New Books In Gender Studies

At his 1994 inauguration, South African president Nelson Mandela announced the "Rainbow Nation, at peace with itself and the world." This national rainbow notably extended beyond the bounds of racial coexistence and reconciliation to include "sexual orientation" as a protected category in the Bill of Rights. Yet despite the promise of equality and dignity, the new government's alliance with neoliberal interests and the devastation of the AIDS epidemic left South Africa an increasingly unequal society.  Prismatic Performances: Queer South Africa and the Fragmentation of the Rainbow Nation (U Michigan Press, 2020) on the queer embodiments that both reveal and animate the gaps between South Africa's self-image and its lived realities. It argues that performance has become a key location where contradictions inherent to South Africa's post-apartheid identity are negotiated. The book spans 30 years of cultural production and numerous social locations and includes: a team of black lesbian soccer players who reveal