literary system is the central vehicle through which these questions are explored, but texts from outside this system, notably from the British, Continental European, and Western Classical tradition, are brought into comparative conversation as well. 

Funding: This research is funded by the Clarendon Fund, Open-Oxford-Cambridge Arts and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Training Partnership, Lincoln College Kingsgate Fund, and the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust.

Research interests: Southern literature; World literature; Comparative Literature; African literature; South African literature; Orature; Postcolonialism; Decolonialism; Afrikaans; |xam; Khoesan; South African English; Translationality; Mimesis; Textualisation; Poetics; Poetry; Pastoral; Desire; Voice; Archive; Cosmology; Relationality; Animal Studies; Metaethics; Linguistics and Literature; Historical Linguistics; Etymology; Philosophy of Language; Philosophy and Literature. 

Authors and theorists of interest: ||kabbo; Diä!kwain; |hanǂkasso; !kweiten-ta-||ken; Antjie Krog; Stephen Watson; Arthur Markowitz; Eugene Marais; Gideon von Wielligh; Elias Canetti; J.M. Coetzee; Marlene van Niekerk; Karel Schoeman; Jolyn Phillips; Laurens van der Post; Olive Schreiner; Æsop; Theocritus; Willem die Madoc maecte; Geoffrey Chaucer; John Milton; Alexander Pope; Matthew Arnold; Rudyard Kipling; William Cowper; Seamus Heaney; Derek Walcott; Walter Benjamin; Jacques Derrida; Gayatri Spivak; Homi Bhabha; Julia Kristeva; Rita Felski; Giles Deleuze; Samuel Taylor Coleridge; Erich Auerbach; Michael Taussig; René Girard; Nidesh Lawtoo; Wail Hassan; Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o; Kwasi Wiredu; Achille Mbembe.

Peer reviewed journal articles:

  1. Staphorst, L. (Forthcoming). Reading between Fire and Ash: reflections on colonial-era African archives in the time of the archival (b/t)urn. International Journal of African Renaissance Studies - Multi-, Inter- and Transdisciplinarity. [Scopus indexed].
  2. Staphorst, L. (Forthcoming). "Innie Malmesbugy waa os bly": Linguistic citizenship, Arabic-Afrikaans, and the Burr R in Ashwin Arendse's Swatland (2021). Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies [Web of Science [WoS] and Scopus indexed]. [Published in Afrikaans].
  3. Staphorst, L. (2024). English and/in Africa: reflections on the language question, Afropolitanism, and linguistic orientation six decades after the 'African Writers Conference'. Acta Academica: Critical views on society, culture and politics 56(1): 43-61 [Scopus and Directory of Open Access Journals [DOAJ] indexed].
  4. Staphorst, L. (2024). ‘The language of the eye is not the language of the ear’: English, Translationality, and (Dis)Similarities between Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s Devil on the Cross. Research in African Literatures 54(2): 58-74. [WoS and Scopus indexed].
  5. Staphorst, L. (2024). Orange River Afrikaans, an Archaeological Genealogy. Part I: 1595-1916. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus 68: 1-23. [Scopus and DOAJ indexed]. [Published in Afrikaans].
  6. Staphorst, L. (2024). Orange River Afrikaans, an Archaeological Genealogy. Part II: 1917-1979. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus 68: 25-44. [Scopus and DOAJ indexed]. [Published in Afrikaans].
  7. Staphorst, L. (2024). Orange River Afrikaans, an Archaeological Genealogy. Part III: 1980-1998. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus 68: 45-63. [Scopus and DOAJ indexed]. [Published in Afrikaans].
  8. Staphorst, L. (2024). Orange River Afrikaans, an Archaeological Genealogy. Part IV: 1999-2021. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus 68: 65-86. [Scopus and DOAJ indexed]. [Published in Afrikaans].
  9. Staphorst, L. (2023) “Something about this left us uneasy”: the relationship between “unlaagering” and the colonialesque in recent Afrikaans linguistic and literary discourses. LitNet Akademies 20(3): 271-302. [South African Department of Higher Education and Training [DHET] accredited]. [Published in Afrikaans].
  10. Staphorst, L. (2023). “fokkol graad vi jou nie” (fuck all degree for you): Black Afrikaans Poets, Critical University Studies, and Transcripting the Afrikaans University. Journal of African Cultural Studies 35(1): 22-36. [WoS and Scopus indexed].
  11. Keet, A., Staphorst, L, Penkler, M. and Phuza, N. (2023). 'Emergencies' and Techno-Rationality: The Tasks of Decentred Critical University Studies. Southern African Review of Education. [DHET accredited].  [Co-lead-author – wrote and formulated 85% of the chapter].
  12. Fataar, A., Motala, S., Keet, A., Lalu, P., Nuttall, S., Menon, K., and Staphorst, L. (2023). The university in techno-rational times: Critical universities studies, South Africa. Educational Philosophy and Theory 55(7): 835-843. [WoS and Scopus indexed]. [Contributing author – wrote and formulated 20% of the article].
  13. Staphorst, L. (2023). On the trail of presumed plagiarism: holographic archaeology, GR von Wielligh, and the Bleek and Lloyd archive. Tydskrif vir Geesteswetenskappe 63(3): 475-480. [WoS and Scopus indexed]. [Published in Afrikaans].
  14. Staphorst, L. (2023). “the veiled depth”: GR von Wielligh’s complex Afrikaans recordings of late 19th century |xam culture. South African Journal of Cultural History | Suid-Afrikaanse Tydskrif vir Kultuurgeskiedenis 37(1): 1-22. [DHET accredited]. [Published in Afrikaans].
  15. Staphorst, L. (2022). “van die oorspronklike lippe” (from the original lips): the 19th Century Cape Colony, holographic archaeology, and the historicity of Gideon von Wielligh’s |xam-Afrikaans collection. Journal of Southern African Studies 48(6): 993-1011. [WoS and Scopus indexed].
  16. Staphorst, L. (2021). Premonitions, Interpretations, and Explanations: reception of a 19th Century |xam kum. Tydskrif vir Letterkunde 58(2): 103-117. [WoS and Scopus indexed]. [Published in Afrikaans].
  17. Staphorst, L. (2021). |hu|huŋaŋ |ne e: ǂkakǝn au hi |enni |emm (Europeans are those who talk with the tip of their tongue): Colonialesque Knowledge, Attuned Thinking and the Bloody Body of Scholarship known as Bushman studies. Southern African Humanities 34: 59-82. [WoS and Scopus indexed].
  18. Staphorst, L. (2020). “… the broken Dutch they understood and spoke …”: The ǀxam-Bushmen, the Bleek and Lloyd archive, and the history of the Afrikaans language. Tydskrif vir Nederlands en Afrikaans 27(2): 3-30. [DHET accredited]. [Published in Afrikaans].
  19. Staphorst, L. (2019). Owning the Body, Embodying the Owner: Complexity and Discourses of Rights, Citizenship and Heritage of Southern African Bushmen. Critical Arts: South-North Cultural and Media Studies 33(4-5): 104-119. [WoS and Scopus indexed]. Article reprinted in: Tomaselli, K. & Grant, J. (eds). (2023). Rethinking Khoe and San Indigeneity, Language and Culture in Southern Africa. London: Routledge.

Peer reviewed book chapters:

  1. Staphorst, L. (Forthcoming). "the book is our pass": reading university poetics, literary studies, and the question of epistemic legacies through South Africa's Broederbond university. In: The University and Literature and Literature in the University. Eds. P. Coetzee & J. du Preez. Gqeberha: Nelson Mandela University Press.
  2. Staphorst, L. (Forthcoming). I Write What I Must: Autoethnography, Colonial Scripts, and Wegskrywing in the South African University. In: Making Visible the Invisible: Institutional Cultures in South African Higher Education. Eds. C. van der Westhuizen, N. Mkhize, B. Magoqwana, Q. Maqabuka & G. Holtzman. Stellenbosch: SUN Press.
  3. Staphorst, L. and Keet, A. (Forthcoming). Contested Criticality: An Intellectual Historiography of Critical University Studies. In: Advancing Critical University Studies. Eds. D. Belluigi & A. Keet. Stellenbosch: SUN Press. [Lead-author – wrote and formulated 90% of the chapter].
  4. Keet, A., Chauke, T., Staphorst, L., Hamukuaya, H., & Honeycomb, N. (2024). Critique and Disputations:  Human Rights, Africanisation, Decolonisation, and the Project of (De)Centred Critical University Studies. In: Emancipatory Human Rights and the University: Promoting Social Justice in Higher Education. Eds. F. Tibbitts & A. Keet. London: Routledge: 31-51.  [Contributing author – wrote and formulated 15% of the chapter].
  5. Keet, A., Penkler, M. A., Staphorst, L, and Rafaely, D. (2024). Plastic Refusals: The Africanisation Challenge of South African Higher Education. In: Working with Theories of Refusal and Decolonization in Higher Education. Eds. P. Mikulan & M. Zembylas. London: Routledge. [Contributing author – wrote and formulated 20% of the chapter].
  6. Staphorst, L. (2023). “No More Space”: The University in the Short Stories of Marlene van Niekerk. In: Marlene van Niekerk: Die tempteerbare oog. ’n Huldiging. Ed. M. Crous. Cape Town: Naledi: 246-285. [Published in Afrikaans]. [Invited].
  7. Staphorst, L. (2021). To tongue the body | to body the tongue: problematizing translation of African oral traditions. In: Palgrave Handbook of African Oral Traditions and Folklore. Eds A. Akinyemi & T. Falola. New York: Palgrave Macmillan: 551-573. [Invited].

Other academic publications:

  1. Staphorst, L. (2024). Book review: Hunger for the Light: The Challenges of an African Life, by Rosemary Alice Gray. English Academy Review: A Journal of English Studies. [Scopus indexed].
  2. Staphorst, L. and Boehmer, E. (2024). On postcolonialism and the neerlandophone: an interview. Voertaal, 9 April.
  3. Staphorst, L. (2023). Kleinboet Staphorst answers Cicero. LitNet, 29 November. [Rebuttal to critiques of my LitNet Akademies article published in October 2023].
  4. Staphorst, L. (2023). Book review: Can Themba: The Making and Breaking of the Intellectual Tsotsi, a Biography. Tydskrif vir Letterkunde 60(1): 59-61. [WoS and Scopus indexed].
  5. Staphorst, L. (2023). Book review essay: Karoo Cosmos: |xam-ka !au and the |xam. Visual Anthropology 36(1): 80-86. [WoS and Scopus indexed].
  6. Staphorst, L. (2022). Antjie Somers, meat eaters, and the question of complex reading: a response to Chan Croeser and Jacomien van Niekerk’s essays in the children and youth book seminar series. LitNet. [Essay published in Afrikaans].
  7. Staphorst, L. (2021). Book review: The Tough Alchemy of Ben Okri, by Rosemary Alice Gray. English Academy Review: A Journal of English Studies 38(1): 93-96. [Scopus indexed].
  8. Keet, A., Staphorst, L., & Hamukuaya, H. (2021). Advancing Critical University Studies: a report on the fields of Critical University Studies in relation to Higher Education Studies and Higher Education Transformation Studies. CriSHET.
  9. Staphorst, L. (2020). ‘An African Elegy’ – Ben Okri: a brief analysis. Teaching English Today 10: 1-4.
  10. Staphorst, L. (2020). Book report: Decolonisation in Universities: The Politics of Knowledge by Jonathan D. Jansen (ed.). Educational Research for Social Change 9(1): 92-94. [Scopus indexed].

Other academic qualifications:

MSc (African Studies), Distinction, University of Oxford, 2022.

MA (Linguistics) [Research Degree], Cum Laude, Nelson Mandela University, 2022.

MA (Philosophy) [Research Degree], Cum Laude, University of the Western Cape, 2021.

BA Honours (Linguistics), Cum Laude, Nelson Mandela University, 2018.

BA Honours (Literature), Cum Laude, Nelson Mandela University, 2018.

BA (Liberal Arts), Cum Laude, Nelson Mandela University, 2017.

Academic profiles:

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=pzqxx9IAAAAJ&hl=en

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Luan-Staphorst 

https://oxford.academia.edu/LuanStaphorst