This special issue is centered around the topic of the Covid-19 lockdown that has affected us all. The shelves are crammed with books, enough to make the shelves spacious and crowded, but organized enough so that their spines reveal evidence of the title and author's name. A researcher in a field like science and technology studies (STS) will have books with words such as "data," "Internet," "political economy," and "digital" in their titles.
An article written by Amanda Hess is titled "The 'Credibility Bookcase' is the Quarantine's Hottest Accessory". Hess's argument is simple: "the bookshelf has become the preferred backdrop for applying a patina of authority to an amateurish video stream" reads the subhead. Oddly enough, another New York Times article written by Shannon Doyne and Michael Gonchar in the Student Opinion page, released the same month as Hess's piece, basically sums up the idea of books as representative of the person.
Reading a text and quoting a text can lead to epistemic disputes, and this is why Barthes's argument is from "the death of the author". But with the credibility of bookshelves, there has been a shift from the content of the text to the physical and material aspects of the book itself, as we see in Hess's article, the summary of the article by Doyne and Gonchar and their seemingly innocent . The meaning of the books and bookcases in this exceptional time of COVID is that we have tried to apply new meanings to our relationships with them.
Books and bookshelves are not to be relied upon, nor are they free from the contexts in which they exist.
Birdwatching by Mia Uys
Outside his window, the birds are pecking at the ground and the number of coronavirus cases continues to rise. He hugged her tightly at the boarding gates and sat in the window seat as the plane took off. He doesn't see another person on the road besides a beer-smelling homeless man frantically rummaging in a garbage can.
Outside the entrance, a girl wearing yellow rubber gloves is arguing with her boyfriend on the phone. She played in the same provincial hockey league and after a game one Saturday, she approached him outside the locker room and said: 'Are you free later today. Many guys on the team joked with each other about how hot she was, or how much they wanted to kiss her.
The only other person he slept with at the time was his best friend Lauren. His concerns at the moment are much more primal: when was the last time I ate. In the afternoon, he will make himself a peanut butter sandwich to eat while talking to his mother on the phone.
One time during 8th grade hockey practice, Kyle had thrown a dangerous high ball that hit Tim directly on the mouth. After long days at work, his father sipped the red liquid, dark as blood, and talked excitedly about the miracles he had performed in the operating room. It shattered into uneven pieces that fell across the tiled floor, glistening in the sun like diamonds.
At first, with all the fear and uncertainty circulating on campus, he didn't know what to believe. Or he'll contract it on the flight home, at the airport, during the Uber ride there. They are still there outside his window, he can see their red-orange breasts even in the fading afternoon light.
I learn to smile with my eyes - Jerome Coetzee
Jerome Coetzee
Jamie Conway
With our feet touching the sky and our heads on the ground, I knew there wasn't much more to life than being upside down. Maybe hope can leave the box this time and we'll be damned, but oh well.
Kirsten Deane
Sumayyah Koli
Behind closed windows and open curtains - Sumayyah Koli
When mom and dad greet me at the door, I fumble for words, I'm red in the face. It is not stopping breathing, giving up the heart to be more, ceasing to exist. We know perfectly the anniversary of our birth, but we do not know the date of our death.
If it comes suddenly; a heart attack, a fatal accident, a ruptured aneurysm, a gunshot to the head, a global pandemic - or if it comes before. In the ruins of these past months, the death of thousands and thousands of people, hungry, cold and desperate, remains. And just as the date of our birth comes every year, so surely does our death.
Celine Solomons
Tayyibah Tahier
Anna Nguyen is currently a visiting fellow at the Program on Science, Technology and Society at Harvard University. Mia Uys is a History master's student at the University of Stellenbosch working in the field of social, animal and gender history. He is currently studying his Masters in Afrikaans Literature at the University of the Western Cape.
Jamie Conway is a 22-year-old honors student in English literature at the University of the Western Cape. She has a keen interest in philosophical poetry, a strong ambition to advance her writing career, and is featured in the Spring 2020 issue of the New Contrast journal. Kirsten Deane is a 21-year-old student currently doing her honors degree in Creative Writing at the University of the Western Cape.
Sumayyah Koli is a 19-year-old, 2nd year Accounting Science student at the University of Witwatersrand. Tayyibah Tahier is currently pursuing her PhD in Chemistry at the South African Institute for Advanced Materials Chemistry, which is located at the University of the Western Cape (UWC). When she's not working on experiments in the lab, she enjoys traveling, nature, writing and working on creative pieces.
Our cover was produced by Dr. Iona Gilburt, a postdoctoral fellow in visual history and theory at the Center for Humanities Research at the University of the Western Cape. Martina van Heerden completed her Ph.D. in English Studies at the University of the Western Cape in 2018 and currently teaches full-time for the English for Educational Development program, which is a first-year academic literacy course aimed at students in law, science and CHS faculties. Stephanie Williams is a creative and academic writer currently doing a Masters in the English department at the University of the Western Cape.
Her poetry and short fiction have been published in New Contrast, WritingThreeSixty and Volume 9 of The Sol Plaatje EU Poetry Anthology. First launched in 2014 as an initiative of the English Department at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), WritingThreeSixty is now part of the wider Arts Faculty and Humanities community at UWC. These positions include the management of the journal and its team, editorial output as well as our digital marketing efforts presented via social media and our online website.