Keith Gottschalk
{{short description|South African poet}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{BLP sources|date=September 2007}}
{{Lead too long|date=January 2024}}
{{Infobox academic
| name = Keith Gottschalk
| image = KeithGottschalk.jpg
| image_size =
| alt =
| caption =
| native_name =
| native_name_lang =
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|df=yes|1946|03|14}}
| birth_place = Cape Town, Union of South Africa
| death_date =
| death_place =
| death_cause =
| region =
| nationality = South African
| citizenship =
| residence =
| other_names =
| occupation =
| period =
| known_for =
| title =
| boards =
| spouse =
| children =
| parents =
| relatives =
| awards =
| website =
| education =
| alma_mater =
| thesis_title =
| thesis_url =
| thesis_year =
| school_tradition =
| doctoral_advisor =
| academic_advisors =
| influences =
| era =
| discipline =
| sub_discipline =
| workplaces = {{plainlist|
|}}
| doctoral_students =
| notable_students =
| main_interests =
| notable_works =
| notable_ideas =
| influenced =
| signature =
| signature_alt =
| signature_size =
| footnotes =
}}
Keith Gottschalk {{post-nominals|country=ZAR|OIS|size=100%}}, is a South African poet, known for his anti-apartheid poetry. He was born on the 14 March 1946 in Cape Town, where he still lives. He studied at the University of Cape Town 1964–70, where he was a tutor and junior lecturer to 1983.Alvarez-Pereyre, Jacques: The Poetry of Commitment in South Africa. 1983
Keith Gottschalk's poetry is political, and its appearance at cultural festival and mass rallies of the mass democratic movement attests to its massive success as political poetry.Peter Horn, "Written Poetry for Performance. (Jeremy Cronin, Keith Gottschalk)." In: Nethersole, Reingard (Hg.): Emerging Literatures. Jo-Fo Johannesburg Forum: Contributions to Literary Studies I Bern, Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, Paris, New York: Peter Lang (1990) S.171-181 Also in: Peter Horn: Writing my Reading. Essays on Literary Politics in South Africa. Amsterdam/Atlanta : Rodopi Press 1994 [recte: 1995] (= Cross/Cultures - Readings in Post/Colonial Literatures in English 15), 172 pp. He is a performing poet, whose work needs to be heard as well as read.
He has given over one hundred performances of his poems, and also had over one hundred poems published in magazines such as New Coin, New Contrast, Phoebe, Staffrider and Agenda.{{Cite web |url=http://www.cope.co.za/Virtual/texts/gottschalk.htm |title=Poems by Keith Gottschalk |access-date=2007-09-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120206071245/http://www.cope.co.za/Virtual/texts/gottschalk.htm |archive-date=2012-02-06 |url-status=dead }} His first collection was Emergency Poems."Emergency Poems", Bellville, Mayibuye & Snailpress. 1992.
In his introduction to Emergency Poems Peter Horn described Gottschalk's contribution as follows: "wit and conceit also seem to me to describe most adequately the poetic and aesthetic vehicles which Gottschalk chooses to address the political in poetry. Often, when critics address poetry like Gottschalk's they use the term satire, this most misplaced and displaced genre in English poetry. What is central to satire and to wit is not, as popular misconception may have it, its comic quality, the funniness, but the sudden flashlike insight into the incongruous, as Freud has clearly shown in his study on the Witz.Keith Gottschalk's contribution to the culture of the people: The 'wit' of popular poetry and the 'conceit' of the 'learned' poet." In: "Emergency Poems." He was praised for his poems' "tight control and their strategy of irony." His modernisation of the traditional African praise poem "shows their continued existence and meaning for large portions of the population."Peter Horn, "Travelling Theory in Trouble", Pretexts, 10, 1. (2001): 134f. See also Evelyn Holzhausen in UWC Perspectives, 1,2 (1992): 34-35; Steve Kromberg in Review/Books Supplement to the Weekly Mail, 29 January - 4 February 1993: 6; Peter Strauss in South African Literary Review 2, (November–December 1992): 17-18; Frank Wilderson in New Coin, 29,1 (1993):71-73
In 2021 he published Cosmonauts do it in Heaven, a collection of poems on spaceflight and astronomy
Academic career
He moved to the University of the Western Cape in 1984 and served as head of department in 2004-2006.{{Cite web|url=https://www.uwc.ac.za/Faculties/EMS/DPS/Pages/History.aspx|title = Home}}
He is a Fulbright scholar.
He served as the chair of the Cape Centre of the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa from 2005 to 2006. He is also a member of the British Interplanetary Society and the South African Space Association.{{cite web | url=http://www.spacelab.uct.ac.za/keith-gottschalk | title=Keith Gottschalk | publisher=UCT | access-date=August 17, 2018 | archive-date=17 August 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180817125017/http://www.spacelab.uct.ac.za/keith-gottschalk | url-status=dead }}
In retirement he was promoted to adjunct professor in 2023.
Awards and honors
In April 2023, Gottschalk was bestowed the National Order of Ikhamanga (Silver) by the South African Government for "using your creativity to draw critical attention to oppressive and unjust laws through performative political poetry. Your work promoted strength and motivated many people to fight for liberation" {{Cite web |last=Khumalo |first=Juniour |title=Siya Kolisi, Desiree Ellis, Tracy Chapman among 32 bestowed national orders by Ramaphosa |url=https://www.news24.com/news24/politics/government/siya-kolisi-desiree-ellis-tracy-chapman-among-32-bestowed-national-orders-by-ramaphosa-20230429 |access-date=2023-05-02 |website=News24 |language=en-US}}
See also
References
{{reflist}}
{{authority control}}
Sources
- {{cite book |last=Adey |first=David |author2=Ridley Beeton |author3=Michael Chapman |author4=Ernest Pereira |title=Companion to South African English Literature. |year=1986 |publisher=A.D.Donker |location=Johannesburg}}
- {{cite book |last=Alvarez-Pereyre |first=Jacques |title=The Poetry of Commitment in South Africa |year=1983 }}
- {{cite book |last=Chapman |first=Michael |title=South African English Poetry. A Modern Perspective. |year=1984 |publisher=A.D.Donker }}
- {{cite book |last=Horn |first=Peter |title=Writing my Reading. Essays on Literary Politics in South Africa. |year=1994 |publisher=Rodopi Press |location=Amsterdam/Atlanta }}
- {{cite book |last=GOTTSCHALK |first=Keith |title=Inside. Jeremy Cronin (Ravan, Johannesburg 1983) |year=1984 |publisher=A.D.Donker |location= Critical Arts: A Journal for Media Studies, 3.2 : 54.}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gottschalk, Keith}}
Category:University of Cape Town alumni
Category:Academic staff of the University of the Western Cape
Category:20th-century South African poets
Category:White South African anti-apartheid activists
Category:South African anti-apartheid activists