Investigating the basis of legitimation of English literary studies: a case study of a curriculum at a South African University
- Authors: Knoetze, Retha
- Date: 2025-04-03
- Subjects: Knowledge, Theory of , Critical thinking , English literature Study and teaching (Higher) South Africa , Neoliberalism South Africa , Critical literacy , Transformative learning
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/480050 , vital:78392 , DOI 10.21504/10962/480050
- Description: This study explored the kinds of knowledge, ways of knowing and ways of being that are valued in English literary studies. It did so by providing an analysis of what was needed to succeed in a specific English literary studies curriculum. The study used the Specialisation dimension of Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) to investigate what is legitimated in an English literature curriculum at the University of South Africa (UNISA) across three years of undergraduate study. The purpose of this analysis was twofold. Firstly, it aimed to make the academic literacy practices of English literary studies more explicit in order to inform pedagogy intended to enable epistemological and ontological access to the discipline. Secondly, the study aimed to facilitate critiques of the curriculum from a social justice perspective by finding ways to make the basis for legitimacy (the ways of being and knowing that are valued) in the curriculum more explicit to both the academics and the students. The study found that English literary studies, as practised at UNISA, was underpinned by what LCT refers to as a ‘cultivated gaze’. This aligns with the findings of previous LCT studies that looked at English literary studies using the dimension of Specialisation. A discipline that is underpinned by a cultivated gaze requires students to exhibit a specific disposition that develops through immersion in the field over an extended period in order to be considered a legitimate knower. The study also found that two orientations within the cultivated gaze were legitimated in the curriculum: an aesthetic orientation and a socio-critical orientation. This finding adds to the previous research because it helps us to better understand the kinds of dispositions that are valued in English literary studies and how these dispositions are cultivated over time. In addition, the study found that neoliberal factors such as massification, managerialism and academic casualisation caused misalignments between the intended curriculum and the practices employed to teach and assess the curriculum. This placed particular limitations on one of the aims of the curriculum which was to cultivate a socially oriented criticality. This finding has implications for how we teach Humanities curricula that aim to develop critical citizens. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Education, Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning, 2025
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2025-04-03
- Authors: Knoetze, Retha
- Date: 2025-04-03
- Subjects: Knowledge, Theory of , Critical thinking , English literature Study and teaching (Higher) South Africa , Neoliberalism South Africa , Critical literacy , Transformative learning
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/480050 , vital:78392 , DOI 10.21504/10962/480050
- Description: This study explored the kinds of knowledge, ways of knowing and ways of being that are valued in English literary studies. It did so by providing an analysis of what was needed to succeed in a specific English literary studies curriculum. The study used the Specialisation dimension of Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) to investigate what is legitimated in an English literature curriculum at the University of South Africa (UNISA) across three years of undergraduate study. The purpose of this analysis was twofold. Firstly, it aimed to make the academic literacy practices of English literary studies more explicit in order to inform pedagogy intended to enable epistemological and ontological access to the discipline. Secondly, the study aimed to facilitate critiques of the curriculum from a social justice perspective by finding ways to make the basis for legitimacy (the ways of being and knowing that are valued) in the curriculum more explicit to both the academics and the students. The study found that English literary studies, as practised at UNISA, was underpinned by what LCT refers to as a ‘cultivated gaze’. This aligns with the findings of previous LCT studies that looked at English literary studies using the dimension of Specialisation. A discipline that is underpinned by a cultivated gaze requires students to exhibit a specific disposition that develops through immersion in the field over an extended period in order to be considered a legitimate knower. The study also found that two orientations within the cultivated gaze were legitimated in the curriculum: an aesthetic orientation and a socio-critical orientation. This finding adds to the previous research because it helps us to better understand the kinds of dispositions that are valued in English literary studies and how these dispositions are cultivated over time. In addition, the study found that neoliberal factors such as massification, managerialism and academic casualisation caused misalignments between the intended curriculum and the practices employed to teach and assess the curriculum. This placed particular limitations on one of the aims of the curriculum which was to cultivate a socially oriented criticality. This finding has implications for how we teach Humanities curricula that aim to develop critical citizens. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Education, Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning, 2025
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2025-04-03
“Rwanda cannot be exorcised”: representations of the trauma of the Rwandan Genocide in selected films and novels
- Authors: Jennings, Kathleen
- Date: 2023-10-13
- Subjects: Rwandan Genocide, Rwanda, 1994 , Genocide in literature , Genocide in motion pictures , Psychic trauma , Postcolonialism , Collective memory Rwanda
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/425067 , vital:72206
- Description: Although the Rwandan genocide (itsembabwoko in Kinyarwanda) has often been compared with the Holocaust, in terms of literary and cinematic narratives it has been largely underrepresented, with the notable exception of the release of the films Hotel Rwanda (2004) and Sometimes in April (2005), as well as novels such as Gil Courtemanche’s A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali (2003). However, although there is now a larger oeuvre of works on the subject, they are often not widely known or disseminated beyond their countries of origin. Of even greater concern is the fact that most cinematic narratives on itsembabwoko rely on Western narrative structures in their approach to storytelling. As a result, trauma in these narratives largely tends to focus on the experiences of Western protagonists or on Rwandan protagonists from a Western point of view. This tendency can be tied to the use of Western trauma theory in exploring the effects of the genocide on its witnesses and survivors, at the expense of arguably more relevant postcolonial trauma theory. This presents a problem in theorising the trauma of itsembabwoko, which occurred in a highly specific historical context involving the processes of colonization and decolonization, and in which the difficulties in unifying a population which had been split along socio-economic lines since pre-colonial times remained unresolved. Despite its shortcomings in the postcolonial African context, it would be a mistake to dismiss Yale trauma theory entirely, however, since theorists such as Cathy Caruth still provide valuable insights into the effects of trauma on both the individual and the collective. As a result, I have sought to find commonalities between the two schools of thought, so as to create a more nuanced view of itsembabwoko, its repercussions and the violence preceding it. In writing this thesis, I have selected mostly Rwandan authors, often survivors of the genocide, whose works provide an alternative view of Rwanda’s violent history to that presented in the works mentioned above. Given that the majority of the texts I focus on have been released more recently – mostly the mid-2010s – and are less well-known than their Western counterparts, they provide the opportunity to compare first-hand accounts with those that can only partially recreate the terror of anti-Tutsi violence in Rwanda. My analysis hopefully provides a new perspective on the dominant narratives which have shaped the way in which non-Rwandan (predominantly Western) audiences understand the genocide. The overall aim of this thesis, then, is to demonstrate the importance of placing the genocide and its resultant trauma in a broader historical context, with a view to establishing that it is shortsighted to ignore the impact of pre- and post-genocide trauma on the Rwandan people when discussing itsembabwoko. Though this has been achieved in socio-historical studies, such as Mahmood Mamdani’s When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda, very little has been produced on literary and cinematic representations of the genocide. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Literary Studies in English 2023
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2023-10-13
- Authors: Jennings, Kathleen
- Date: 2023-10-13
- Subjects: Rwandan Genocide, Rwanda, 1994 , Genocide in literature , Genocide in motion pictures , Psychic trauma , Postcolonialism , Collective memory Rwanda
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/425067 , vital:72206
- Description: Although the Rwandan genocide (itsembabwoko in Kinyarwanda) has often been compared with the Holocaust, in terms of literary and cinematic narratives it has been largely underrepresented, with the notable exception of the release of the films Hotel Rwanda (2004) and Sometimes in April (2005), as well as novels such as Gil Courtemanche’s A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali (2003). However, although there is now a larger oeuvre of works on the subject, they are often not widely known or disseminated beyond their countries of origin. Of even greater concern is the fact that most cinematic narratives on itsembabwoko rely on Western narrative structures in their approach to storytelling. As a result, trauma in these narratives largely tends to focus on the experiences of Western protagonists or on Rwandan protagonists from a Western point of view. This tendency can be tied to the use of Western trauma theory in exploring the effects of the genocide on its witnesses and survivors, at the expense of arguably more relevant postcolonial trauma theory. This presents a problem in theorising the trauma of itsembabwoko, which occurred in a highly specific historical context involving the processes of colonization and decolonization, and in which the difficulties in unifying a population which had been split along socio-economic lines since pre-colonial times remained unresolved. Despite its shortcomings in the postcolonial African context, it would be a mistake to dismiss Yale trauma theory entirely, however, since theorists such as Cathy Caruth still provide valuable insights into the effects of trauma on both the individual and the collective. As a result, I have sought to find commonalities between the two schools of thought, so as to create a more nuanced view of itsembabwoko, its repercussions and the violence preceding it. In writing this thesis, I have selected mostly Rwandan authors, often survivors of the genocide, whose works provide an alternative view of Rwanda’s violent history to that presented in the works mentioned above. Given that the majority of the texts I focus on have been released more recently – mostly the mid-2010s – and are less well-known than their Western counterparts, they provide the opportunity to compare first-hand accounts with those that can only partially recreate the terror of anti-Tutsi violence in Rwanda. My analysis hopefully provides a new perspective on the dominant narratives which have shaped the way in which non-Rwandan (predominantly Western) audiences understand the genocide. The overall aim of this thesis, then, is to demonstrate the importance of placing the genocide and its resultant trauma in a broader historical context, with a view to establishing that it is shortsighted to ignore the impact of pre- and post-genocide trauma on the Rwandan people when discussing itsembabwoko. Though this has been achieved in socio-historical studies, such as Mahmood Mamdani’s When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda, very little has been produced on literary and cinematic representations of the genocide. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Literary Studies in English 2023
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2023-10-13
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