Creative Matters

Fractal Fragments: Reflections on Human and More-than-human Matter(s) in the Kogelberg Biosphere, South Africa

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21827/ejlw.14.42383

Keywords:

creative non-fiction

Abstract

This critical ecoauto/biographical essay reflects on history, lived experience, personal and public perspectives of socio-environmental issues in the Kogelberg Biosphere, South Africa. The essay combines written and visual texts, varied in form and format, to present a situated reflection on human and more-than-human encounters and biosphere politics. In particular, the essay experiments with travel writing forms, blending academic and creative practice, and evolves into a perambulating journey through a local zone of the biosphere, inviting relational reflection on the planetary crisis.

Author Biography

Mathilda Slabbert, Stellenbosch University

Mathilda Slabbert is an associate professor in the Department of English Studies at Stellenbosch University. Her research focuses on life writing, literary-cultural productions of the environment, and gender/queer studies. She has published articles in Safundi, Literator, Acta Academica and Journal of Literary Studies/Tydskrif vir Letterkunde; co-guest edited ‘The Textualities of the AutobiogrAfrica’, special issue, a/b: Auto/Biography Studies; and contributed chapters to academic books, such as: Locating Life Stories: Beyond East-West Binaries in (Auto)Biographical Studies; Britain and the Narration of Travel in the Nineteenth Century; and The Natures of Africa: Ecocriticism and Animal Studies in Contemporary Cultural Forms. She coauthored (with Dawid de Villiers) David Kramer: A Biography.

Published

2025-04-08

Issue

Vol. 14 (2025): EJLW

Section

Creative Matters

Copyright (c) 2025 Mathilda Slabbert

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