Against the law: Arthur Maimane’s pioneering hard-boiled black detective fiction in Drum Magazine

ABSTRACT

This article sets out to re-examine, and recover, South Africa’s first hard-boiled crime fiction created by a black writer: Arthur Maimane’s crime stories published in Drum magazine in 1953. Maimane wrote a series of stories about a black PI, styled on the American hard-boiled genre for Drum, a popular South African magazine aimed at a black audience, known for its borrowing from American popular culture. Mamaine’s fiction has been widely dismissed by generations of Drum critics, as “derivative” “imitation.” Repositioning the stories within the broader context of crime fiction suggests quite a different reading. Maimane’s stories reveal how tensions between the genre and laws in apartheid South Africa resulted in radical alterations to the hard boiled formula. Since Maimane’s stories precede Chester Himes’s African-American novels, they should be recognized as a pioneering example of black crime fiction that demonstrates the relationship between race and genre.     

Guide to Authors

正Published by China Institute of International Studies,China International Studies is China’s first English-language journal on diplomacy and international politics for formal circulation.The magazine mainly publishes the latest research achievements of Chinese scholars and specialists on China’s diplomacy,international politics and international relations under     

‘Papa don't preach’: Fatherhood in a South African Christian men's magazine

Abstract

The first international men's lifestyle magazine to enter South Africa was Men's Health in 1997, followed by FHM and GQ. Not unlike their international counterparts, these magazines have been extolled in the publishing sector for their commercial success and disparaged in academia for their potentially negative influence on the sensitive gender politics of the new South Africa. In 2001, a new breed of men's lifestyle magazine emerged in South Africa: one that catered to a particular cultural or racial niche market that presumably was not satisfied by the generalising tone of the mainstream men's lifestyle magazines. The Afrikaans Christian magazine MaksiMan is the subject of this analysis, as much for what it signifies in terms of the presence of vernacular masculinities in post-apartheid South Africa as for the texture that it brings to the genre of men's lifestyle magazines. Mainstream men's magazines typically refuse to include reference to the role of father that certain of their readers might occupy. MaksiMan breaks this trend through articles and features centred on fatherhood. This article comprises an analysis of the representation of fatherhood within this niche men's lifestyle magazine.     

Smooth bodywork: the role of texture in images of cars and women on consumer magazine covers

This article examines the role of texture, specifically smoothness, in commercial communication, specifically magazine cover imagery. It takes as its empirical focus images of women and cars on the covers of magazines aimed at the male market in order to argue that smoothness is an important semiotic resource, embedded in stereotypical and heteronormative conceptions of gender. This argument is framed and introduced through a review of the connotations held by various smooth surfaces in western culture, and a discussion of questions of affect and ideology that underlie those connotations. Analysing two examples of each magazine genre, the paper then illustrates how smoothness is a semiotic resource in which consumption-oriented superficiality interfaces with ideologically gendered images of women and cars on magazine covers. It concludes by raising questions for the future study of smoothness in the media.     

Magazine Influence on Cartridge Case Ejection Patterns with Glock Pistols

In this study, the cartridge case ejection patterns of six different Glock model pistols (one specimen per model) were compared under three conditions: firing with a loaded magazine, an empty magazine, and without magazine. The distances, covered by the ejected cartridge cases given these three conditions, were compared for each of the six models. A significant difference was found between the groups of data for each of the tested specimens. This indicates that it is important that, to reconstruct a shooting scene incident based on the ejection patterns of a pistol, test shots are fired with the same pistol type and under the correct magazine condition.     

Questionnaire for Readers of the China Today English Edition

正Thank you for reading the China Today English edition.Your feedback will help us better satisfy your needs.Please mail this questionnaire to the English Department,No.24 Baiwanzhuang Street,Xicheng District,Beijing,100037.Or you can email it to chinatodaynews@aliyun.com,or fax it to 010-68328338.Those who give us feedback will receive two free copies of any edition of China Today(Chinese,English,French,Spanish or Arabic),     

LETTERS

正I am a long-standing and dedicated reader of your magazine,and truly appreciate the information,knowledge and many splendid experiences it has bestowed on me.However,I’d like to point out a tiny mistake in the February issue.In the excellent article"Preservation of the Waning Temple Opus"the author mentions a Chinese term gong chi,which is undoubtedly transliterated from工尺.The correct pronunciation should be gong che,with the character尺here pronounced che.But as the     

《学生杂志》(1938-1947年)文学目录辑校

《学生杂志》是刊发学生作品的主要刊物之一,该刊于1914年8月在上海创刊,到1931年11月第18卷第11期出版后停刊;1931年12月10日出版第18卷第12期,1932年"一·二八"淞沪抗战时停刊;1938年12月在香港复刊,1941年"一二·八"战争时第二次停刊;1944年12月15日自第22卷第1期起在重庆复刊,1947年8月终刊,由上海商务印书馆编辑出版。本文主要辑校的目录是1938年12月复刊到1941年11月停刊、1944年12月到1947年8月这两个时间区间中的文学部分的文章,是抗战之后国统区《学生杂志》所刊发的文学部分文章的正文辑校。     

媒体消费语境中的“中产阶级”幻想——以《名牌》杂志叙述的男性精英形象为例

与传统的女性时尚类杂志紧盯职业女性或女性白领一样,男性时尚杂志也瞄准了中国社会的部分"有品味"人士和新富阶层,即所谓的中产阶级或伪中产阶级,通过精美的广告、成功的人生和奢华的生活方式叙述,传播着特定的消费暗示与阶层梦想.本文以《Mangazine·名牌》杂志为例,着重探讨了这本杂志是如何界定"精英"形象与阶层符号的,揭示了其既有中国式"中产阶级"的幻想,也存在着消费社会必然出现的媒体镜像偏差.成长中的中产阶级与中产读物需要超越消费主义的共谋.     

浙江期刊业发展现状及对策

本文分析了浙江省期刊业的现状,指出浙江省的期刊业无论是在全国范围内还是在本省的媒介业内都是一个弱者。随着期刊业本身的迅猛发展,如何让浙江的期刊业走出困境,已是目前我省媒介业内面临的重要问题。为此,作者在分析了我省的既有优势资源的基础上,提出了浙江省期刊业发展的对策建议。