Office: AC Jordan 125

Email: Bernard.fortuin@uct.ac.za

MA (English Studies), Stellenbosch University. PhD (English Studies), Stellenbosch University.

Dr. Fortuin’s work focuses on the representation of race, gender and sexualities. He completed his MA at Stellenbosch University in 2009 in which he engaged apartheid (South Africa) through the theories of Fanon. It highlights the ways in which the institutionalisation of race and racial segregation led to “nervous conditions” as is represented by Lewis Nkosi in his novel Mating Birds (1983).

Dr Fortuin went on to successfully defend his PhD at Stellenbosch University in 2015. In it he focussed on the institutionalisation of racism and homophobia in South Africa during colonialism and apartheid. His work is concerned with institutions as socialising agents. His research also looks at labelling/naming and how useful the application of predominantly Western terms is for the identification, self-identification and subjectivity of those who fall outside of what is generally accepted to be “normal” and who find themselves in dynamic and diverse contexts of the global South.

Dr Fortuin recently completed a SARChi postdoctoral fellowship at the Wits Centre for Diversity Studies, University of the Witwatersrand. Currently, his focus is on theorisation around gender identity, sexuality and race in the Global South.

Research interests

Gender Studies

The Sexuality in the Global South

South African literature

Masculinities

Diversity Studies

Recent Publications

Fortuin, Bernard N. "Structuring dissident desire: representations of same-sex prison contact in contemporary South African culture." Safundi 19.2 (2018): 212-226.

Fortuin, Bernad Nolen. "The Perpetuation of Gender Norms and White Hegemonic Patriarchy in the South African Defence Force as Represented in Andre van der Merwe's Moffie (2006)". Gender Questions 8.2 (2020): 13-pages.