Professor Jane Taylor
University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
Jane Taylor is a South African currently working on a History and Theory of the performance of Subjectivity. From 1985 - 2000 she lectured in the English Department of the University of the Western Cape. Since 2000 she has held the Skye Chair of Dramatic Art at the University of the Witwatersrand.
Her work is generally interdisciplinary. Her research on early modern English literature considers the impact of the commodity on subjectivity. Over the past decade she has been engaging with the processes of transformation in South Africa. With David Bunn she edited the volume From South Africa (University of Chicago Press), a volume of writing, graphics and photography that documents the Years of Emergency in South Africa before the elections.
In 1996 she curated a series of cultural responses to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. These events, called Fault Lines included an art exhibition, a piece of theatre; a series of readings; a conference and a workshop for journalists covering the commission. This experience has prompted much of her ongoing interest in the representations of the sincere self, and the status of such an entity within the domains and discourses of global justice. She has been the recipient of several fellowships and awards, and has written a published novel, as well as a play and an opera libretto both of which have toured to several countries internationally.
