Dissertations / Theses: 'African literature (Portuguese) - History and criticism'

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Moraes, Anita Martins Rodrigues de. "O inconsciente teorico : investigando estrategias interpretativas de Terra Sonambula, de Mia Couto." [s.n.], 2007. http://repositorio.unicamp.br/jspui/handle/REPOSIP/270184.

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Orientador: Suzi Frankl Sperber
Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem
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Resumo: A presente tese dedica-se ao estudo de alguns dos pressupostos teóricos subjacentes a leituras críticas de obras das chamadas literaturas africanas de língua portuguesa. Na primeira parte da tese, ¿Traçando o percurso: em terra sonâmbula¿, em que analisamos o romance Terra Sonâmbula, de Mia Couto, duas estratégias de interpretação adquirem destaque: 1) a que enfatiza a busca de traços de oralidade no texto, sugerindo se que o intertexto com a oralidade determina a estrutura romanesca, sendo a camada dos contos e provérbios decisiva; 2) a que interpreta as estratégias de composição do romance à luz dos desafios que um evento de violência radical, como a guerra civil moçambicana, impõe à narrativa. O recuo teórico, que é empreendido na segunda parte, ¿Desfazendo o traçado: recuo teórico¿, investiga alguns dos pressupostos destas duas estratégias analítico-interpretativas. No capítulo ¿A palavra justa¿, primeiro capítulo da segunda parte, tratamos especialmente do instrumental analítico desenvolvido pelos estudos do discurso testemunhal (com destaque para as teóricas Jeanne-Marie Gagnebin e Shoshana Felman) e pelos estudos pós-coloniais (com destaque para Edward Said, Arlindo Barbeitos e Mudimbe). Nosso foco está na imbricação entre estratégias discursivas e posicionamentos ético-políticos, eixo das teorizações dos dois campos teóricos abordados. No segundo capítulo desta segunda parte, intitulado ¿A escrita culpada¿, apresentamos o estudo da dicotomia escrita/oralidade, remontando a Jean-Jacques Rousseau e perpassando teóricos bastante demandados no âmbito dos estudos de traços de oralidade nas literaturas africanas: Vladímir Propp, Walter Benjamin e Paul Zumthor. Nosso interesse é explicitar certas associações (como liberdade, alegria e oralidade versus impedimento, solidão e escrita) e pressupostos (como a linearidade histórica e o condicionamento econômico e/ou de mídia) muitas vezes implicados na reposição desta dicotomia em âmbito dos estudos das literaturas africanas, como também sugerir convergências e divergências nas formulações dos pensadores estudados. A parte final do trabalho (¿Furtivo traçado, algumas considerações finais¿) é dedicada às considerações conclusivas, que relacionam as partes anteriores e incluem uma nova abordagem do romance. De certa forma, a estrutura da tese reflete nosso percurso investigativo, que foi da obra coutiana à investigação teórica, a partir de aspectos de sua fortuna crítica
Abstract: This dissertation is dedicated to the study of some theoretical presuppositions underlying the critical readings of the so-called African Literature of Portuguese Language. In the first part of the dissertation, "Tracing the Path: in Terra Sonâmbula", in which we analyze the book Terra Sonâmbula (Sleepwalking Land), by Mia Couto, two main interpretative strategies are revealed: 1) the one that searches for traces of orality in the text, and suggests that the intertext with orality determines its Romanesque structure ¿ to which the short stories and proverbs are decisive; 2) the one that analyses the novel¿s compositional structures in search of the challenges that a radical event of violence, for example the civil war in Mozambique, imposes to the narrative. The theoretical retreat, which is undertaken in the second part, "Undoing the Path: Theoretical Retreat", investigates some of the suppositions of these two strategies of analysis and interpretation. In the chapter "The Fair Word", first chapter of the second part, we focus on the analytical instruments developed by the studies of testimonial discourses (especially Jeanne-Marie Gagnebin and Shoshana Felman) and the post-colonial discourses (especially Edward Said, Arlindo Barbeitos and Mudimbe). Our focus is on the imbrication between discursive strategies and ethical-political positionings, which form the theoretical core of the two fields approached. In the second chapter of the second part, titled ¿The Guilty Writing¿, we present the study of the dichotomy between writing and orality, remounting to Jean-Jacques Rousseau and perpassing some acclaimed theoreticians of the study of orality traces in African Literature: Vladímir Propp, Walter Benjamin and Paul Zumthor. Our interest is to make explicit certain associations (like freedom, joy and orality versus impediment, solitude and writing) and presuppositions (like the historical linearity and the economical conditioning and/or midia) many times implicated in the repositioning of this dichotomy in the field of African Literature Studies, as well as suggest some convergencies and divergencies in the formulations of these thinkers. The final part of the work (Furtive Writing: Some Final Considerations) is dedicated to conclusive considerations, which relate the previous parts and include a new approach to the novel. Somehow, the structure of the dissertation reflects our investigative path, which went from the Couto's novel to the theoretical investigation of its critical fortune
Doutorado
Teoria e Critica Literaria
Doutor em Teoria e História Literária

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Brooks, Kathryn L. "Anticlerical Sentiment in Castilian and Galician-Portuguese Medieval Literature." PDXScholar, 1996. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/5084.

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Clerical sexual incontinence was a prevalent satirical theme during the Middle Ages manifested by anticlerical sentiment towards reprobate clergymen and the laws that they disobeyed. This satirical genre of literature targeted not only the cleric of a small town, but bishops and cardinals who were also abusers of canon law. The anticlerical theme originated in Western Europe in the time of Constantine when early Christianity was competing with many religions for dominance. In the fourth century, Constantine, through the Edict of Milan, granted religious tolerance to all, thus allowing Christianity to become a major religion. Clerical celibacy originated from the writings of early church fathers such as Augustine of Hippo, Origen, and Tertullian, who determined that celibacy provided greater spiritual access to God. Early patristic church fathers supported the ideal of sexual celibacy for Christians in order to spiritually overcome the other religions. In the fourth century A.D., the church demanded that the clerics remain celibate even though they were married. By the twelfth century, canonical laws demanded that clerics not marry and remain celibate. These laws initiated an extreme sexual repression of clerics who began to sexually seek women, refusing them absolution for their sins if they refused the clerics' sexual advances. The purpose of this thesis is to establish that the corrupt clerics victimized the laity, who, although fearing for their salvation, produced satirical poetry expressing their anticlerical sentiment. This thesis also will present literature that discusses the pros and cons of clerical concubinage. There are three different forms of articulation in this thesis. The first is didactic and teaches the reader by demonstrating literature that encouraged clerical celibacy. The second illustration is satirical poems with the seven deadly sins as a recurrent theme. These poems are divided into two groups: the first is the poems written by the nobility, and the second is the popular anonymous poems, sung to music for peasant entertainment. The third articulation is the proponents of clerical concubinage. This poetry reflects the human side of companionship and need during a tumultuous time when people banded together in order to survive.

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Therrien, Denis. "La littérature de la décolonisation en Afrique noire : étude d'un phénomène d'émergence : le roman d'expression anglaise et française." Thesis, McGill University, 1985. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=63299.

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Rae, Lyn MacCrostie. "A study of the versification of the African carmina latina epigraphica." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1991. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/31157.

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This thesis presents a study of the metrics and prosody of the carmina latina epigraphica from the Roman provinces of North Africa, the purpose of which is to test the prevailing but unsubstantiated view that these carmina exhibit especially poor versification, and that in them can be observed a chronological decline in quality of versification. A representative corpus of dated carmina latina epigraphica africana is established, the inscriptions are subjected to an analysis of their metrics and prosody, and conclusions are drawn concerning the nature, extent and chronology of their deviation from classical standards of versification. The corpus of inscriptions has four introductory chapters, which form Part II of the study. The first describes the criteria according to which the texts have been chosen. The second, third and fourth present three premises on which analysis and interpretation of their versification are based; these concern the authorship of the carmina, the educational background of the authors, and the linguistic milieu in which they were composed. The core of the thesis is Part III, which comprises the texts of eighty-six dated carmina, analyses of their versification and commentaries on several features of their composition. Observations are offered regarding: the nature and possible causes of unclassical metric and prosodic phenomena; the extent to which an author deviates from literary norms, and the effect of his errors on a quantitative reading of the poem; a brief assessment of each author's understanding of and competence in the composition of classical quantitative verse; the graphic disposition of the text and its effect on the reader's recognition and recitation of the poetic content. Conclusions drawn from the data compiled in Part III include the following. Unclassical metric features characteristic of the corpus include the combination of different meters in one poem, the composition of hypermetric and hypometric lines and the intermixture of prose with lines of verse. Such phenomena are found in about one-half the texts. Prosodical irregularities fall into two main types: those that can be considered classical (ascribable to an author's application of classical licences); and those that are errors, most of which are attributable to the intrusion of certain unclassical phonological features of an author's everyday speech. Prosodical errors occur in about three-quarters of the texts. Four main observations are offered regarding the distribution of errors in the corpus. The extent to which individual authors adhere to literary norms varies widely; the majority of versifiers, however, have adhered sufficiently well that their works can be read quantitatively without serious hindrance. The presence of metric deviations in a poem carries no chronological significance, for these are fairly evenly distributed throughout the corpus; a general chronological decline in adherence to classical prosody is discernible from the first century to the fifth, with a reverse in the decline seen in poems dated to the last three centuries of the period. The presence in the corpus of several poems of unsound versification of very early date and of poems of sound versification of very late date proves that the practice of some scholars of dating otherwise undatable carmina according to their quality of versification is unsafe. Pagan authors tend to adhere slightly more closely than their Christian counterparts to classical metrics and prosody. Poems of reasonably sound metrics and prosody tend to be inscribed in such a way as to facilitate the reader's recognition and recitation of their poetic content, while poems of poor quality of versification tend to be inscribed haphazardly. Appendix I provides full scansion of each carmen. Appendix II lists initia carminum.
Arts, Faculty of
Classical, Near Eastern and Religious Studies, Department of
Graduate

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Higgins, MaryEllen. "Questions of apprenticeship in African and Caribbean narratives gender, journey, and development /." Access restricted to users with UT Austin EID Full text (PDF) from UMI/Dissertation Abstracts International, 2001. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/utexas/fullcit?p3034547.

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Nakasa, Dennis Sipho. "The dialectic between African and Black aesthetics in some South African short stories." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 1993. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/22394.

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Most current studies on 'African' and/or 'Black' literature in South Africa appear to ignore the contradictions underlying the valuative concepts 'African' and 'Black'. This (Jamesonian) unconsciousness has led, primarily, to a situation where writers and critics assume generally that the concepts 'African' and 'Black' are synonymous and interchangeable. This study argues that such an attitude either unconsciously represses an awareness of the distinctive aspects of the worldview connotations of these concepts or deliberately suppresses them. The theoretical and pragmatic approach which this study adopts to explore the distinctive aspects of the worldview connotations of these concepts takes the form, initially, of a critique of such assumptions and their connotations. It is argued that any misconceptions about the relations between the concepts 'African' and 'Black' can only be elucidated through a rigorous and distinct definition of each of these concepts and the respective world views embodied in them. Each of the variables of these definitions is also examined thoroughly through an application of, inter alia, Frederick Jameson's 'dialectical' theory of textual criticism, Pierre Macherey's 'theory of literary production' and also through the post-colonial notions of 'hybridity' and 'syncreticity' propounded by Bill Ashcroft et.al (eds). In this way the study examines the dialectical interplay between, for instance, such oppositional notions as 'African' and 'Western' (place-conscious), 'Black' and 'White' (race-conscious), and other forms of ideological 'dominance' and 'marginality' reflected in the 'African' and/or 'Black' writers' motivations for the acquisition, appropriation and uses of the language of the 'other' (i.e. English) and its literary discourse in South Africa, Africa and elsewhere in the world. A close textual reading of the stories in Mothobi Mutloatse's (ed) Forced Landing, Mbulelo Mzamane's (ed) Hungry Flames underlies an examination of the processes of anthologisation and their implications of aesthetic collectivism, reconstruction and world view monolithicism which repress the distinctive world outlooks of the stories in these anthologies. The notions of aesthetic monolithicism implicit in each of these anthologies are interrogated via the editors' truistic assumptions about the organic nature of the relations between the concepts 'African' and 'Black'. The notion of a monolithic 'African' and 'Black' aesthetic is further decentred through a close textual reading of the uses of the 'African' and 'Black' valuative concepts in the short story collections The Living and the Dead and In Corner B by Es'kia (formerly Ezekiel) Mphahlele. The humanistic pronouncements in Mphahlele' s critical and short story texts suggest various ways of resolving the racial demarcations in both the 'Black' and 'White' South African literary formations. According to Mphahlele, a predominant racial consciousness inherent in the racial capitalist mode of economic production has deprived South African literature and culture an opportunity of creating a national humanistic and 'Afrocentric' form of aesthetic consciousness. The logical consequence of such a deprivation has been that the racial impediments toward the formation of a single national literature will have to be dismantled before the vision of a humanistic and 'Afrocentric' aesthetic can be realised in South Africa. The dismantling of both the 'Black' and 'White' monolithic forms of consciousness may pave the way toward the attainment of a synthetic and place-centred humanistic aesthetic. Such a dismantling of racial monolithicism will, hopefully, stimulate a debate on the question of an equally humanistic economic mode of production.

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Mbao, Wamuwi. "Imagined pasts, suspended presents South African literature in the contemporary moment." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002244.

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Scholarship on Post-Apartheid South African literature has engaged in various ways with the politics of identity, but its dominant mode has been to understand the literature through an anxious rupture-continuation paradigm in which the Apartheid past manifests itself in the present. However, in the contemporary moment, there are writers whose texts attempt to forge new paths in their depictions of identities both individual and collective. These texts are useful in contemplating how South Africans experience belonging and dislocation in various contexts. In this thesis, I consider a range of contemporary South African texts via the figure of lifewriting. My analysis demonstrates that, while many texts in the contemporary moment have displayed new and more complex registers of perception concerning the issue of ‘race’, there is a need for more expansive and fluid conceptions of crafting identity, as regards the politics of space and how this intersects with issues of belonging and identity. That is, much South African literature still continues along familiar trajectories of meaning, ones which are not well-equipped to understand issues that bedevil the country at this particular historical moment, which are grounded in the political compromises that came to pass during the ‘time of transition’. These issues include the recent spate of xenophobia attacks, which have yet to be comprehensively and critically analysed in the critical domain, despite the work of theorists such as David Coplan. Such events indicate the need for more layered and intricate understandings of how our national identity is structured: Who may belong? Who is excluded? In what situations? This thesis engages with these questions in order to determine how systems of power are constructed, reified, mediated, reproduced and/or resisted in the country’s literature. To do this, I perform an attentive reading of the mosaic image of South African culture that emerges through a selection of contemporary works of literature. The texts I have selected are notable for the ways in which they engage with the epistemic protocol of coming to know the Other and the self through the lens of the Apartheid past. That engagement may take the form of a reassertion, reclamation, displacement, or complication of selfhood. Given that South African identities are overinscribed in paradigms in which the Apartheid past is primary, what potentials and limits are presently encountered when writing of the self/selves is attempted? My study goes beyond simply asserting that not all groups have equal access to representation. Rather, I demonstrate that the linear shaping of the South African culture of letters imposes certain restrictions on who may work within it. Here, the politics of publishing and the increasing focus on urban spaces, such that other spaces become marginalized in ways that reflect the proclivities of the reading public, are subjected to close scrutiny. Overall, my thesis aims to promote a rethinking of South African culture, and how that culture is represented in, and defined through, our literature.

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Steenkamp, Elzette Lorna. "Identity, belonging and ecological crisis in South African speculative fiction." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002262.

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This study examines a range of South African speculative novels which situate their narratives in futuristic or ‘alternative’ milieus, exploring how these narratives not only address identity formation in a deeply divided and rapidly changing society, but also the ways in which human beings place themselves in relation to Nature and form notions of ‘ecological’ belonging. It offers close readings of these speculative narratives in order to investigate the ways in which they evince concerns which are rooted in the natural, social and political landscapes which inform them. Specific attention is paid to the texts’ treatment of the intertwined issues of identity, belonging and ecological crisis. This dissertation draws on the fields of Ecocriticism, Postcolonial Studies and Science Fiction Studies, and assumes a culturally specific approach to primary texts while investigating possible cross-cultural commonalities between Afrikaans and English speculative narratives, as well as the cross-fertilisation of global SF/speculative features. It is suggested that South African speculative fiction presents a socio-historically situated, rhizomatic approach to ecology – one that is attuned to the tension between humanistic- and ecological concerns.

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Khumalo, Hlonpha Pamela Vivienne, and Linda Loretta Kwatsha. "Perspectives of the historical–biographical criticism In the creative works of J. J. R. Jolobe." Thesis, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10948/21983.

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Olu phando lohlalutyo lukwaluncomo-gxeko lwemisebenzi kaJolobe, injongo yalo kukubonisa ukuba lukho uqhagamshelwano phakathi kobomi bakhe jikelele kunye noncwadi lwakhe. Ulwazi olunjalo lungathi lube luncedo kwiphulo elibalulekileyo ekuncediseni kulwazi lokubhala ibhayografi yakhe. Kubonakele kufanelekile ukuba iphulo elinjalo lenziwe ukukhumbula imisebenzi emikhulu eyenziwe ngamaqhawe abantu abaNtsundu abathe banegalelo elikhulu ekuphakanyiswni koncwadi lwemvelo kwakunye nenkuqubela phambili kwimfundo yabantu abangama-Afrika beli lizwe. Umzekelo uJolobe ulusebenzele ukuba uncwadi lwakhe ukuxwayisa abantu bakowabo abaNtsundu ngemfundo nolwazi olwakhaya. Ukwalusebenzise uncwadi lwakhe ukuvusa abantu ama-Afrika balumke kwingozi zemimoya yocinezelo lwabo ngurhulumente ocalule abantu abaNtsundu kuba bebantsundu ngebala. Nangona uncwadi lwakhe ulenze lwabasisonwabiso kodwa ikhakhulu ulusebenzise kwanokunika intuthuzelo, ithemba kwanokomelela kubantu abathe bacinezelwe zimeko zobomi ukuba bangalahli ithemba loluzuza impumelelo, kuba izinto zingatshintsha ebomini babo ngokuhamba kwamaxesha. Kwakhona ukongeza uncwadi lwakhe ulusebenzise ukuphakamisa nokuhambisela phambili ulwimi lwemveli, inkcubeko, imbali ngokusebenzisa isixhobo esiluncwadi lwakhe ukuze ezi ngongoma zikhankanyisweyo zihlale ezincwadini zakhe ezithe zazisele zolwazi, zingabi nakuze zife kuba zililifa lesizwe esiNtsundu, Uninzi loncwadi olubhalwe nguJolobe luthe lwaxoxwa kwesi sifundo, kodwa kuye kwaphonongwa ikakhulu uncwadi lwemibongo, inoveli idrama kuba kubonakele ukuba lo msebenzi ubanzi kakhulu kwaye esi sifundo kubonakele ukuba kungabanzima ukuba singagqibeka lula, kodwa ke uJolobe ubengumntu okhutheleyo. Ubhale incwadi eziliqela ngenxa yothando lwakhe lobhalo loncwadi oluqhutywe ngumbono wakhe wobuthandazwe, wokubona kubalulekile ukuba inani loncwadi olubhaliweyo esiXhoseni linyuke kwaye libe kwizinga eliphezulu, ukuze umzi wasemaXhoseni nowamanye ama-Afrika ngokubanzi ungalambathi ngoncwadi lokufunda ujongelwe phantsi ngokuba semva kwinkqubela phambili zezinye izizwe Ingokuphandle uncwadi lukaJolobe lubonakela luyinxenye yobomi bakhe. Kulunye uncwadi kwakhe kufumaniseka ukuba ukubhale endululwe zizinto ezithe azamphatha kakuhle ebomini bakhe zazaza ezo zinto zawuphazamisa umoya wakhe, nentlalo yakhe wada waqanda ukuba makabhale aphokoze okukuphuphuma kwengcinga zakhe ukuzithuthuzela kwanokuphilisa kwanabanye abantu abathe badibana neenzima ezinjalo zobomi. Umzekelo: iimeko zopolitiko zeli lizwe zithe zabuchaphazela ubomi bakhe, oko kubesisiphumo sokuba abhale incwadi yakhe yedrama apho adiza ngeemeko zokuphatheka kwabantu baseBhayi kwilokishi eyathi yabelwa bona ngurhulumnte wobandlululo, apho ebexelenga khona njengetitshala kwanoMfundisi weliZwi. Kanti noncwadi apho athe wabonisa ukuvuya khona olo luvuyo olusukela kwinto ethe yamvuyisa emalunga nobomi bakhe, izimvo zakhe kwanenkolo yakhe njengomntu, kwanendlela akhule ngayo. Umzekelo, uJolobe uye wazisa abafundi bakhe ukuba iimbalo zakhe zisukele kwizinto ezithe zamchukumisa ebomini bakhe. Ngoko ke kwabonakala ukuba olu phando luluncedo ekusungulweni kweprojekti yokubhalwa kwebhayografi kaJolobe neya kuba luncedo kwimisebenzi yophando olubalulekileyo kuncwadi kuba iincwadi ezinje zityebile ngolwazi olubalulekileyo ekungena kucingelwa ukuba lunokufunyanwa kulo.

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Smit, Lizelle. "Narrating (her)story : South African women’s life writing (1854-1948)." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/97034.

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Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University. 2015
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Seeking to explore modes of self-representation in women’s life writing and the ways in which these subjects manipulate the autobiographical ‘I’ to write about gender, the body, race and ethnic related issues, this thesis interrogates the autobiographies of three renegade women whose works were birthed out of the de/colonial South African context between 1854-1948. The chosen texts are: Marina King’s Sunrise to Evening Star: My Seventy Years in South Africa (1935), Melina Rorke’s Melina Rorke: Her Amazing Experiences in the Stormy Nineties of South-African History (1938), and two memoirs by Petronella van Heerden, Kerssnuitsels (1962) and Die 16de Koppie (1965). My analysis is underpinned by relevant life writing and feminist criticism, such as the notion of female autobiographical “embodiment” (239) and the ‘I’s reliance on “relationality” (248) as discussed in the work of Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson (Reading Autobiography). I further draw on Judith Butler’s concept of “performativity” (Bodies that Matter 234) in my analysis in order to suggest that there is a performative aspect to the female ‘I’ in these texts. The aim of this thesis is to illustrate how these self-representations of women can be read as counter-conventional, speaking out against stereotypical perceptions and conventions of their time and in literatures (fiction and criticism) which cast women as tractable, compliant pertaining to patriarchal oversight, as narrow-minded and apathetic regarding achieving notoriety and prominence beyond their ascribed position in their separate societies. I argue that these works are representative of alternative female subjectivities and are examples of South African women’s life writing which lie ‘dusty’ and forgotten in archives; voices that are worthy of further scholarly research which would draw the stories of women’s lives back into the literary consciousness.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In ‘n poging om metodes van self-uitbeelding te bespreek en die manier waarop die ‘ek’ van vroulike ego-tekste manipuleer om sodoende te skryf oor geslagsrolle, die liggaam, ras en ander etniese kwessies, ondersoek hierdie verhandeling die outbiografieë van drie onkonvensionele vrouens se werk, gebore vanuit die de/koloniale konteks in Suid-Afrika tussen 1854-1948. Die ego-tekste wat in hierdie navorsingstuk ondersoek word, sluit in: Marina King se Sunrise to Evening Star: My Seventy Years in South Africa (1935), Melina Rorke se Melina Rorke: Her Amazing Experiences in the Stormy Nineties of South-African History (1938), en twee memoirs geskryf deur Petronella van Heerden, Kerssnuitsels (1962) en Die 16de Koppie (1965). My analise word ondersteun deur relevante kritici van feministiese en outobiografiese velde. Ek bespreek onder andere die idee dat die vroulike ‘ek’ liggaamlik “vergestalt” (239) is in outobiografie, asook die ‘ek’ se afhanklikheid van “relasionaliteit” (248) soos uiteengesit in die werk van Sidonie Smith en Julia Watson (Reading Autobiography). Verder stel ek voor, met verwysing na Judith Butler, dat daar ‘n “performative” (Bodies that Matter 234) aspek na vore kom in die vroulike ‘ek’ van Suid- Afrikaanse outobiografie. Die doel van hierdie tesis is om uit te lig dat hierdie selfvoorstellings van vroue gelees kan word as kontra-konvensioneel; dat die stereotipiese uitbeelding van vroue as skroomhartig, nougeset, gedweë ten opsigte van patriargale oorsig, en willoos om meer te vermag as wat hul onderskeie gemeenskappe vir hul voorskryf, weerspreek word deur hierdie ego-tekste. Die doel is om sodanige outobiografiese vertellings en -uitbeeldings te vergelyk en sodoende uiteenlopende vroulike subjektiwiteite gedurende die periode 1854-1948 te belig. Ek verwys deurlopend na voorbeelde van ander gemarginaliseerde Suid-Afrikaanse vroulike ego-tekse om aan te dui dat daar weliswaar ‘n magdom ‘vergete’ en ‘stof-bedekte’ vrouetekste geskryf is in die afgebakende periode. Ek voor aan dat die ‘stem’ van die vroulike ‘ek’ allermins stagneer het, en dat verdere bestudering waarskynlik nodig is.

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Jack, Belinda Elizabeth. "The autonomy of a literature : major theoretical issues in the history and criticism of Negro-African literature in French." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1989. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.306798.

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Defferding, Victoria Louise. "The Flor Metaphor of Pre-Conquest Nahuatl Literature." PDXScholar, 1996. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/5248.

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The purpose of the present study is to show that the metaphor, flor, of Pre-Conquest Nahuatl literature means much more than the most widely accepted rendering of that metaphor that classic scholars such as Miguel Le6n-Portilla and Angel M. Garibay have attributed to it. Typically flor is referred to as meaning poetry. It is explored in this study as a metaphor that refers to entheogenic plants, their use and the divine words or songs, or poetry, that resulted from their use. As evidence for the theory presented, I examine and discuss various religious practices and important archeological treasures in order to help us understand a broader concept of flor. I then present my findings in a purely literary context. Gordon Wasson's study of pertinent archeological evidences is important to the foundation of this study, especially his studies of mushroom stones, figures of ecstacy and more importantly his study of the statue of Xochipilli, which can be viewed as a three-dimensional chart of the entheogenic substances used by the nobility to create their true or divine words. The rhetoric the nobility used in their meditations was richly poetic, imaginative and filled with metaphors that are elusive to those not wellversed in their noble dialect. As the noble underwent an entheogenic experience, he was transported from the real world via magical flight to the ethereal world of mystical time, space and knowledge. It was there on a search for truth that he would gain wisdom from the divine and be able to express this wisdom through true or divine words in xochitl in cuicatl. Some of the more important themes common to many of the poems studied are the mystery of life, philosophical questions and the importance of friendship. It was found that the additional meaning that we have attributed to the metaphor flor in these poems is an adequate rendering of the metaphor.

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Netjies, Nomalanga Primrose. "Uphononongo lokubunjwa kobume bengqondo yabalinganiswa kwiincwadi ezikhethiweyo zesiXhosa." Thesis, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1011847.

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Olu phando luza kugxila kuphononongo lobume bengqondo ephazamisekileyo, lujonge izimo zabalinganiswa nendlela abacinga nabenza ngayo izinto. Kuza kube kugocwagocwa ubume bengqondo yabalinganiswa abakwezi ncwadi zintathu zilandelayo: Incwadi kaTamsanqa ethi, „Buzani Kubawo,‟ ekaJordan ethi, „Ingqumbo Yeminyanya‟ neka Jongilanga ethi, „Ukuqhawuka Kwembeleko.‟Apha kuza kukhokela intshayelelo equlathe izinto ezininzi eziquka amagama amatsha aza kusetyenziswa, indlela oza kuma ngayo umsebenzi kunye nembali ngababhali. Oku kulandelwa yingcingane eza kuthi ibe sisiseko solu phando, ingcingane yobume bengqondo, ingcingane yemeko engaqhelekanga kunye nezayamileyo; ingcingane yokuqonda kunye nengcingane yenkcubeko nentlalo. Kuza kuthi kutyhilwe iimeko abantu abaphila phantsi kwazo emakhaya nasentlalweni ngokubanzi. Iingcali zophando zizamile ukuza neendlela ezizizo zokwazi unobangela wokuphazamiseka kwengqondo ukuze zikwazi ukuza nonyango oluchanekileyo. Ekugqibeleni kuza kuthi kushwankathelwe wonke lo msebenzi, kuvezwe namacebo anokunceda abafundi nababhali kuncwadi. Kuza kucetyiswa ababhali ukuze babethelele ingcamango yokuba kubekho uncedo okanye unyango kubalinganiswa abanesimo sengqondo esiphazamisekileyo, xa kuphononongwa le ngcingane yesimo sengqondo.

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Jacobs, Anthony Richard. "Flying in the face of convention: "The heart of redness" as rehabilitative of the South African pastoral literary tradition through the frame of universal myth." Thesis, University of the Western Cape, 2005. http://etd.uwc.ac.za/index.php?module=etd&amp.

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This thesis analyzed Zakes Mda's The Heart of redness in the tradition of South African pastoral and counter-pastoral. It proposed that the novel is a hybrid of both African and European tradition and perspectives. It adduced Northrop Frye's theory of myth and archetypes in literature as a basis for study. It also analysed the novel in its use of irony.

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Boehmer, Elleke Deirdre. "Mothers of Africa : representations of nation and gender in post-colonial African literature." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1991. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:83a022a0-e965-4dc3-b88f-267ff6903b6a.

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A protean doctrine, claiming cultural pride and demanding self-expression for those who espouse it, nationalism yet casts its defining symbols and reserves its privileges and powers according to gendered criteria. Nationalism, if seen as symbolically constructed, may be interpreted as a gendered discourse in which subjects in history and also in literature are assumed to be male. Especially in the Manichean worlds of colonial and newly post-colonial societies, nationalist narratives - such as those produced at the time of African independence - read as family dramas in which honour and duty are patrilineally bequeathed, and national sons honour iconic mothers. The invisibilities in nationalist discourse, often left obscure in the interests of an ironic 'liberation', may be redressed both through the displacement of dominant subject positions in literature - where 'non-nationals' tell their own fictions - and through the remoulding of inherited tropes and symbolic scenarios. In this way new plots are written into history; nationalist romances give way to literary fictions. An investigation of the status of nationalism as symbolic language of gender, this thesis concentrates first on the inscription of nationalist icons in post-colonial African literature and on the gendered tropic patterns which govern that inscription. Writers considered include Peter Abrahams, Leopold Senghor, Camara Laye, and Ngugi wa Thiong'o. The iconic role of artist as nationalist hero is explored in particular in a discussion of essays and plays by Wole Soyinka. In its latter half, the thesis looks at African women's writing - novels by Flora Nwapa, Buchi Emecheta, Mariama Bâ and Bessie Head - and the work of a second generation of African writers, considering the ways in which this literature has begun to rescript the dramas of nationalism, to redream its visions of wholeness and healing.

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Rodrigues, Bruno Silva. "As micronarrativas em Portugal : de Almada Negreiros a Ana Hatherly : a brevidade literária narrativa em Portugal no século XX." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:bcb0c981-3c78-4cf8-8ef6-c3a04ec1a05f.

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Literary works and other manifestations that demonstrate, disseminate or stimulate the practice of extremely brief narrative texts have increasingly been gaining ground in the 21st-century. This phenomenon, which varies in intensity depending on the country - seemingly more substantial in the American continent and more timid in European countries - has ramifications more or less on a global scale. Naturally, there has been, over the last few decades, a greater awareness of the dissemination of this type of productions, thanks to the visibility that new information technology, above all the Internet, has afforded. This tendency, however, just like any other human activity, is bound to have antecedents. To analyse its roots may help us to understand its relevance today. The research carried out here has as its object of study extremely brief narrative texts produced in Portugal. It focuses on a period of time which, it will be argued, is of utmost importance for the presence of micro-narratives in the Portuguese literary landscape: the period situated between the dawn of modernism at the beginning of the 1910s and the post-revolutionary moment when Ana Hatherly publishes the third volume of her overarching project entitled Tisanas, in 1980.

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Mogoboya, Mphoto Johannes. "African indentity in Es'kia Mphahlele's autobiographical and fictional novels : a literary investigation." Thesis, University of Limpopo, Turfloop Campus, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10386/972.

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Thesis (Ph.D. (English studies)) -- University of Limpopo, 2011
This thesis explores the theme of identity in Es’kia Mpha-hele’s fictional and autobiographical novels, with special attention given to the quest for the lost identity of Afri-can cultural and philosophical integrity. In other words, the revival of the core African experience and the efforts to preserve and promote things African. Mphahlele wrote most of his novels during the time when Africa was under colonial influence. His native land was under the abhorred apartheid system which sought to relegate the African expe-rience to the background. In this sense, he was the voice of the people, reminding them of their past and giving them direction for the future. Chapter One of the thesis outlines the background to the study, defines concepts and gives a survey of African lit-erary identity. It also probes salient aspects which have influenced Mphahlele’s perspective on African identity dur-ing his early years as a writer and socio-cultural activ-ist. Approaches and methodology employed to examine Mphahlele’s writings are also outlined. Chapter Two synthesises the theoretical underpinnings of the study. The thesis adopts Afrocentricity as the basis of analysis, looking at aspects such as the African worldview, humanism (ubuntu) and collectivism. Views by different Af-rican literary critics on what African literature should entail in its distinctive definition are also discussed. Two main literary traditions, orality and the contemporary tradition, which give African literature its unique charac-ter as well as its phases are identified and brought to the fore.Identity in African literature is discussed in detail in Chapters three and four where Mphahlele’s literary works are closely examined. Chapter Five concludes the study and recommends that in order for Africa to forge ahead in her attempt to reclaim and promote her cultural identity, a new perspective must be cultivated and Mphahlele proposes hy-bridity, which is a harmonious co-existence of two or more cultural beliefs without one oppressing the other.
The University of Limpopo

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Abodunrin, Olufemi Joseph. "The literary links of Africa and the black diaspora : a discourse in cultural and ideological signification." Thesis, University of Stirling, 1992. http://hdl.handle.net/1893/24387.

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The politics of the Middle-Passage and its attendant socio-cultural and historical trauma is the starting point of this study. The dispersal of Africans, or at least people of African origin, to different parts of the world has produced over the past few decades numerous dissertations and theses describing socio-cultural linkages between Africa and the Black diaspora. On the part of creative writers and literary critics of every persuasion, there exists a consensus of creative and critical opinion that seeks to establish that "the history of Africa and the Africans ... is one of iron, blood and tears." (Nkosi, 1981, p.30) The study is in agreement with Omafume Onoge's submission that the cultural imperialist process went beyond mere acts of vandalism to produce a period in the history of Africa and the black diaspora in which "many educated Africans (and their counterparts in the diaspora) required a major act of intellection to ascribe aesthetic value to our traditional arts." (Dnoge, 1984, p.5) The study grapples with the source(s) of this socio-cultural apathy, and how the liberal humanist discourse which replaced the body of the colonialist's mythologies is predicated on what JanMohammed describes as "an ironic anomaly." (JanMohammed, 1985, p.281) My exploration of this ironic anomaly begins from the premise of the myths, legends and traditions that are subsumed, truncated, misread or simply repressed to propound this 'humanist' philosophy. What emerges from this cultural and ideological exploration is a vernacular theory of reading built around the carnivalesque figure of Esu Elegbara (the Yoruba 'trickster' god) whose "functional equivalent in Afro-American profane discourse is the Signifying Monkey." (Gates, 1990, p.287) The study is in two parts. Part One consists of three chapters exploring different aspects of the cultural and ideological discourses between Africa and the black diaspora from historical and theoretical perspectives. Part Two focuses, in four chapters, on the works of five writers from Africa (Nigeria and Ghana), South America (Brazil), the West Indies (St. Lucia) and the United States. These are Ayi Kwei Armah, Wole Soyinka, Jorge Amado, Derek Walcott and Amiri Baraka respectively. The conclusion summarises the major arguments of the thesis.

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Sirayi, Mziwoxolo. "The characteristics of some Xhosa dramas." Thesis, Rhodes University, 1993. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002173.

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This study aims at highlighting some crucial aspects of Xhosa drama. These aspects are of great significance for the understanding of Xhosa drama. It also aims to historicize and contextualize examinations of traditional Xhosa drama and modern Xhosa drama.

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Moth, Laura Eisabel. "Taking back the promised land : farm attacks in recent South African literature." Thesis, McGill University, 2006. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=99385.

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The phenomenon of the farm attack has engendered an angry debate in South Africa today. Controversially, the South African media has paid great attention to violence against white farmers amidst a seemingly endless flood of violence against black farm workers. The now commonplace tales of farm attacks incite racial tension and provoke paranoia, leading one to question why they are repeated at all. Recent works by South African authors have engaged this question, including Jonny Steinberg's Midlands (2002), J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace (1999), and Breyten Breytenbach's Dog Heart (1998). Critics have accused these works of perpetuating racism with their grim depictions of black-on-white violence but have failed to recognize the manner in which these authors contextualize the violence. I argue that each work registers the farm attack as a land claim, made in an era of failed land reform. Furthermore, these works reflexively explore the pragmatics of circulating the stories.

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Kacou, Gisèle Virginie. "Camara Laye et la tradition africaine." Thesis, McGill University, 1986. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=66191.

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Wolfe, Andrea P. "Black mothers and the nation : claiming space and crafting signification for the black maternal body in American women's narratives of slavery, reconstruction, and segregation, 1852-2001." CardinalScholar 1.0, 2010. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/1560845.

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“Black Mothers and the Nation” tracks the ways that texts produced by United States women throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries position the black maternal body as subversive to the white patriarchal power structure for which it labored and that has acted in many ways to abject it from the national body. This study points to the ways in which the black mother’s subversive potential has been repeatedly, violently, and surreptitiously circumscribed in some quarters even as it succeeds in others. Several important thematic threads run throughout the chapters of this study, sometimes appearing in clear relationship to the texts discussed and sometimes underwriting their analysis in less obvious ways: the functioning of the black maternal body to both support the construction of and undermine white womanhood in slavery and in the years beyond; the reclamation of the maternal body as a site of subversion and nurturance as well as erotic empowerment; the resistance of black mother figures to oppressive discourses surrounding their bodies and reproduction; and, finally, the figurative and literal location of the black mother in a national body politic that has simultaneously used and abjected it over the course of centuries. Using these lenses, this study focuses on a grouping of women’s literature that depicts slavery and its legacy for black women and their bodies. The narratives discussed in this study explore the intersections of the issues outlined above in order to get at meaningful expressions of black maternal identity. By their very nature as representations of historical record and regional and national realities, these texts speak to the problematic placement of black maternal bodies within the nation, beginning in the antebellum era and continuing through the present; in other words, these slavery, Reconstruction, and segregation narratives connect personal and physical experiences of maternity to the national body.
The subordination of embodied power : sentimental representations of the black maternal body in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's cabin and Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the life of a slave girl -- Recuperating the body : the black mother's reclamation of embodied presence and her reintegration into the black community in Pauline Hopkins's Contending forces and Toni Morrison's Beloved -- The narrative power of the black maternal body : resisting and exceeding visual economies of discipline in Margaret Walker's Jubilee and Sherley Anne Williams's Dessa Rose -- Mapping black motherhood onto the nation : the black maternal body and the body politic in Lillian Smith's Strange fruit and Alice Randall's The wind done gone -- Michelle Obama in context.
Access to thesis permanently restricted to Ball State community only
Department of English

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Ringani, G. N. "Nxopaxopo wa vutlhokovetseri byo phofula bya J.M Magaisa." Thesis, University of Limpopo, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10386/1413.

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Thesis (M.A. (African Languages)) --University of Limpopo, 2014
The main aim of this study is to evaluate protest poetry in Mihloti (1981) and Xikolokolo nguvu ya Pitori (1987) by J.M. Magaisa with special references to theme, subject matter and the use of figures of speech.. Chapter 1 indicates the aim of the study, motivation, statement of the problem, research methodology, literature review and the key concepts which are used in this research. Chapter 2 explains the themes of the protest poetry in Magaisa’s poetry. In some explanation of the themes, some of the figures of speech have been used with the aim of making readers to understand his poetry. Chapter 3 indicates the modes of expression in Magaisa’ protest poetry. Some of the figures of speech and difficult terms have been explained in this chapter make people to understand them. Chapter 4 is the general conclusion which indicates the findings of the research and recommendations for further researches.
The University of Limpopo and C.S.D.

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Ewing, Maureen Colleen. "South African women's literature and the ecofeminist perspective." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007808.

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A social-constructionist ecofeminist perspective argues that patriarchal society separates the human (or culture) from nature, which causes a false assumption that humanity possesses the right, as a superior species, to dominate nature. This perspective integrates the domination of nature with social conflicts, including but not limited to racial discrimination, gender oppression, and class hierarchies. Understanding how these various forms of oppression interrelate forms the main goal of an ecofeminist perspective. Since the nature-culture, female-male, and whitenonwhite conflicts resonate and interlock throughout South Africa's history, socialconstructionist ecofeminism is an indispensable perspective for analysing South African literature. This thesis takes a social-constructionist ecofeminist approach and applies it to four women authors that write about South African society between the years 1860-1900. This thesis includes the following authors and their works: Olive Schreiner (1855-1920) and two of her novels, The Story of an African Farm (1883) and From Man to Man (published posthumously in 1927); Pauline Smith (1882-1959) and her novel The Beadle (1926); Dalene Matthee (1938- ) and three of her novels, Circles in a Forest (1984), Fiela's Child (1986), and The Mulberry Forest (1987); and Marguerite Poland (1950- ) and one of her novels, Shades (1993). This thesis investigates two women from the time period (Schreiner and Smith) and two women from a late twentieth century perspective (Matthee and Poland) and compares how they depict the natural environment, how they construct gender, and how they interpret class and race power struggles. This thesis concludes that the social-constructionist perspective offers unique insights into these four authors. Schreiner's novels reveal her concerns about gender and racial conflicts in South Africa and her understanding of the nature-culture dichotomy as sustained by Social Darwinism. Smith offers insights into the complex power structures in a rural Afrikaans society that keep women and nonwhite races silent. Matthee writes nature as an active participant in her novels; the social and ecological conflicts emphasise the transformation of the Knysna area. Poland explores the racial tensions, gender conflicts, and environmental concerns that preceded the South African War. Schreiner, Smith, Matthee, and Poland make up a small cross-section of South African literature, but they provide a basis for further discussing the ecofeminist perspective within a South African context.
KMBT_363
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Taylor, Juko Tana. "Misrecognized and Misplaced: Race Performed in African American Literature, 1900-2015." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2017. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc984162/.

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In my dissertation, I explore the ways in which racial identity is made complex through various onlookers' misrecognition of race. This issue is particularly important considering the current state of race relations in the United States, as my project offers a literary perspective and account of the way black authors have discussed racial identity formation from the turn of the century through the start of the twenty-first century. I highlight many variations of misrecognition and racial performance as a response to America's obsession with race.

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Lombard, Erica. "The profits of the past : nostalgic white writing of post-apartheid South Africa." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:bb2c9ae1-e551-4931-9a44-3197fdc6e010.

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Drawing on relevant theory from memory studies, literary criticism, sociology, reception studies and book history, this thesis examines the prevalence of nostalgia in white South African writing of the post-apartheid period. It identifies the numerous and remarkably conventional texts by white authors that proliferated in this time which might be described as nostalgic, arguing that these constitute a key genre of post-apartheid South African literature. In seeking to offer an explanation for why these nostalgic forms predominated in this period, this study takes into consideration the full "communications circuit" of a book i.e. the life-cycle of a book from production to consumption. Consequently, it employs an interdisciplinary framework to examine nostalgic literature from the perspectives of both the producers and consumers of texts. It is argued, ultimately, that post-apartheid nostalgic writing was particularly involved in the protection of certain formulations and structures of whiteness at individual, collective and institutional levels. The argument unfolds in three phases, each of which explores the value of nostalgia and nostalgic white writing in a different but related sphere: namely, literature, memory, and the market. The first phase of the argument provides a literary critical reading of the generic hallmarks of these novels, considering a range of representative texts, including works by Mark Behr, André Brink, Justin Cartwright, J. M. Coetzee, Lisa Fugard, Christopher Hope, Jo-Anne Richards, and Rachel Zadok. The second examines the allure of nostalgia and nostalgic books for the writers and readers of this literature, drawing on sociological studies of post-apartheid white South African identity and reader-response theory to analyse a selection of online and print reviews by readers. In the third phase, the thesis utilises a book historical approach to investigate the influence of various literary markets and the publishing industry, both local and global, in shaping the nostalgia trend.

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Cornwell, Gareth. "Ambiguous contagion the discourse of race in South African English writing, 1890-1930." Thesis, Rhodes University, 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002269.

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This study explores representations of race and racial difference in the writing of white South Africans in English, between the years, approximately, of 1890 and 1930. The first chapter essays a theoretical and historical investigation of the concept of race and offers a narrative of the rise of Western racialism. Its conclusion, that race has functioned as a vehicle of displacement for other forms of difference in the competition for advantage among social groups, is qualified in Chapter Two by the postulate of an anthropologial absolute, the "ethnic imperative", to help account for the strategic emergence of racialism in specific historical circumstances. The role of the ethnic imperative in the moral economy of colonial South Africa in the years 1890-1930 is examined through the analysis of three representative texts. In Chapter Three, a wide range of primary material is canvassed for prevailing views on the "Native Question", the perceived social threat posed by the half-caste, and the "Black Peril", culminating in the detailed examination of a fictional text. A particular concern in both Chapters Two and Three is the imagery of disease and contagion in terms of which racial contact is typically represented. The following chapter situates the literary works discussed in the study in the context of the South African literary tradition, then uses the example of selected short stories to indicate some narratological problems encountered by the writer with a racialist agenda within the medium of realist fiction. Chapters Five and Six investigate, through the close reading of selected novels, thematic concerns rooted in the intersection of the discourse of race with those of gender and social class. The final chapter reveals how William Plomer's novel, Turbott Wolfe, represents a volatile synthesis of a standard discourse on social class, an acknowledgement of the ethnic imperative, the imagery of contagion, and a principled repudiation of racialism, in a multi-faceted, modernist, and partially self-aware fashion. The more salient conclusions reached by this study concern the inadequacy of purely materialist analysis to account for the phenomenon of racialism, the historically determined link between racial attitudes and sexuality, and the manifest incompatibility of racial ideology with the liberal humanism inscribed in the formal requirements of the realist work of fiction.

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Ngobeni, D. T. "Nxopaxopo wa mapaluxelo ya vafundhisi eka matsalwa ya mbiya ya ntyekanyeka ra B.K.M. Mthobeni na byi n'wi khele Matluka ra Malungana m." Thesis, University of Limpopo, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10386/2375.

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Thesis (M. A.(African Languages)) -- University of Limpopo, 2012
It introduces the topic of the study, outlining the aims and purpose of the study. It touches on the significance of the study, methodology and literature review. It also contains definitions of the key concepts used in the study. Chapter two focuses on the obituary of the authors of Mibya ya Nyekanyeka and Byi n’wi khele matluka and characterization through Rimmon -Kennan’s methods. Chapter three focuses on the way in which the Vatsonga writers percive the character of pastors as depicted in Mibya ya Nyekanyeka and Byi n’wi khele matluka. Chapter four deals with the theme of each of the following books, namely: Mibya ya Nyekanyeka and Byi n’wi khele matluka. Chapter five. This chapter contains the summary, recommendations and conclusion of the study.

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Zotwana, Sydney Zanemvula. "Literature between two worlds : the first fifty years of the Xhosa novel and poetry." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 1993. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/18253.

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The main preoccupation in this thesis is to illustrate that, although there is no doubt that the missionaries deserve all the praise that they have been showered with, for their role in the development of Xhosa literature, there is a sense in which they can be said to have contributed as much also to its underdevelopment. It is my view that Xhosa literature has had a very unfortunate history, because of having an origin that is located in the history of Christianization. This history has haunted Xhosa literary creativity from its early beginnings to the present. The success of the mission to convert them to Christianity was anchored on the principle of total alienation of the Xhosa from their world-view: from their culture, from their religion, from their chiefs, from their literary art, and even from their homes. The intention was to turn them into new beings - Christian and loyal subjects of the British Crown - and to make them not only reject, but also despise their past. Therefore Western-style education for the Blacks in South Africa did not come out of any sense of altruism on the part of those by whom it was introduced. It was the interests of its initiators and their country that had to be served by the education of the Blacks. It was in this context that Xhosa literature was born. It was produced to promote the interests of the Christian church and therefore those of the British Crown. Its production was controlled by the missionaries, the owners of the publishing houses, but it was produced by the Christian and literate Xhosa most of whom had studied in mission schools. It was produced to crush the past and any aspirations that were in conflict with those of the Christian church and the British imperial designs. In short, it was a literature against its people. However, the Christian and literate Xhosa was never accepted as the equal of the other British subjects who were White. He was excluded from all law-making mechanisms and was affected by the many Native Laws that were passed, as badly as his non-Christian brothers and sisters. He witnessed land dispossession and all the other atrocities perpetrated by White rulers. His literary art had been harnessed to legitimize and perpetrate this situation and he dared not use his art to change it. It is in the light of this context that this thesis contends that Xhosa literature is between two worlds. It is argued that Xhosa literature, because of the writers' dilemma created by their position between these two conflicting universes, has been forced to be mute in the face of the Black people's experiences of oppression, and therefore to be indifferent to the Black people's struggles to resist colonization and to liberate themselves from this oppression. It is however, pointed out that some works are characterised by the writers' attempts to grapple with this dilemma. Finally this thesis advocates complete liberation of literary artists from state control, indirect though it may be, and also a change in the teaching and analysis of Xhosa literature.

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de, Beer Amanda Erika. "„Wo ist der Junge aus dem Urwald?“ Abenteuer und koloniales Afrika in der Jugendliteratur." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/96813.

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Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2015
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING : Hierdie proefskrif is ’n ondersoek na die wyse waarvolgens Duitse jeugboekskrywers die koloniale periode in Afrika uitbeeld. Duitse avontuurliteratuur speel dikwels af in die koloniale periode in Afrika. Motiewe in die avontuurroman stem egter nie altyd ooreen met die historiese konteks en geografiese ruimtes nie. Dit skep die indruk dat so ’n verhaal tyd- en ruimteloos is en dat die historiese en geografiese konteks bloot die afstand tussen Afrika en Europa beklemtoon. In die lig van die feit dat Afrika en sy historiese konteks dikwels as eksotiese agtergrond dien, bespreek die studie die problematiek rondom die manier waarvolgens skrywers die koloniale periode in die avontuurliteratuur ontleed. Vervolgens word die vraag gestel tot watter mate die uitbeelding van Afrika sedert 1945 verander het. Die wyse waarop die koloniale periode in Afrika in Duitse jeugliteratuur uitgebeeld word, behoort dus ondersoek te word binne die konteks van die tradisionele avontuurliteratuur. Deurdat die studie gesentreer is rondom die avontuurliteratuur voor 1945 en avontuurboeke na 1945, stel die dissertasie ondersoek in tot watter mate jeugboeke en hulle uitbeelding van die koloniale periode verander het en in hoeverre die tradisionele avontuurliteratuur aan hierdie boeke ontleen is. In hierdie proefskrif word avontuurverhale en avontuurlike jeugverhale wat tydens die koloniale periode in Afrika afspeel, vervolgens ontleed. Die studie fokus op vier periodes: Eerstens word tradisionele avontuurstories en motiewe wat ’n belangrike rol speel in die uitbeelding van Afrika, geïdentifiseer. Die volgende tekste word ontleed: C.Falkenhorst se Der Baumtöter (1894), Gustav Frenssen se Peter Moors Fahrt nach Südwest (1906), Josef S. Viera se Bana Sikukuu (1924) en Gust in der Klemme (1933), Max Mezger se Aufruhr auf Madagaskar (1930) en Rolf Italiaander se Wüstenfüchse (1934). Tweedens ondersoek die studie die rol wat avontuurmotiewe – inisiasie, weerstand en verowering – speel in jeugboeke wat in die Federale Republiek van Duitsland gepubliseer is. Die volgende tekste word onder die loep geneem: Kurt Lütgen se ...die Katzen von Sansibar zählen (1962), Rolf Italiaander se Mubange, der Junge aus dem Urwald (1957), Herbert Kaufmann se Der Teufel tanzt im Ju-Ju-Busch en sy historiese roman Des Königs Krokodil (1959). Derdens ondersoek die studie watter rol avontuurmotiewe – die edel barbaar (edle Wilde), antiheld en die tweegeveg – speel in jeugboeke wat in die Duitse Demokratiese Republiek gepubliseer is. Die volgende tekste word analiseer: Ferdinand May se roman Sturm über Südwest-Afrika (1962) en Götz R. Richter se Savvytrilogie (1955 – 1963) en Die Löwen kommen (1969). Laastens stel die studie die vraag tot watter mate die kontemporêre avontuurliteratuur – soos Hermann Schultz se sendingroman Auf den Strom (1998) ’n nuwe ontwikkeling toon wat van die tradisionele avontuurliteratuur van die 19de en 20ste eeu afwyk.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT : This dissertation investigates how the African colonial period is portrayed in German youth literature. German adventure literature is often set in the African colonial period. However, motifs in the adventure novel do not always correspond with historical themes and geographical spaces. This gives the impression that such novels stand outside of time and space and that the historical and geographical context merely emphasize the distance between Africa and Europe. In light of the fact that Africa and its historical context are often reduced to an exotic backdrop, questions are raised about the way authors examine the colonial period in the adventure literature and how the portrayal of Africa has changed since 1945. The question how the African colonial period is portrayed in German youth literature is therefore examined within the context of the traditional adventure literature. Reflecting on adventure literature before 1945 on the one hand and adventure stories after 1945 on the other, this study examines to what extent youth books and their portrayal of the colonial period have changed and how these books relate back to the traditional adventure literature. For this purpose, adventure stories and adventurous youth stories and –novels that are set in the colonial period in Africa are analysed and the study focuses on four periods: Firstly, traditional adventure stories and motifs that play an important role in the portrayal of Africa are identified. The following are analysed: C. Falkenhorst’s Der Baumtöter (1894), Gustav Frenssen’s Peter Moors Fahrt nach Südwest (1906), Josef S. Viera’s Bana Sikukuu (1924) and Gust in der Klemme (1933), Max Mezger’s Aufruhr auf Madagaskar (1930) and Rolf Italiaander’s Wüstenfüchse (1934). Secondly, the dissertation investigates what role adventure motifs – initiation, resistance and conquest – play in the youth literature of the Federal Republic of Germany. The following are analysed: Kurt Lütgen’s …die Katzen von Sansibar zählen (1962), Rolf Italiaander’s Mubange, der Junge aus dem Urwald (1957), Herbert Kaufmann’s Der Teufel tanzt im Ju-Ju-Busch and his historical novel Des Königs Krokodil (1959). Thirdly, the study examines adventure motifs – noble savage (edle Wilde), anti-hero and the duel – in the literature published in the German Democratic Republic. These are Ferdinand May’s novel Sturm über Südwest-Afrika (1962) and Götz R. Richter’s Savvy-Trilogie (1955-1963) and Die Löwen kommen (1969). Lastly, the dissertation poses the question to what extent the contemporary adventure literature – like Hermann Schulz’ missionary novel Auf dem Strom (1998) – shows a new development which deviates from the traditional adventure literature of the 19th and 20th century.

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Ayivor, Moses Geoffrey Kwame. "Africa's golden age debunked: a study of the sources of select black African historical novels." Thesis, Rhodes University, 1994. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002275.

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The main thesis of this dissertation is that even a casual analysis of African writing reveals that contemporary African literature has and is still undergoing a distinctive metamorphosis. This change, which amounts to a significant departure from the early fifties, derives its creative impulse from demonic anger and cynical iconoclasm and is triggered by the mind-shattering disillusion that followed independence. The proclivity towards tyranny and the exploitation of the ruled in modern Africa is traced by radical African creative writers to an ancient source: the legendary and god-like rulers of precolonial Africa. Ouologuem's Bound to Violence and Armah's Two Thousand Seasons and The Healers hypothesize that past sins begot present sins. The legendary warrior heroes of the past, whose glory and splendour were once exalted in African writing, are now ruthlessly disentombed and paraded as miscreants and despots, who not only brutalized and sold their people into slavery but also ideologically fabricated their own legends and myths in order to maximize their tyrannical power. The preoccupation of these works is, therefore, to divest the ancient heroes of their false glory. contemporary critics tend to perceive this anti-traditional posture purely as a modern trend in African literature. The truth of the matter, however, is that the literary foundations of this anti-nativist/anti-Afrocentric literary tradition were laid by Thomas Mofolo and Sol Plaatje, whose Chaka (1925) and Mhudi (1930) are the precursors. The five primary works in this study parody and veer away from the generally accepted traditional African epic heroism and recorded history towards a communal heroic ideal which celebrates the larger community instead of the single epic heroes normally romanticized in African legendary tradition. These novelists, while dismantling the European and African myths about Africa's Golden Age, also disfigure the often glorified ancient historical landmarks and the fabled heroes of Africa's oral and recorded history. The rationale behind this investigation is the fact that though these works have innovated, assimilated, and parodied the African oral arts, particularly traditional African epic heroism, no detailed study has been made to explore the literary transformation these texts have undergone as written works. Treating African texts only as appendages of Western literature may undermine the ability of the critical evaluations which go into the heart of these texts and unravel their deeper meanings. The outcome of this kind of approach is that pertinent issues of style and theme originating from negro-African metaphysics, oral traditions, and iconography could thereby be left unexplored. Besides, the bulk of the current body of criticism on African literature, particularly on colonial Africa, tends to concentrate on colonialist Christian values and Western literary production models. One of the overriding concerns of this research, therefore, is to veer away from merely rehashing Eurocentric pronouncements on European influences and literary modes parodied by these works, by taking a fresh. look at the texts from the perspective of Afrocentrism and in particular from the point of view of the traditional African oral bards. To this end, therefore, the dissertation is divided into six main chapters and a short concluding chapter: Chapter 1, A Survey of Black Representations of Pre-colonial Africa, functions as an introduction, sketches the European image versus the Black counter-discourse, and locates the study within the current debate on the concept of pre-colonial Africa's Golden Age. Chapter 2, Thomas Mofolo's "Inverted Epic Hero", the nucleus of the study I analyzes the anti-epic and ironic modes manipulated by the text and also maps out the epic generic framework which structures the whole dissertation. Chapter 3, Traditional African Epic Heroism Revised, discusses Plaatje's Mhudi, paying special attention to the text's deployment of the African epic genre as well as the caricaturist and the anti-heroic modes. In Chapter 4, Yambo Ouologuem's Bound to Violence is examined under the title A World Trapped in an Orgy of Violence, Barbarism and Servitude. African oral art is used as the hermeneutic key in unlocking the complexities of Ouologuem's novel. Chapter 5, The African Anti-Legendary Creative Mythology, scrutinizes Armah's Two Thousand Seasons, highlighting, among other topics, Armah's daring innovative stylistic experimentation. Chapter 6, entitled The Akan Iconic Forest of Symbols, deals with Armah' s The Healers, concentrating on the Akan iconographic backdrop which shapes and informs this work. And finally, The Metamorphosis of Traditional African Epic Heroism, the title of the concluding chapter, sums up this dissertation.

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Dass, Minesh. "“The stranger at home” : representations of home and hospitality in three South African post-transitional novels." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1016355.

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This thesis examines the representation of home and hospitality in Zoë Wicomb’s Playing in the Light, Ishtiyaq Shukri’s The Silent Minaret, and Ivan Vladislavić’s Double Negative. It attempts to trace the un-homeliness of the central characters and to account for their feelings of discomfort. As such, it argues that the home is incapable of being inviolable because the invasion of the public is always a possibility. The implication is that master narratives such as race, history and politics are always entering the space one constructs as private. That said, this study also argues that the home and those things with which it is most closely associated, such as belonging, comfort and safety, may actually hide a form of violence. By this I mean that in the desire for homeliness, one may exclude others from one’s home. Consequently, this argument draws on Jacques Derrida’s writings on the aporia of conditional and unconditional hospitality to investigate what ethical possibilities might, somewhat unexpectedly, be created by the un-homely home. The study is therefore an exploration of the potentials that inhere in a certain kind of un-homeliness, the most important of which is the chance to respond ethically to the alterity of the other. In sum, there is a necessity to extend hospitality beyond condition and beyond limit, and this ethical imperative is at odds with the desire for comfort and safety. The way in which post-transitional novels explore these issues of hospitality and home is the primary focus of this study.

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Sachikonye, Tsitsi Shamiso Anne. "Lʹétude des thèmes du deuil et de la marginalité dans Le Royaume Aveugle et Reine Pokou, concerto pour un sacrifice de Véronique Tadjo." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002956.

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The field of our study is Francophone African Literature and this thesis explores the themes of marginality and grief both experienced by Princess Akissi in The Blind Kingdom and Princess Pokou in Queen Pokou (2004) during their rise to power in their respective kingdoms. The two novels written by Véronique Tadjo from Ivory Coast, are subjected to thematic analysis because they are both based on similar storylines - that of conflict and rivalry within kingdoms resulting in the exile of the two princesses. One of the novels is set in a pre-colonial period while the other is set in a postcolonial era. Queen Pokou, winner of the 2005 Grand Prix Littéraire d’Afrique Noire (which is the most distinguished prize in Francophone African literature), is a retelling of the founding myths of the Baoulé people of Ivory Coast. In her literary texts, Tadjo transgresses the original legend and her reconstruction of this legend is significant because it challenges the ritual sacrifice made by Princess Pokou in order to free her people and to become queen. In The Blind Kingdom (1990), Tadjo highlights the corruption and injustice of the ruling elite. Space is used to reinforce the King’s domination thus a revolution is necessary to overthrow the exploitative power structures in place. The revolution that takes place relies heavily on the participation of Karim and especially on Princess Akissi who chooses to rebel against her father, King Ato IV in order to stop injustice. This thematic analysis, supported by semiotic theory, aims to establish and demonstrate the relationship between marginality of the two princesses, in particular, and their subsequent grief. It sheds light on the reasons for their exclusion from power as well as the nature of the conflicts that occur as they rise to power. The study postulates that certain myths and images are evoked by the novelist to symbolise the exclusion of the two princesses from power.

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Williams, Jenna Elizabeth. "A changing didacticism : the development of South African young adult fiction from 1985 to 2006." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1004293.

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This thesis endeavours to establish how political transformation in South Africa has impacted on the didactic function of locally produced young adult fiction between the years of 1985 and 2006. To this end, a selection of young adult novels and short stories are examined in relation to the time period during which they were written or are set, namely the final years of apartheid (from 1985 to the early 1990s), the period of transition from apartheid to democracy (approximately 1991 to 1997), and the early years of the twenty-first century (2000 to 2006). Chapter One provides a brief overview of publishing for the juvenile market in South Africa over the last century, noting how significant historical and political events affected both the publishing industry itself and the content of children's and young adult literature. This chapter also adumbrates the theoretical foundations of the study. The second chapter examines a selection of texts either written or set during the final years of the apartheid regime. This chapter establishes how authors during this period challenged notions of racial inequality and undermined the policies of the apartheid government, with varying degrees of success. The authors' methods in encouraging their (predominantly white) readers to question apartheid ideology are also interrogated. Those novels written after, but set during, the apartheid era are examined with the aim of determining their authors' didactic objectives in revisiting this period in their novels. Chapter Three explores how authors writing during the transition period aimed to encourage readers to participate in the building of a 'rainbow nation,' by portraying idealised modes of relating to the racial 'other.' While some of the authors examined in this chapter are optimistic, and even naïve, in their celebration of a newly established democracy, others are more cautious in suggesting that decades of oppression and separation can so easily be overcome. Chapter Four demonstrates how the freedoms afforded by a democratic society have prompted young adult authors to explore the possibilities of adapting the sub-genre of the teenage problem novel to suit a distinctly South African context. While some of these texts are not overtly didactic in nature, they confront the unique issues faced by a generation of South African teenagers raised in a democratic society, and in some cases challenge readers to reconsider their approach to such issues.

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Robinson, Heather Lindsey. "Ours is the Kingdom of Heaven: Racial Construction of Early American Christian Identities." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2016. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc849673/.

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This project interrogates how religious performance, either authentic or contrived, aids in the quest for freedom for oppressed peoples; how the rhetoric of the Enlightenment era pervades literatures delivered or written by Native Americans and African Americans; and how religious modes, such as evoking scripture, performing sacrifices, or relying upon providence, assist oppressed populations in their roles as early American authors and speakers. Even though the African American and Native American populations of early America before the eighteenth century were denied access to rights and freedom, they learned to manipulate these imposed constraints--renouncing the expectation that they should be subordinate and silent--to assert their independent bodies, voices, and spiritual identities through the use of literary expression. These performative strategies, such as self-fashioning, commanding language, destabilizing republican rhetoric, or revising narrative forms, become the tools used to present three significant strands of identity: the individual person, the racialized person, and the spiritual person. As each author resists the imposed restrictions of early American ideology and the resulting expectation of inferior behavior, he/she displays abilities within literature (oral and written forms) denied him/her by the political systems of the early republican and early national eras. Specifically, they each represent themselves in three ways: first, as a unique individual with differentiated abilities, exceptionalities, and personality; second, as a person with distinct value, regardless of skin color, cultural difference, or gender; and third, as a sanctified and redeemed Christian, guaranteed agency and inheritance through the family of God. Furthermore, the use of religion and spirituality allows these authors the opportunity to function as active agents who were adapting specific verbal and physical methods of self-fashioning through particular literary strategies. Doing so demonstrates that they were not the unrefined and unfeeling individuals that early American political and social restrictions had made them--that instead they were intellectually and morally capable of making both physical and spiritual contributions to society while reciprocally deserving to possess the liberties and freedoms denied them.

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Nxasana, Thulani Litha. "The ambivalent engagement with Christianity in the writing of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Africans in the Eastern Cape." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002237.

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Until recently much of the literature recording the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the Eastern Cape focused purely on frontier conflict and missionary activity, ignoring the evolving culture of the colonized people. But as Somande Fikeni declares, “[i]t is important when celebrating the country’s heritage to look beyond battle sites, monuments and wars and to pay attention to South Africa’s intellectuals and knowledge producers” (quoted in Hollands 4). This is indeed the central purpose of my research. This thesis seeks to examine the influence of Christianity on early South African writing by Africans and the ambivalence with which Christianity is often treated in their work. In South Africa, as elsewhere in Africa, Christianity played a central role in the development of African literature through the influence of mission schools and printing presses. Thus from the outset the development of written literature was inseparable from the spread of Christianity. Nineteenth- and early twentieth-century writing by Africans reflects this: Christian idioms, biblical stories and images colour their work and yet are not employed unthinkingly. Each of the writers whom I will explore has a complex and at times ambivalent relationship with Christianity, and they use religious discourse for a variety of ends, some of them clearly at odds with their origins in the “civilizing mission” of Europe. According to Yunus Momoniat, “Their works . . . are the beginnings of an engagement not only with the world of words on a page, but also with the politics of literacy itself” (1). The subject of this research is three Xhosa writers from the Eastern Cape: the Reverend Tiyo Soga (1829-1871), the renowned novelist and “National Poet” S. E. K. Mqhayi (1875-1945), and the little-known poet Nontsizi Mgqwetho (Dates uknown, writings 1920-1929), who is described by Mbeki as “the most prolific woman Xhosa poet of the twentieth century” (6). The reason for focusing on the Eastern Cape is because the Xhosa “were the first Bantu people to be exposed to Christian proselytising and to receive a literate education” (Gerard 24). As a result much of the early literature in isiXhosa consisted of translations of the Bible and other Christian tracts, and such “improving” texts as Pilgrim’s Progress. In other words, it is in this work that the first roots of the influence of Christianity in southern Africa can be traced.

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Goremusandu, Tania. "Gender possibilities in the African context as explored by Mariama Ba's So long a letter, Neshani Andrea's The purple violet of Oshaantu and Sindiwe Magona's Beauty gift." Thesis, University of Fort Hare, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10353/6469.

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Gender oppression has been a significant discussion to the development of gender, cultural and feminist theories. The primary focus of this study is to investigate how patriarchal traditions, colonialism, and religious oppression force women to struggle under constrictions oppositional to empowerment. Thus, the project provides a comparative analysis of three texts from different African postcolonial societies by three African female writers: Mariama Bâ, Neshani Andreas and Sindiwe Magona. The author‟s biographies and historical context of their novels will be analyzed, as well as a summary of their stories will be included in order to provide the context for gender criticism. These writer‟s work; So Long a Letter, The Purple Violet of Oshaantu and Beauty‟s Gift depict patriarchal, cultural and religious laws which exist in Senegal, Namibia and South Africa, respectively, that limit the position of women. Therefore, this study will interrogate the experience of African women as inscribed in these selected texts, uncovering the literary expressions of gender oppression as well as the possibilities of empowerment. The selected texts will be analyzed through the lens of Gender studies, African feminism and Cultural studies. From these theories, the focus of the study is on the struggles of the female characters living in patriarchal societies as well as on the idea that gender is constructed socially and culturally in the African context. In conclusion, the emergence of these renowned female African writers together with the emancipation of African countries from colonial supremacy has opened a space for women to compensate and correct the stereotyped female images in African literature and post- colonial societies. Most contemporary African writers like Buchi Emecheta, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Sindiwe Magona, Mariama Bâ and Neshani Andreas have shown that women are seeking to attain empowerment. As a result, this study can be viewed as an opportunity to highlight such experiences by continuing to interrogate the writings of African women writers and to explore their gender-based themes so as to inform and or inspire the implementation of women empowerment. It will broaden and encourage further academic discussion in the field of Cultural studies and gender criticism of women‟s literature within the African context.

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Gaylard, Rob. "Writing black : the South African short story by black writers /." Thesis, Link to the online version, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10019/3224.

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Hjul, Lauren Martha. "The family in Shakespeare's plays: a study of South African revisions." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001832.

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This thesis provides a detailed consideration of the family in Shakespeare’s canon and the engagement therewith in three South African novels: Hill of Fools (1976) by R. L. Peteni, My Son’s Story (1990) by Nadine Gordimer, and Disgrace (1999) by J. M. Coetzee. The study is divided into an introduction, three chapters each addressing one of the South African novels and its relationship with a Shakespeare text or texts, and a conclusion. The introductory chapter provides an analysis of the two strands of criticism in which the thesis is situated – studies of the family in Shakespeare and studies of appropriations of Shakespeare – and discusses the ways in which these two strands may be combined through a detailed discussion of the presence of power dynamics in the relationship between parent and child in all of the texts considered. The three chapters each contextualise the South African text and provide detailed discussions of the family dynamics within the relevant texts, with particular reference to questions of authority and autonomy. The focus in each chapter is determined by the nature of the intertextual relationship between the South African novel and the Shakespearean text being discussed. Thus, the first chapter, “The Dissolution of Familial Structures in Hill of Fools” considers power dynamics in the family as an inherent part of the Romeo and Juliet genre, of which William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is but a part. Similarly, the impact of a socio-political identity, and the secrecy it necessitates, is the focus of the second chapter, “Fathers, Sons and Legacy in My Son’s Story” as is the role of Shakespeare and literature within South Africa. These concerns are connected to the novel’s use of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, King Lear, and Hamlet. In the third chapter, “Reclaiming Agency through the Daughter in Disgrace and The Tempest”, I expand on Laurence Wright’s argument that Disgrace is an engagement with The Tempest and consider ways in which the altered power dynamic between father and daughter results in the reconciliation of the father figure with society. The thesis thus addresses the tension between parental bonds and parental bondage

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Steyn, Stephanus Johannes. "The nature of the subject in the South African novel written in the State of Emergency between 1985 and 1990." Thesis, University of Cape Town, 1992. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/25873.

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Potgieter, Carla. "Reading rubbish: pre-apartheid to post-apartheid South African kitsch." Thesis, Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/1782.

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Thesis (MA (English Studies)--University of Stellenbosch, 2009.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis is concerned with kitsch as cultural phenomena, which it will approach as a specific ‘aspect’, or ‘product’ of modernity. In doing so, this thesis aims to interrogate the notion of modernity, through an analysis of kitsch. In the first place, modernity can be thought as a collection of progressive material changes, usually associated with the onset of the industrial revolution. In this sense, it is easy to establish kitsch as a typical product of modernity, as the latter literally provided the objective conditions of possibility for the production of cheap, easily reproducible industrial goods, with which kitsch is often associated. In the second place, more than a set of material changes however, modernity also entailed a concomitant series of cultural values, the rational, scientific worldview associated with the onset of the Enlightenment. The thesis will therefore also consider how kitsch can be regarded as a direct expression of these values, in as much as the characteristic falseness and conformity of kitsch might be seen as a typical product of this rational, utilitarian worldview. In the third place, modernity also refers to the combined effect of these material conditions and cultural values. Kitsch will be considered, then, also in relation to this ‘life-world’. Importantly, the thesis seeks to demonstrate how the inherent contradictions of modernity become particularly apparent in kitsch. The connection between colonialism and the Enlightenment is nothing new. Indeed, the colonial project was driven by the notion that the West was responsible for the “modernization” and “upliftment” of the rest of the world. However, the idea of modernity as a universal, ideologically neutral concept is deeply problematic. Indeed, this can also be considered as one of the contradictions inherent in modernity. By looking at South African kitsch, this thesis will examine the possibility that, as a typical product of modernity produced in a local context, it can reveal much about the manifestations or ‘trajectory’ of modernity outside the metropolitan centres, where it is usually located. This will be explored by examining, on the one hand, the local ‘trajectory’ of the discourse of modernity, and, secondly, to the place assigned to people within the creation of these local modernities
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die onderwerp van hierdie tesis is kitsch as ’n kulturele verskynsel, wat dit as volg benader. Eerstens word daar gevra of dit moontlik is om kitsch as een van die mees tipiese ‘produkte’ van moderniteit te beskou. Die bogenoemde vraagstelling maak dit dus moontlik om moderniteit te ondersoek deur ‘n analise van kitsch. In hierdie tesis, word moderniteit as volg benader: ten eerste, die materiële veranderings in terme van die produksie proses wat gewoonlik met die industriële revolusie geassosieer word; en tweedens, die rasionele, wetenskaplike, kommersiële en utilitêre lewensbeskouing ingelei deur die ‘Verligting’ (of sogenaamde Enlightenment) in die sewentiende eeu. Meer as net ’n versameling fisiese en filosofiese omwentelings, verwys moderniteit egter ook ten derdens na die gekombineerde impak van die bogenoemde in terme van die effek van tegnologie op kultuur, en hoe dit die menslike ‘leefwêreld’ betekenisvol beïnvloed en vervorm. Die bogenoemde skep dus ‘n raamwerk waarbinne kitsch benader kan word. Ten eerste is dit maklik om ‘n verband tussen kitsch en tegnologiese ontwikkelinge, wat dit moontlik maak om vinnige reproduksies van ‘n lae gehalte te vervaardig, te trek. Maar soos beskou vanuit ‘n meer filosofiese perspektief, kan die valsheid en patroonmatigheid van kitsch teruggetrek word na rasioneel utilitaristies wêreldbeskouing van die ‘Verligting’, wat deur die neig na abstrakte, universele waarhede, dikwels vervlakking lei en ook spesifieke etiese gevolge het. Derdens, wanneer daar na die impak van modernisasie op die leefwêreld gekyk word, sal faktore soos die opkoms van die middelklas en sekularisasie ook in ag geneem word. Deur die bogenoemde te ondersoek, sal daar dan ook gedemonstreer word dat die teenstrydighede wat noodwendig deel vorm van die konsep van moderniteit self, in kitsch duidelik sigbaar word, juis in die manier hoe kitsch hierdie teenstrydighede probeer verberg. Díe drie areas dan in ag geneem, is dit verder nodig om ‘n vierde definisie in te sluit om die ondersoek van moderniteit, soos dit in hierdie tesis benader word, te verdiep. Die idee dat kolonialisme en moderniteit ten diepste verbind is, is niks nuuts nie. Die gedagte dat die Weste juis die onontwikkelde kolonies moes “ophef” en “moderniseer” was inderdaad dikwels die ideologiese beweegrede vir die koloniale projek. Maar by nadere ondersoek blyk dit onwaarskynlik dat moderniteit bloot ‘n ideologies neutrale konsep is, wat oral eenvormige resultate sou behaal. Inderdaad, laasgenoemde kan ook as een van hierdie sogenaamde “teenstrydighede” inherent tot die konsep van moderniteit beskou word. Dus, deur na kitsch te kyk wat spesifiek in ‘n Suid-Afrikaanse konteks ontstaan het, wil hierdie tesis ook die moontlik ondersoek dat plaaslike kitsch (as tipiese produk van moderniteit) ons iets meer kan vertel oor die spesifieke verloop en gevolge van hierdie sogenaamde “projek van moderniteit” binne ‘n plaaslike konteks. Dit sal gedoen word deur die volgende twee vraagstukke aan te spreek, aan die hand van plaaslike vorme van kitsch. Eerstens sal daar aandag aan die spesifieke “verloop” en manifestasies van die diskoers van moderniteit in ‘n plaaslike konteks ondersoek word. Tweedens, gaan hierdie tesis ook aandag gee aan die spesifieke plek wat aan verskillende groepe mense binne hierdie plaaslike vorme van moderniteit toegeken word. So ‘n ondersoek sal dan op die plaaslike manifestasies van moderniteit konsentreer, om die aanname dat moderniteit oral eenvormige resultate en vooruitgang sou bereik, ongeldig te verklaar. Die idee van “moderniteit” as universele en eenvormige konsep breek dus letterlik uit mekaar, soos dit met die idee van geografiese spesifieke weergawes van moderniteit gekonfronteer word.

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Mbao, Wamuwi. "Unavowable communities : mapping representational excess in South African literary culture, 2001-2011." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/80124.

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Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2013.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis takes as its subject matter a small field of activity in South African fiction in English, a field which I provisionally title the post-transitional moment. It brings together several works of literature that were published between 2004 and 2011. In so doing, it recognises that there can be no delineation of the field except in the most tenuous of senses: as Michael Chapman asserts, such “phases of chronology are ordering conveniences rather than neatly separable entities” (South African Literature 2). In attempting to take a reading of this field, I draw on discussions of the innumerable post-transitional flows and trajectories of meaning advanced by critical scholars such as Ashraf Jamal, Sarah Nuttall, Louise Bethlehem and others. In this thesis, I trace the “enigmatic and acategorical” (Jamal, “Bullet Through the Church” 11) dimension of this field through several works by South African authors. These works are at once singular and communal in their expression: they are singular in the sense that they are unique literary events1; they are communal because they share a particular force in their writing, a force that resists thematic bestowing. The schism between these conflicting/contiguous poles forms the basis of this thesis. I examine the works of a diverse selection of South African authors, finding in them a common, if discontinuous, seam in their treatment of excess, by which I mean the irreducible surplus that always demarcates the limits of representation. I find that these works each engage a movement towards the aporetic moment opened up by their characters’ experience of the traumatic. To be sure, these particular works of literature are notable for their exploration of ideas of alterity, loss and the capacity for survival in the routines of ‘South African’ lives. I use literature as the primary site of navigation for this enquiry because, as the scholars cited above have observed, literature is often a generator of meanings and a space where complex ideas about identity are explored and played out through the medium of the everyday. I recognise here that in the post-transitional moment, literature’s affective capacity in the world of action is limited – in Simon Critchley’s terms, it is ‘almost nothing.’ My thesis seizes this almost as the site of exploration. Taking as its starting point the existential question ‘have we learnt to imagine ourselves in other ways?’ I propose a number of positions from which these post-transitional works of literature might be read. The first chapter attempts to give account of the theoretical problem that attends to the reading of that which exceeds language’s capacity to invest with meaning. I use works by Diane Awerbuck, Annelie Botes, Shaun Johnson and Kgebetli Moele to inform my argument. In the next chapter, I explicate the problem of excess via a reading of Mark Behr’s Kings of the Water (2009). I then trace the aporetic nature of Otherness as it occurs in J.M. Coetzee’s Summertime (2009), paying particular attention to the ways in which that novel performs a refusal of meaning. Finally, I read Ishtiyaq Shukri’s The Silent Minaret (2005) as a work that posits the failure of alterity as a launching point for future ethical action. The burden of this thesis, as I see it, lies in the apophastic nature of its subject matter. In embarking upon an exploration of the incommensurable, my argument is for an ethics of reading that seeks to explicate the ways in which literature works by thinking through its affective capacity the better to affirm its performative dimensions.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die onderwerp van hierdie proefskrif behels ‘n klein veld in Engelse Suid-Afrikaanse fiksie wat ek voorlopig met die term “post-oorgangsmoment” sal aandui. Dit bring verskeie letterkundige werke byeen wat tussen 2004 en 2011 gepubliseer is. Hierdie kunsmatige afbakening hou rekening met Michael Chapman se stelling dat “phrases of chronology are ordering conveniences rather than neatly separable entities” (South African Writing 2). In ‘n poging om hierdie aangeduide veld te lees, put ek heelwat uit besprekings wat tans gevoer word oor die ontelbare betekenistrajekte van die post-oorgangsmoment deur kritici soos Meg Samuelson, Leon de Kock, Ashraf Jamal, Sarah Nuttall, Louise Bethlehem en andere. In hierdie proefskrif skets ek die “enigmatic and acategorical” (Jamall, “Bullet” 11) aspekte van die aangeduide veld soos dit uiting vind in verskeie werke van Suid-Afrkaanse outeurs. Hierdie werke is terselfdertyd alleenstaande en gemeenskaplik in hul uitdrukking: hulle is alleenstaande omdat hulle unieke literêre gebeurtenisse verteenwoordig en gemeenskaplik omdat hulle ‘n spesifieke impuls deel, ‘n impuls wat tematiese kategorisering teenstaan. Die kloof tussen hierdie opponderende/naburige pole vorm die grondslag van hierdie proefskrif. Ek ondersoek die werk van ‘n diverse seleksie Suid-Afrikaanse outeurs en vind ‘n gemene, dog diskontinue, soom in die manier waarop hulle oorskot hanteer, dit wil sê, die onreduseerbare surplus wat alle representasie begrens. Ek vind dat hierdie werke elkeen ‘n weg na die aporetiese moment oopskryf deur die karakters se ervarings van trauma. Hierdie letterkundige werke word ook gekenmerk deur hulle verkenning van idees soos alteriteit, verlies en die oorlewingskapasiteit in die roetines van ‘Suid-Afrikaanse’ lewens. Ek gebruik literêre werke as die primêre navorsingsveld vir hierdie ondersoek aangesien die letterkunde dikwels as ‘n genereerder van betekenis dien en as ‘n ruimte funksioneer waar komplekse idees rondom identiteit deur die medium van die alledaagse verken kan word. Ek is bewus dat die letterkunde ‘n beperkte affektiewe kapasiteit in die wêreld van handeling in die post-oorgangsmoment besit – dit is bykans niks, soos Simon Critchley dit stel. My proefskrif betrek hierdie bykans as brandpunt vir die ondersoek. Ek stel verskeie posisies voor vanwaar hierdie post-oorgang literêre werke gelees kan word deur die beantwoording van die eksistensiële vraag of ons geleer het om onsself op ander maniere te verbeel as uitgangspunt te gebruik. Die eerste hoofstuk poog om die teoretiese probleem te omskryf wat ontstaan as ‘n mens probeer om die oorskot van taal se betekenisgewende vermoë te lees. In die daaropvolgende hoofstuk belig ek die probleem van oorskot deur Mark Behr se Kings of the Water (2009) te lees. Daarna skets ek die aporetiese aard van Andersheid soos dit in JM Coetzee se Summertime (2009) voorkom, deur spesifiek ook aandag te skenk aan die maniere waarop die roman ‘n weiering van betekenis aanbied. Laastens lees ek Ishtiyaq Shukri se The Silent Minaret (2005) as ‘n werk wat die mislukking van alteriteit as ‘n beginpunt gebruik om toekomstige etiese handelings te rig. Die hooftema van hierdie proefskrif lê myns insiens in die apofastiese aard van die onderwerpsmateriaal. Deur ‘n ondersoek na die onmeetbare te onderneem, staan ek ook ‘n bevrydings-etiek van lees voor wat poog om die manier waarop literêre tekste werk te verhelder deur die affektiewe vermoë van literêre tekste te bedink.

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Duplat, Alfredo. "Hacia una genealogía de la transculturación narrativa de Ángel Rama." Diss., University of Iowa, 2013. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/2484.

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Esta disertación conecta la teoría de la transculturación narrativa de Ángel Rama con la tradición intelectual latinoamericana que aportó sus características más distintivas. Las teorías de Rama fueron influidas por dos tradiciones latinoamericanas. Una es de carácter político y tiene su origen en la Reforma de Córdoba de 1918. La otra, de carácter epistemológico y se remonta a la década de 1930, cuando comienza el culturalismo en Latinoamérica. Mi investigación se ocupa de un grupo de intelectuales uruguayos que trabajaron en torno al semanario Marcha [1939-1974]: Carlos Quijano [1900-1984], Julio Castro [1908 -desaparecido en 1977] y Arturo Ardao [1912-2003]. También me ocupo de dos intelectuales brasileños, Antonio Cândido [1918] y Darcy Ribeiro [1922-1997], quienes continuaron con la tradición culturalista que inauguraron en Latinoamérica autores como Gilberto Freyre [1900-1987] y Fernando Ortiz [1881-1969]. Recuperar las redes intelectuales que acompañaron el proceso de articulación de la transculturación narrativa nos permite comprender mejor las tesis de Rama por dos razones. Primero, porque enmarca esta teoría dentro de algunos de los debates políticos y culturales más importantes de la Guerra Fría. Y segundo, porque se aproxima a la manera como Rama comprendió la historia latinoamericana y su coyuntura política y socio-cultural durante las décadas de 1960 y 1970. El objetivo de la teoría de la transculturación narrativa es describir el proceso por el cual las manifestaciones literarias latinoamericanas pasan de la dependencia a la autonomía cultural. Como el proceso descrito se despliega dentro de la estructura social, para comprenderlo es necesario analizar la interacción entre las obras literarias y la sociedad que las rodea, de esta forma las ciencias sociales --antropología, sociología, economía-- son instrumentos de análisis indispensables para comprender una obra o tradición literaria. Este marco general de análisis es descrito por Rama como el culturalismo. En el caso de Rama, una lectura desde los estudios literarios puede dar por sentado que el culturalismo fue tan sólo un método de análisis alternativo al estructuralismo francés. Aunque esta perspectiva sea en parte correcta, no es del todo precisa. El culturalismo al que se refiere Rama es el mismo que practicaron los cientistas sociales en Latinoamérica desde la década de 1930. Recuperar la historicidad de la transculturación narrativa no solo nos permite comprender la genealogía de esta teoría sino recuperar y hacer visibles algunas tradiciones intelectuales contra-hegemónicas que desarticuló la Guerra Fría en Latinoamérica.

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Cole, Lorna. "An examination of the suitability of some contemporary South African fiction for readers in the post-developmental reading stage." Thesis, Rhodes University, 1992. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003412.

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Adverse criticism regarding the quantity and quality of children's books in South Africa appear in such respected sources as The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature and The Companion to South African English Literature, the authors of which are of the opinion that South African children are dependent solely upon Eurocentric literature for their reading material. In recent years however, local publishers have attempted to redress this imbalance by offering prizes for unpublished works. These prizes have acted as incentives for aspiring writers, many of whom have had novels published specifically for children in the post-developmental reading stage. This study critically examines some of these prizewinning works of fantasy and contemporary realism, in an effort to gauge their literary worth within the context of accepted criteria for judging children's literature. Accolades from adults are not however a guarantee that the prizewinning books will be received with equal acclaim by the children for whom they are written. For this reason, five children in the post-developmental reading stage were asked to pass their opinions and non-literary judgments on the books. Although the critical evaluation of the indigenous works proves them to be eminently worthy of the prizes which they received on publication, the children did not rate them as highly as certain imported works. The works of fantasy by Marguerite Poland rated poorly in terms of their popularity despite the fact that the children said that in a non-circumscribed context, they choose fantasy in preference to contemporary realism. Within the context of the indigenous literature which they read for this study though, they preferred the works of contemporary realism as they were able to identify with particular aspects of the novels. Indigenous literature for children in the post-developmental reading stage is a comparatively new phenomenon which needs to be nurtured if it is to attain any lasting status. The onus rests upon the teachers of literature and librarians to introduce the literature and make the books more accessible to young readers. Publishers need perhaps to engage the views and opinions of the audience for whom the books are written in an effort to publish books which, without in any way detracting from their literary worth, will deal with subjects favoured by young readers.

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Hutchison, Yvette. ""Memory is a weapon" : the uses of history and myth in selected post-1960 Kenyan, Nigerian and South African plays." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/51338.

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Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 1999.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In hierdie proefskrif word gekyk na die verwantskap tussen geskiedenis, mite, geheue en teater. Daar word ook gekyk na die mate waartoe historiese of mitiese toneelstukke gebruik kan word om die amptelike geheue en identiteite, soos deur bewindhebbers in post-koloniale Nigerie en Kenya geskep, terug kon wen of uit kon daag. Hierdie werke word dan vergelyk met die soort teater wat tydens die Apartheidbewind in Suid-Afrika geskep is, om verskille en ooreenkomste in die gebruik van historiese en mitiese gegewens te bekyk. Die slotsom is dat een van die belangrikste kenmerke van die teater in vandag se samelewing sy vermod is om alternatiewe historiese narratiewe te ontwikkel wat kan dien as teen-geheue ("counter-memory") vir die dominante narratief van amptelike geskiedenisse. Sodoende bevraagteken die teater dan ook 'n liniere en causale siening van die geskiedenis, maar interpreteer dit eerder as meervoudig en kompleks.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: This thesis considers the relationship between history, myth, memory and theatre. The study explores the extent to which historic or mythic plays were used to either reclaim or challenge the official memories and identities created by those in power in the postcolonial Kenyan and Nigerian context. These are then compared to the South African theatre created during Apartheid, exploring the similarities and differences in the South Africans use of historic or mythic referents. The conclusion reached is that one of the most powerful aspects of theatre in society is its ability to create alternate historic narratives that become a counter-memory to the dominant narrative of official histories. It also challenges seeing history as linear and causal, and makes it more plural and complex.

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Kaze, Douglas Eric. "The environmental imagination in Arthur Nortje’s poetry." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/58024.

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This thesis seeks to contribute to the conversations in the humanities about the treatment of the physical environment in the context of a global ecological fragility and increased scholarly interest in the poetry of Arthur Nortje, a South African poet who wrote in the 1960s. While previous studies on Nortje concentrate on the political, psychic and technical aspects of his poetry, this study particularly explores the representations of the environment in Nortj e’s poetic imagination. Writing in the dark period of apartheid in South Africa’s history, Nortje’s poetry articulates a strong interest in the physical environment against the backdrop of official racialization of space and his personal nomadic life and exile. The poetry abounds with constant intersections of nature and culture (industrialism, urbanity and the quotidian), a sense of place and a deep sense of dislocation. The poems, therefore, present a platform from which to reevaluate conventional ecocritical ideas about nature, place-attachment and environmental consciousness. Drawing mainly on Felix Guattari’s ideas of three ecologies and transversality along with other theories, I conduct the study through what I call a transversal postcolonial environmental criticism, which considers the ecological value of the kind of assemblages that Nortje’s works represent. The first chapter focuses on conceptualizing a postcolonial approach to the environment based on Guattari’s concept of transversality to lay the theoretical foundation for the whole work. The second chapter analyses Nortje’s poetic imagination of place and displacement through his treatment of the private-public tension and the motif of exile. While the third chapter examines Nortje’s depiction of nature as both an everyday and urban phenomenon, the fourth chapter turns to his direct treatment of environmental crises handled through his imagination of the Canadian urban spaces, exile memory of apartheid geography, war and ecocide and the human body as a subject of environmental degradation. The fifth chapter, which is the conclusion, takes a brief look at the implication of Nortje’s complex treatment of the environment on postcolonial environmentalism.

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Thackwray, Sarah. "Storytelling and social commentary in a comparison of Zakes Mda's Ways of Dying (1995) and Black Diamond (2009)." Thesis, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10948/7149.

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In a comparison of two novels, Ways of Dying (1995) and Black Diamond (2009), this dissertation examines Zakes Mda's ongoing use of fiction in presenting incisive social commentary in the post-apartheid literary context. Mda's debut novel is a complex magic realist tale of Toloki, the professional mourner, who journeys from the village to the urban township. It is markedly different from his post-millennial satire, which invokes the social realist form, constructing a rapidly unfolding plot of urban gangsters, crime and sex, in which the characters are more representational than well-developed. While Ways of Dying has been praised as Mda's thought-provoking novel of the transition, Black Diamond has sometimes been criticised as being less able to comment significantly on the state of post-millennial South Africa. Subsequently, this dissertation evaluates the potential of Mda's most recent fictional portrayal of post-apartheid society to provide a meaningful interpretation of and commentary on post-apartheid South Africa, alongside his earlier novel.

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Scott, Simone. "Apartheid legacies and identity politics in Kopano Matlwa's Coconut, Zoë Wicomb's Playing in the light and Jacques Pauw's Little ice cream boy." Thesis, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1019955.

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An analysis of the preoccupation writers of South African fiction display after the process started by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is vital in post-apartheid South African writing. It becomes clear that a fascination with the past is not bound to any one specific racial or gender group within post-apartheid South Africa. Authors can therefore be said to continue the excavation work that the TRC started many years ago. The severe impact that the rigid classification of human beings into different groups based on race had, and continues to have, becomes evident in contemporary South African writing. The fact that white privilege always comes at a cost for those wanting to attain or maintain it cannot be overlooked and whiteness as a construct is examined.

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Birge, Amy Anastasia. ""Mislike Me not for My Complexion": Shakespearean Intertextuality in the Works of Nineteenth-Century African-American Women." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1996. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc278175/.

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Caliban, the ultimate figure of linguistic and racial indeterminacy in The Tempest, became for African-American writers a symbol of colonial fears of rebellion against oppression and southern fears of black male sexual aggression. My dissertation thus explores what I call the "Calibanic Quadrangle" in essays and novels by Anna Julia Cooper, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins. The figure of Caliban allows these authors to inflect the sentimental structure of the novel, to elevate Calibanic utterance to what Cooper calls "crude grandeur and exalted poesy," and to reveal the undercurrent of anxiety in nineteenth-century American attempts to draw rigid racial boundaries. The Calibanic Quadrangle enables this thorough critique because it allows the black woman writer to depict the oppression of the "Other," southern fears of black sexuality, the division between early black and white women's issues, and the enduring innocence of the progressive, educated, black female hero ~ all within the legitimized boundaries of the Shakespearean text, which provides literary authority to the minority writer. I call the resulting Shakespearean intertextuality a Quadrangle because in each of these African-American works a Caliban figure, a black man or "tragic mulatto" who was once "petted" and educated, struggles within a hostile environment of slavery and racism ruled by the Prospero figure, the wielder of "white magic," who controls reproduction, fears miscegenation, and enforces racial hierarchy. The Miranda figure, associated with the womb and threatened by the specter of miscegenation, advocates slavery and perpetuates the hostile structure. The Ariel figure, graceful and ephemeral, usually the "tragic mulatta" and a slave, desires her freedom and complements the Caliban figure. Each novel signals the presence of the paradigm by naming at least one character from The Tempest (Caliban in Cooper's A Voice from the South; "Mirandy" in Harper's Iola Leroy; Prospero in Hopkins's Contending Forces; and Ariel in Hopkins's Hagar's Daughter).

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Mde, Vukani. ""Effulgent in the firmament" the politics of representation and the politics of reception in South Africa's 'poetry of commitment', 1968-1983." Thesis, University of Port Elizabeth, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/10948/288.

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This dissertation re-examines an era in the production and reception of English language poetry in South Africa by black writers. Intellectually the 1970's was the Black Consciousness phase of South African history and very few aspects of life in the country were untouched by the intellectual movement led by Steve Biko and other young black student leaders. The aesthetic and literary output of the time, like all other facets of South African life, exhibited the influence and pressures brought to bear by Black Consciousness. Moreover, the Black Consciousness poets introduced the most vibrant and innovative phase for English language poetry produced in South Africa. It is my contention, however, that such vibrancy and innovation has consistently been compromised by unsympathetic, often hostile, and almost-always ill-informed criticism. The dissertation offers a critique of the academic and journalistic practice of criticism in South Africa. I argue that critical practice in South Africa has been engaged throughout the twentieth century in the discursive enforcement of ‘discipline’. In his Discipline and Punish (1977) the French post-structuralist philosopher Michel Foucault demonstrated how power is wielded against oppressed/suppressed groups through self regulated proscriptions, and argued that power is a discursive rather than a corporeal phenomenon. My dissertation follows Foucault in reading the critical reception of Black Consciousness poetry as the practice of disciplinary power. The dissertation also engages critically with the poetry of Oswald Mtshali, Mongane Serote and Sipho Sepamla, and argues that their work is the inscription of black subjectivity into the literary and cultural mainstream. It situates their work within wider 6 societal debates and definitions of ‘blackness’. In this regard use is made again of Michel Foucault’s insights and methodology of discourse analysis as shown in The Archaeology of Knowledge (1972). I argue that Oswald Mtshali’s work is a failed attempt at a dissection of apartheid and colonialism from a broadly Christian and humanist perspective. In my reading of Mongane Serote I explore the relationship between women’s bodies and the practice of representation. It is my contention that Serote is most concerned with claims of belonging, and this is shown through his extensive use of the trope of ‘Mother’. My discussion of the poetry of Sipho Sepamla focuses on language and (self- )representation, particularly the use of practices of naming in constructing subjectivity. My contention is that Sepamla ultimately abandons attempts at representation in favour of oppositional self-construction in language. In the concluding chapter I defend the thesis that the politics of discipline have prevented the broad critical establishment from gaining access to these discursive constructions of blackness in the committed poetry of South Africa.

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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'African literature (Portuguese) - History and criticism'

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