Wendy Woodward – författare

Threshold focuses on putative moments of change—when the world shifts even minutely, when perceptions may be transformed, when the mundane becomes uncanny. The poems tell stories, hint at the ineffable.The dedication to "e;teachers who step over thresholds with grace and courage"e; gestures not just to the human, but to the agency of the literary, the visual, experiences of humour or loss, connections with more than human kin, being embodied on this earth.  REVIEWS: 1. "e;These are poems of kindness and wit and grief, and a fine exploration of what it is that makes for freedom. In what is for me her strongest work so far, Wendy Woodward's skillful words speak of life: a life in which animal beings are our kin, and this human body-heart-mind is awake and tender."e; – Em Prof. Julia Martin, University of the Western Cape, English Department 2. "e;Woodward's collection offers transitions across moments in nature, peopled by beginnings that flutter away from endings. This is magnificent poetry. A celebration of boundary as the beginning of presencing in a most personal, fluid and tangible way: thresholds simultaneously separating and uniting words that allow us to truly see the everyday."e; – Vernon RL Head, award-winning novelist & poet 3. "e;Through landscapes geographic, literary and of the soul, Wendy Woodward's poems present life unflinchingly. Yet a defining commitment to beauty and hope coaxes us into new ways of inhabiting our flawed world. Readers will be intrigued, enlightened, and enchanted."e; - Beverly Rycroft, poet & novelist

Environmental and animal studies are rapidly growing areas of interest across a number of disciplines. Natures of Africa is one of the first edited volumes which encompasses transdisciplinary approaches to a number of cultural forms, including fiction, non-fiction, oral expression and digital media. The volume features new research from East Africa and Zimbabwe, as well as the ecocritical and eco-activist ‘powerhouses’ of Nigeria and South Africa. The chapters engage one another conceptually and epistemologically without an enforced consensus of approach. In their conversation with dominant ideas about nature and animals, they reveal unexpected insights into forms of cultural expression of local communities in Africa. The analyses explore different apprehensions of the connections between humans, animals and the environment, and suggest alternative ways of addressing the challenges facing the continent. These include the problems of global warming, desertification, floods, animal extinctions and environmental destruction attendant upon fossil fuel extraction. There are few books that show how nature in Africa is represented, celebrated, mourned or commoditised. Natures of Africa weaves together studies of narratives – from folklore, travel writing, novels and popular songs – with the insights of poetry and contemporary reflections of Africa on the worldwide web. The chapters test disciplinary and conceptual boundaries, highlighting the ways in which the environmental concerns of African communities cannot be disentangled from social, cultural and political questions. This volume draws on and will appeal to scholars and teachers of oral tradition and indigenous cultures, literature, religion, sociology and anthropology, environmental and animal studies, as well as media and digital cultures in an African context.

Environmental and animal studies are rapidly growing areas of interest across a number of disciplines. Natures of Africa is one of the first edited volumes which encompasses transdisciplinary approaches to a number of cultural forms, including fiction, non-fiction, oral expression and digital media. The volume features new research from East Africa and Zimbabwe, as well as the ecocritical and eco-activist ‘powerhouses’ of Nigeria and South Africa. The chapters engage one another conceptually and epistemologically without an enforced consensus of approach. In their conversation with dominant ideas about nature and animals, they reveal unexpected insights into forms of cultural expression of local communities in Africa. The analyses explore different apprehensions of the connections between humans, animals and the environment, and suggest alternative ways of addressing the challenges facing the continent. These include the problems of global warming, desertification, floods, animal extinctions and environmental destruction attendant upon fossil fuel extraction. There are few books that show how nature in Africa is represented, celebrated, mourned or commoditised. Natures of Africa weaves together studies of narratives – from folklore, travel writing, novels and popular songs – with the insights of poetry and contemporary reflections of Africa on the worldwide web. The chapters test disciplinary and conceptual boundaries, highlighting the ways in which the environmental concerns of African communities cannot be disentangled from social, cultural and political questions. This volume draws on and will appeal to scholars and teachers of oral tradition and indigenous cultures, literature, religion, sociology and anthropology, environmental and animal studies, as well as media and digital cultures in an African context.

This volume illuminates how creative representations remain sites of ongoing struggles to engage with animals in indigenous epistemologies. Traditionally imagined in relation to spiritual realms and the occult, animals have always been more than primitive symbols of human relations. Whether as animist gods, familiars, conduits to ancestors, totems, talismans, or co-creators of multispecies cosmologies, animals act as vital players in the lives of cultures. From early days in colonial contact zones through contemporary expressions in art, film, and literature, the volume’s unique emphasis on Southern Africa and North America – historical loci of the greatest ranges of species and linguistic diversity – help to situate how indigenous knowledges of human-animal relations are being adapted to modern conditions of life shared across species lines.