Brief Academic Biography
Dr Azille Coetzee is a postdoctoral researcher at the Psychology Department hosted by Professor Lou-Marié Kruger, and a Research Fellow at the Philosophy Department of Stellenbosch University. In her work she explores women’s affect, the relationship between gender and race in colonial logic, and the role of gender liberation in the project of decolonisation. Her research is published in various international feminist journals, like Hypatia, Feminist Review, and the European Journal of Women’s Studies. She is the writer of a work of creative non-fiction In My Vel: ’n Reis (2019, Tafelberg Publishers) in which she explores white Afrikaner identity and national belonging; and a novel Die Teenoorgestelde is Net So Waar (2021, Human & Rousseau), about female friendship, queer love, and alternative modes of kinship. She sometimes writes for local popular publications like Vrye Weekblad, Litnet and Klyntji; and she is co-founder and -editor of Turksvy, a platform for the exploration of gender in Afrikaans.
Selected Publications
Books:
In my Vel: ’n Reis. Cape Town: Tafelberg Publishers. (Popular non-fiction)
Die Teenoorgestelde is Net So Waar. Cape Town: Human & Rousseau. (Fiction) (Shortlisted for the Jan Rabie Rapport-prys)
Articles in international peer reviewed journals:
Coetzee, Azille, Du Toit, Louise and Gouws, Amanda. 2023. White Women and Why They Should Act: Exploring Settler identities in the Anti-Racist Struggle in the South African (Post-)Colony. Signs. (Forthcoming).
Bonthuys, Else and Coetzee, Azille. 2023. The limited judicial discretion to redistribute property in marriages out of community of property: Revisiting feminist arguments on intersectionality, women’s work and choice. Stellenbosch Law Review. (Forthcoming).
Du Toit, Louise and Coetzee, Azille. 2023. Watery Hauntings: A Glossary for African Philosophy in a Different Key. Journal of Philosophy and Rhetoric., vol. 56 (1): 51–75..
Coetzee, Azille. 2022. ‘[I]f I am Alone I feel like a Target Sometimes’: The Making and Unmaking of the Vulnerable White Woman in Strange Encounters with the Black Man in the South African (Post)Colony. Feminist Encounters, vol. 6(2): 22-35.
Coetzee, Azille. 2021. Afrikaner Nationalism and the Light Side of the Colonial/Modern Gender System: Understanding White Patriarchy as Colonial Race Technology, Feminist Review, vol 129: 93-108.
Coetzee, Azille. 2021. Woman, time and the incommunicability of non-Western worlds: understanding the role of gender in the colonial denial of coevalness. Feminist Theory, vol. 22(3): 465-482.
Coetzee, Azille. 2019. Antigone, Empire, and the legacy of Oedipus: thinking African decolonization through the rearticulation of Kinship Rules. Hypatia, vol. 34(2): 464-484.
Coetzee, Azille. 2019. Revisiting citizenship in the South African postcolony: Empire, white romance and the (continued) abjection of the black woman. International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, vol. 22(3): 345-361.
Gouws, Amanda and Coetzee, Azille. 2019. Women’s movements and feminist activism (editorial). Agenda, vol. 22(2): 1-8.
Coetzee, Azille. and Du Toit, Louise. 2018. Facing the sexual demon of colonial power: decolonising sexual violence in
South Africa. European Journal for Women’s Studies, vol. 24(4):214-227.
Coetzee, Azille. 2017. Oyèrónké Oyĕwùmí, de uitvinding van de vrouw en de grenzen van de (feministische) filosofie. Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte, vol. 109(1): 45-61.
Coetzee, Azille and Halsema, Annemie. 2018. Sexual difference and decolonization: Oyĕwùmí and Irigaray in dialogue about Western culture. Hypatia, vol. 32(2): 178-194.
Coetzee, Azille. 2018. Understanding motherhood beyond dichotomy: Oyĕwùmí and Irigaray in dialogue. JENdA: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies, vol. 31: 15-36.
Chapters in peer reviewed books:
Coetzee, Azille. 2021. Everything is Cake: Reflections on Natality in a New World Order. In Gouws, A. and Ezeobi O (eds.) The Covid Diaries: Women’s Experience of the Pandemic. Cape Town: Imbali Academic Publishers.
Coetzee, Azille. 2016. Sexual Violence and the right to equality: A critique of the South African sexual violence legislation from a constitutional perspective, in Gobodo-Madikizela, P. & Van Schalkwyk, S. (eds.). A reflexive inquiry into gender and gender-based violence: toward a new paradigm of knowledge production across multiple divides. Cape Town: Sun Media. 3-26.
Coetzee, Azille. and Du Toit, H.L. 2017. Gendering African Philosophy; or: African Feminism as Decolonising Force. In Afolayan, A. and Falola, T. (eds.). Palgrave MacMillan Handbook of African Philosophy. Ibadan: Palgrave MacMillan. 333-348.
Book Reviews:
Coetzee, Azille. 2022. Review: A Hibiscus Coast (Nick Mulgrew). Tydskrif vir Letterkunde, vol. 59(1): 136-138.
Coetzee, Azille. 2021. Decolonization and Afro-Feminism by Sylvia Tamale. Agenda, vol. 35(2): 166-169.
Coetzee, Azille. 2020. Like Family: Domestic workers in South African history and literature (Review). Tydskrif vir Letterkunde. Vol. 57(1): 145-146.
Coetzee, Azille. 2020. Of Motherhood and Melancholia (Review). Tydskrif vir Letterkunde, vol. 57(2): 114-116.
Selected articles in popular media:
Coetzee, Azille. 2022. Antjie Krog se nature punk in Plunder. Klyntji, 4 December. https://klyntji.com/joernaal/2022/12/4/antjie-krog-plunder.
Coetzee, Azille. 2022. The Promise en die Booker Prys: ’n paar gedagtes. Spectrum, 10 Mei. https://www.zuidafrikahuis.nl/2022/05/30/the-promise-en-die-booker-prys-n-paar-gedagtes/
Coetzee, Azille. 2021. Die troue as performance in Lillith en Lesbet trou. Klyntji, 27 June. https://klyntji.com/joernaal/2021/6/27/azille-coetzee-troue-as-performance.
Coetzee, Azille. 2019. “Verwoerd se kleinseun: ‘Ek soek deurpaaie, nie uitkomkanse’” (interview with Wilhelm Verwoerd). Vrye Weekblad, 7 June. https://www.vryeweekblad.com/mense-en-kultuur/2019-06-07-verwoerd-se-kleinseun-ek-soek-deurpaaie-nie-uitkomkanse/
Coetzee, Azille. 2019. “Zille perpetuates racist beliefs that justified Colonialism.” Cape Times, 11 April.
Coetzee, Azille. 2018. Why tackling sexual violence is key to South Africa’s decolonisation project. The Conversation, 12 February. (This article was republished in Huffpost SA, Times Live and the New Age.) https://theconversation.com/why-tackling-sexual-violence-is-key-to-south-africas-decolonisation-project-88192
Guest editor of journal special issues:
Co-editor (with Professor Amanda Gouws): Special issue of Agenda 2019, vol. 33(2) on “Women’s Movements and Feminist Activism.”
Co-editor (with Professor Amanda Gouws): Special issue of Feminist Encounters 2021, vol. 5(1) on “Gender and the Anthropocene.”
Awards
Vice Rector Award for Outstanding Achievement as Postdoctoral Fellow (2018), Stellenbosch University.
Rector’s Award for Excellent Academic Achievement (2008), Stellenbosch University.