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Research on partial reduplication has primarily focused on developing a theory that takes into account all of the factors which speakers may invoke in trying to determine how a reduplicant will relate to its base. There have been attempts to characterize the reduplicant in prosodic terms and the role of morphological structure in determining the link between base and reduplicant. This chapter examines verb-stem reduplication in Ndebele, a Southern Bantu language spoken by the Nguni group, and shows how the reduplicant in Ndebele is conditioned by phonological and morphological factors that are “abstract” in nature. It argues that the reduplicant of an Ndebele verb stem must be analyzed as a verb stem itself and explains how its surface form is derived by direct spell-out of its own (identical) morphosyntactic structure, which, in turn, is a direct copy from the base. The chapter also discusses complications arising in the reduplication of stems containing subminimal or “consonantal” verb roots, along with fusion or “imbrication” of perfective -ile, the passive suffix -w-, and palatalization.

Ndebele’s The Cry of Winnie Mandela confronts the double colonization suffered by women of imperially oppressed nations. In depicting a selection of South African women, Ndebele offers a new Penelope paradigm for the twenty first century, one constructed by women who admire and empathize with Winnie Mandela—that famous ‘Penelope’ figure left alone by her husband, but whose choices are very different. Offering an alternative approach to that espoused by South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, both the form of Ndebele’s novel and the characters within it suggest a different way to heal the wounds of apartheid. Furthermore, with the focus on the women, it is their journeys that become central, and which are seen to be—unlike the journeys of the male protagonists examined in this volume—centrifugal, rather than centripetal.

This chapter further examines the Sports Illustrated case, focusing mainly on two things. The first argument deals mainly with the touristic travel context of the swimsuit issue. This context alone reflects racial conceptions that posit Africans as inferior to Westerners. This notion is seen in representational practices that perpetuate colonial relations. In a way, the photo shoot created a sense of colonialism because it placed contemporary American identity in relation to the rest of the world. At the same time, the meaning for the Ndebele audience and participants was different. For them, the photographs speak to autonomy, cultural pride, and economic power, more so because they relate to the postapartheid moment in which the shoot took place. This meaning for the Ndebele audience, then, is what constitutes the second discussion of this chapter. The chapter explores these contrasting meanings as well as the intersections of various localities in these representations.

This chapter focuses on the second of the three case studies on how Africa is imagined through popular culture, namely, Mattel’s world of Barbie. This chapter first looks at Mattel’s Princess of South Africa (2003), who was dressed in the same garments as Martha Nomvula in the Sports Illustrated photograph with Kathy Ireland. Research shows that this Barbie’s costuming is an homage to Ndebele culture, keeping with the Ndebele styles and traditions. In the same way that Sports Illustrated did previously, Mattel chose Ndebele culture as a representation of all South African indigenous cultures, as well as South Africa as a whole. The chapter thus examines the presence of Ndebele culture in the Sports Illustrated and Barbie worlds. Where the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue could be read as both reductive and empowering, the sense of empowerment in Mattel’s world of Barbie is largely diminished. The chapter thus asserts that even though Ndebele culture gains exposure to large audiences, this exposure does not adequately balance the problematic issues that this Barbie and its companion dolls manifest.

This chapter presents a series of case studies. The first three—Ndebele and Kinande unintensive reduplication and Asheninca Campa intensive reduplication—were chosen because they have been extensively analyzed in very different frameworks. McCarthy and Prince (1995) claimed that derivational phonology is an inadequate framework for understanding the complexities of Asheninca Campa intensive reduplication. Inkelas and Zoll (2000) claimed that Ndebele unintensive reduplication demonstrates that apparently duplicated phonological material is not in fact the result of copying in the phonology. It is shown that both of these claims are unfounded. The chapter also includes three prominent examples from Raimy (2000) (from Tohono O’odham plural reduplication, Temiar continuative reduplication, and Chaha intensive reduplication) to let readers assess the differences with and similarities to his analysis. A fairly thorough treatment of Sanskrit verbal reduplication is also provided so readers can make a similar assessment with respect to Steriade’s (1988) well-known analysis of perfect and intensive reduplication in Sanskrit.

This chapter examines three examples of the ‘last stands’ in late nineteenth-century British military history: the 24th Foot at Isandlwana in 1879, the 66th Foot at Maiwand in 1880 and the Shangani Patrol during the First Matabele War in 1893. It begins with a discussion of the Matabele Wars pitting the Ndebele people vs. Cecil Rhodes's British South Africa Company, citing the conflicts as a prime example of how the British army and its auxiliary colonial forces became the main instruments of Britain's rapid imperial expansion in the late nineteenth century. It then considers the Battle of Isandlwana and the Battle of Maiwand in more detail, with particular emphasis on the efforts that were made to erase the trauma of a devastating defeat by emphasizing the heroism of the men who fought.

This chapter looks closely at Njabulo Ndebele’s novel The Cry of Winnie Mandela, in which he gives a compelling and impassioned voice to five South African ‘descendants’ of Penelope, and to Penelope herself. It argues that the book puts into practice Ndebele’s belief that it was important for South African writing to resist the orthodoxy of spectacle, to rediscover the ordinary, to fashion a new narrative of intimacy and introspection, and thereby envisage a future of promise and complexity. It shows how Ndebele challenges the classical paradigm of the faithful waiting woman and, in so doing, urgently interrogates the notion of Home in the new South Africa.