IN MEMORIAM

Beschara Karam

Rory du Plessis

School of the Arts, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa. rory.duplessis@up.ac.za (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8907-9891)

Image & Text expresses our deep sadness at the passing of Beschara Karam. Beschara served on our Editorial Board for over a decade and her contributions were instrumental in shaping the journal. As a scholar, Beschara published three articles in Image & Text and her research demonstrates her intellectual curiosity, as well as her masterful command of feminist theory, trauma studies and Afrofuturism. In the article, 'Subverting the gaze: the voyeuristic, fetishised spectacle of Karl Lagerfeld's Pirelli Calendar (2011)', Beschara analysed how the calendar sexually objectified the models and provided a reading of the photographs by engaging with Laura Mulvey's theorisation of the male gaze (Karam 2013). In 'William Kentridge's Monument (1990) as counter-monument and the embodiment of negative aesthetics', Beschara made a significant contribution to the study of Kentridge's work by analysing how they operate as counter-monuments (Karam 2016). In 2019, Beschara with her husband, Mark Kirby-Hirst, guest edited a themed section on the film, Black Panther (2018). The themed section highlighted the film's contributions to cinematic history, as well as how the film offers a tool for decolonising our world. Beschara's research will lay a foundation for future generations and her legacy will live on in the scholarship of Image & Text.

Rest in Power

Beschara

and may your texts

call us to

Live in Power.

May the texts

become our dentata

to castrate the male gaze -

With his way of looking

that commodifies the observed

as a calendar of pleasure,

that disrobes her of dignity,

makes her skin shudder,

robs her of safety,

And her face,

drained of Theia's radiance,

now recoils in vulnerability.

May the texts

be our foundation stone

for raising counter-monuments

to make visible our nation's wounding.

The abomination

cut into us,

cankered our skin

and scorched our eyes to see

in white and black.

It ruled over how we relate to one another,

it decreed

who I am and

who you are.

It butchered our past

and enslaved generations.

In our counter-monument,

we grieve what apartheid stole from us,

we weep for our ancestors,

and the wounding

now becomes a commandment

for us to stand as guardians of equality.

May your texts,

charged with the zeal of Afrofuturism

give us the power to imagine

and to dream

an Africa

where we practice

hope for tomorrow and

greet freedom as a

promise that rises

in today's actions, thoughts and deeds.

Beschara,

may your words

become our words.

May your words

write our worlds to come.

References

Karam, B. 2013. Subverting the gaze: the voyeuristic, fetishised spectacle of Karl Lagerfeld's Pirelli Calendar (2011). Image & Text 21(1):30-53. https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC144600        [ Links ]

Karam, B. 2016. William Kentridge's Monument (1990) as counter-monument and the embodiment of negative aesthetics. Image & Text 27(1):75-101. https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC193390        [ Links ]

Karam, B & Kirby-Hirst, M. 2019. Guest editorial for themed section Black Panther and Afrofuturism: theoretical discourse and review. Image & Text 33:1-15. https://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2617-3255/2018/n33a1        [ Links ]