Professor Isabel Hofmeyr Travels To Rutgers To Break Down Hydrocolonialism
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — Isabel Hofmeyr, an African Literature professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, came to Rutgers University-New Brunswick Oct. 28 to lecture and take part in a question and answer session with the audience.
Titled “Books by Sea: Hydrocolonial Literary Histories,” the program was organized by The Center for African Studies, the Department of English, the Department of African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literatures, and the Program in Comparative Literature at Rutgers. The event was created in hopes of teaching attendees about hydrocolonialism — colonization by means of water — and the role books spread across the globe by water play in race relations, capitalism and despotism.
“When we look at the work of scholars, we see that no one focuses on the ocean as a site of anticolonial activity,” Hofmeyr said. “And when we do discuss oceanic studies, they are not oceanic enough. Most of the stories are very land based and focus on human agency, with oceans only serving as the backdrop.”
Hofmeyr says this lack of conversation is detrimental because it stifles discussions about cultural exchange across the ocean, and more specifically the importation and exportation of books. Scott Harris, a graduate student at Rutgers, agrees.
“I’m a student of postcolonial literature and theory, and this idea of privileging land over the ocean has been something that has been endemic in literary studies for a while,” Harris said.
One example of public concern regarding the movement of books across water is the cultural and literary movement ‘Books Across the Sea,’ founded in 1940 by Beatrice Warde as the result of the stopping of the transatlantic trade in printed books. During this time, there was a ban on the import and export of non-essential goods into Britain to increase shipping space for more essential goods. As a result, books were held at customs. But this idea of withholding books is not unique to the Books Across the Sea movement. Hofmeyr says it has been happening all across the globe and with the same strategy.
“(Customs) had the power to arrest or detain books that they deemed seditious or obscene. That means they define what was acceptable for reading,” Hofmeyr said. “But there are broader implications about intellectual property, copyright legislation…and white privilege.”
The English Graduate Program at Rutgers studies these issues along with class, race, gender and sexuality while training students in literary history. Noah Flora, a Ph.D student enrolled in this program, said the focus on these issues is what drew him to the talk.
“I came today because I’m interested in postcolonial theory and the global circulation of texts, and this talk lined up directly those interests,” Flora said.
Hofmeyr’s current work focuses on Africa and its connections to the Atlantic and Indian oceans, which will continue to examine the influence of hydrocolonialism on society and the transportation of knowledge with books.
“Sometimes so much in literary studies you forget that books are objects and that they do have a history of being a commodity,” Harris said.
