Felicity Wood is employed by the University of Fort Hare, South Africa. She is particularly interested in the way contemporary western and westernised societies are steeped in aspects of mythmaking, ritual and magic, especially in economic and socio-political contexts and the present-day workplace. She has published articles in this area and also a book exploring the occult aspects of contemporary higher education and free-market capitalism, entitled Universities and the Occult Rituals of the Corporate World. Moreover, she has spent many years conducting research into contemporary oral narratives from South African Xhosa-speaking communities that engage with or rework aspects of the supernatural. Many of her earlier publications stem from this, including The Extraordinary Khotso: Millionaire Medicine Man of Lusikisiki which investigates magic as a marketable commodity, focusing on the life of an early twentieth-century South African inyanga (medicine man) and entrepreneur. She is currently researching consumerism, commodity fetishism, entrepreneurship and the mamlambo, a South African wealth-giving spirit. A chapter on the metaphorical parallels between the male manifestations of the mamlambo and the blesser (an older man who bestows money and expensive material possessions on younger women, usually in exchange for sex) has recently been published. The courses she teaches include creative writing, mythology, African oral literature, and African and world poetry.
... Ivan Vladislavic's South Africa is a fluid, unstable place of sudden inversions or d... more ... Ivan Vladislavic's South Africa is a fluid, unstable place of sudden inversions or dissolutions, startling fusions or metamorphoses and hilarious ... his world: in various tales from his short story collection Missing Persons (1989) two characters travel down Ben Schoeman highway in ...
This book describes the career of the near-legendary South African inyanga (medicine man) Khotso ... more This book describes the career of the near-legendary South African inyanga (medicine man) Khotso Sethuntsa (1898 - 1972). He derived much of his wealth from the charms and potions that he sold, particularly ukuthwala, a hazardous magical procedure for long-term wealth, widely believed to involve the ownership of a mamlambo, a wealth-giving spirit. The ways in which magic can be converted into a marketable commodity are explored, as are the ways in which Sethuntsa made use of mythmaking to further his career. The links between magic and politics are also examined. Sethuntsa operated in the days of white minority rule and leading Afrikaner Nationalist politicians, including H.F. Verwoerd, visited him. It has been claimed that they sought his medicines for political power.
Indilinga: African Journal of Indigenous Knowledge Systems, 2005
No Abstract. Indilinga: African Journal of Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IAJIKS) Vol. 4(1) 2005: ... more No Abstract. Indilinga: African Journal of Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IAJIKS) Vol. 4(1) 2005: 347-359
... Then come down to Alice, there is this Binfield dam, a big dam again. Then you go up to Keisk... more ... Then come down to Alice, there is this Binfield dam, a big dam again. Then you go up to Keiskammahoek, you find the Sandile dam up there .... ... Zola Sikiti, a Zulu colleague, told me inkanyamba stories that he had heard from his grandmother, who grew up near Ladysmith. ...
Southern African Journal for Folklore Studies, 2015
 This article sets out to discuss the role of the Ndebele woman within the various institutions ... more  This article sets out to discuss the role of the Ndebele woman within the various institutions of Ndebele culture. It analyses the woman within the context of marriage, family and society as a whole. The researchers trace the development of the woman from a pre-colonial context as reflected in the Ndebele myth of creation, through a colonial context as reflected by contemporary mythology as well as by the contemporary roles of women in most societies. It is through mythology, folklore and proverbs in Ndebele traditional and contemporary society that gender roles are prescribed. This is because orature is the bank that houses society’s history, norms, values and customs. This research therefore investigates the role of the Ndebele woman within the institution of marriage, and within the family structure. It also analyses the presentation of the roles of Ndebele women and men in society, with particular emphasis on domestic and gender roles. In doing so, the article addresses the ...
This paper examines the 'fetishism of numbers' (Gudeman, 1998, p.1) that has taken hold i... more This paper examines the 'fetishism of numbers' (Gudeman, 1998, p.1) that has taken hold in restructured, market-oriented institutions of higher education. As all areas of academic life have been rendered down to the quantifiable, and university environments have become dominated by the rituals of counting, numbers have been imbued with a potency of almost preternatural proportions. The points of comparison between the power ascribed to the numerical in diverse mystical, magical practices and the overriding significance accorded to numbers in restructured universities are explored. When the near-obsessive focus on numbers is viewed as a form of fetishism, some of the reasons why numbers have been elevated to a position of excessive importance come to the fore, as does the illogical nature of such reasoning. Although numbers have been valorized on account of their ostensible accuracy, transparency, objectivity and impartiality, this study contends that the present-day fetishis...
Bibliography: leaves 349-359.This thesis investigates the way in which Christopher Hope, Ivan Vla... more Bibliography: leaves 349-359.This thesis investigates the way in which Christopher Hope, Ivan Vladislavic and Andre Brink make use of the fantastic to respond to and explore historical and contemporary South African realities. In the Introduction, the imaginatively and aesthetically restricted nature of much English-language South African fiction during the apartheid era is examined. Many South African writers in English still seem unable to transcend these limitations. There is therefore a need for freer, more imaginatively charged literary approaches, such as the fantastic. In the first chapter, reasons for many South African writers' and critics' antipathy to this mode are touched upon. Various definitions of the fantastic are discussed and the role that this mode, particularly in its carnivalesque aspects, can play in South African literature is considered. In the second chapter, we see how, through his use of satire and black comedy, Christopher Hope emphasises the warp...
... Ivan Vladislavic's South Africa is a fluid, unstable place of sudden inversions or d... more ... Ivan Vladislavic's South Africa is a fluid, unstable place of sudden inversions or dissolutions, startling fusions or metamorphoses and hilarious ... his world: in various tales from his short story collection Missing Persons (1989) two characters travel down Ben Schoeman highway in ...
This book describes the career of the near-legendary South African inyanga (medicine man) Khotso ... more This book describes the career of the near-legendary South African inyanga (medicine man) Khotso Sethuntsa (1898 - 1972). He derived much of his wealth from the charms and potions that he sold, particularly ukuthwala, a hazardous magical procedure for long-term wealth, widely believed to involve the ownership of a mamlambo, a wealth-giving spirit. The ways in which magic can be converted into a marketable commodity are explored, as are the ways in which Sethuntsa made use of mythmaking to further his career. The links between magic and politics are also examined. Sethuntsa operated in the days of white minority rule and leading Afrikaner Nationalist politicians, including H.F. Verwoerd, visited him. It has been claimed that they sought his medicines for political power.
Indilinga: African Journal of Indigenous Knowledge Systems, 2005
No Abstract. Indilinga: African Journal of Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IAJIKS) Vol. 4(1) 2005: ... more No Abstract. Indilinga: African Journal of Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IAJIKS) Vol. 4(1) 2005: 347-359
... Then come down to Alice, there is this Binfield dam, a big dam again. Then you go up to Keisk... more ... Then come down to Alice, there is this Binfield dam, a big dam again. Then you go up to Keiskammahoek, you find the Sandile dam up there .... ... Zola Sikiti, a Zulu colleague, told me inkanyamba stories that he had heard from his grandmother, who grew up near Ladysmith. ...
Southern African Journal for Folklore Studies, 2015
 This article sets out to discuss the role of the Ndebele woman within the various institutions ... more  This article sets out to discuss the role of the Ndebele woman within the various institutions of Ndebele culture. It analyses the woman within the context of marriage, family and society as a whole. The researchers trace the development of the woman from a pre-colonial context as reflected in the Ndebele myth of creation, through a colonial context as reflected by contemporary mythology as well as by the contemporary roles of women in most societies. It is through mythology, folklore and proverbs in Ndebele traditional and contemporary society that gender roles are prescribed. This is because orature is the bank that houses society’s history, norms, values and customs. This research therefore investigates the role of the Ndebele woman within the institution of marriage, and within the family structure. It also analyses the presentation of the roles of Ndebele women and men in society, with particular emphasis on domestic and gender roles. In doing so, the article addresses the ...
This paper examines the 'fetishism of numbers' (Gudeman, 1998, p.1) that has taken hold i... more This paper examines the 'fetishism of numbers' (Gudeman, 1998, p.1) that has taken hold in restructured, market-oriented institutions of higher education. As all areas of academic life have been rendered down to the quantifiable, and university environments have become dominated by the rituals of counting, numbers have been imbued with a potency of almost preternatural proportions. The points of comparison between the power ascribed to the numerical in diverse mystical, magical practices and the overriding significance accorded to numbers in restructured universities are explored. When the near-obsessive focus on numbers is viewed as a form of fetishism, some of the reasons why numbers have been elevated to a position of excessive importance come to the fore, as does the illogical nature of such reasoning. Although numbers have been valorized on account of their ostensible accuracy, transparency, objectivity and impartiality, this study contends that the present-day fetishis...
Bibliography: leaves 349-359.This thesis investigates the way in which Christopher Hope, Ivan Vla... more Bibliography: leaves 349-359.This thesis investigates the way in which Christopher Hope, Ivan Vladislavic and Andre Brink make use of the fantastic to respond to and explore historical and contemporary South African realities. In the Introduction, the imaginatively and aesthetically restricted nature of much English-language South African fiction during the apartheid era is examined. Many South African writers in English still seem unable to transcend these limitations. There is therefore a need for freer, more imaginatively charged literary approaches, such as the fantastic. In the first chapter, reasons for many South African writers' and critics' antipathy to this mode are touched upon. Various definitions of the fantastic are discussed and the role that this mode, particularly in its carnivalesque aspects, can play in South African literature is considered. In the second chapter, we see how, through his use of satire and black comedy, Christopher Hope emphasises the warp...
The Extraordinary Khotso: Millionaire Medicine Man of Lusikisiki, 2007
This book describes the career of the near-legendary South African inyanga (medicine man) Khotso ... more This book describes the career of the near-legendary South African inyanga (medicine man) Khotso Sethuntsa (1898 - 1972). He derived much of his wealth from the charms and potions that he sold, particularly ukuthwala, a hazardous magical procedure for long-term wealth, widely believed to involve the ownership of a mamlambo, a wealth-giving spirit. The ways in which magic can be converted into a marketable commodity are explored, as are the ways in which Sethuntsa made use of mythmaking to further his career. The links between magic and politics are also examined. Sethuntsa operated in the days of white minority rule and leading Afrikaner Nationalist politicians, including H.F. Verwoerd, visited him. It has been claimed that they sought his medicines for political power.
Universities and the Occult Rituals of the Corporate World: Higher Education and Metaphorical Parallels with Myth and Magtcr, 2018
This book explores the metaphorical parallels between corporatised, market-oriented universities ... more This book explores the metaphorical parallels between corporatised, market-oriented universities and aspects of the occult. The book shows how the forms of mystery, mythmaking and ritual now common in restructured institutions of higher education stem from their new power structures and procedures and the economic and political structures that have generated them. Metaphorically speaking, universities have acquired occult aspects, as the beliefs and practices underpinning present-day market-oriented academic discourse and practice weave spells of corporate potency, invoking the bewildering magic of the market and the arcane mysteries of capitalism, thriving on equivocation and evasion.
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