A tribute to you
- Ndlebe-September, Thobeka Veronica
- Authors: Ndlebe-September, Thobeka Veronica
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: South African fiction (English) -- 21st century , South African fiction (English) -- History and criticism , Short stories, South African (English) -- 21st century , Xhosa fiction -- 21st century , Xhosa fiction -- History and criticism , Short stories, Xhosa -- 21st century , Diaries -- Authorship
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/144989 , vital:38398
- Description: My collection of short stories reflects my interest in narrative biblical fiction, allegorical stories about people and nature that resonate with our daily lives. I have been greatly influenced by writers such as Joel Matlou, Flannery O’Connor, Barry Gifford, Miriam Tladi and Leah Harris amongst others. I have also been captivated by fairy tales and folk tales, and also the work of isiXhosa writers such as S. E. K. Mqhayi, Madiponi Masenya, and Hulisani Ramantswana. I have discovered that I can borrow certain styles and forms of writing to enhance my own stories which are situated within ‘local’ contexts such as education, poverty, employment, the body, life and death.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Ndlebe-September, Thobeka Veronica
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: South African fiction (English) -- 21st century , South African fiction (English) -- History and criticism , Short stories, South African (English) -- 21st century , Xhosa fiction -- 21st century , Xhosa fiction -- History and criticism , Short stories, Xhosa -- 21st century , Diaries -- Authorship
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/144989 , vital:38398
- Description: My collection of short stories reflects my interest in narrative biblical fiction, allegorical stories about people and nature that resonate with our daily lives. I have been greatly influenced by writers such as Joel Matlou, Flannery O’Connor, Barry Gifford, Miriam Tladi and Leah Harris amongst others. I have also been captivated by fairy tales and folk tales, and also the work of isiXhosa writers such as S. E. K. Mqhayi, Madiponi Masenya, and Hulisani Ramantswana. I have discovered that I can borrow certain styles and forms of writing to enhance my own stories which are situated within ‘local’ contexts such as education, poverty, employment, the body, life and death.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
Enabling violence: the ethics of writing and reading rape in South Africa
- Authors: Lloyd, Dylan Reumen
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Rape -- South Africa , Rape -- Fiction , Rape in literature , Rape in literature -- South Africa , Psychic trauma in literature , Post-traumatic stress disorder in literature , Dystopias in literature , Coetzee, J. M., 1940- Disgrace , South African fiction (English) -- History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/166173 , vital:41335
- Description: This thesis is concerned with describing the stakes of reading, writing and criticising fictional depictions of rape in a country plagued by high levels of sexual violence. I consider the capacity of rape representations to cause harm to women and rape survivors, and worsen the various injuries suffered by survivors as a direct or indirect consequence of rape. The possibility of such harm prompts me to examine the role and responsibilities of readers and critics in facilitating or preventing such harm. I further discuss the potential strategies of harm prevention that readers of novelistic portrayals of rape might adopt as well as the positive outcomes that such reading strategies make possible, and which might balance out the risks that accompany them. My description of the potential harm of rape representations combines postmodern critical feminist analysis with Miranda Fricker’s work on epistemic justice and Judith Herman’s work on trauma in order to illustrate the way that these representations shape our conception of rape in a manner that affects everything from how it is enacted to our treatment of survivors to the possibility of their recovery from posttraumatic stress disorder. In order to situate my analysis in the context of South African literature and to explore the notion of responsibility in relation to the writing of scenes of rape, I utilise a close reading of J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace. Furthermore, I discuss the utility and limits of the critical feminist strategy of using a normative critical approach to rape representations in order to prevent harm. Ultimately, I argue that the use of such a strategy, along with the development of a purpose-honed adaptive critical style, is essential to the fulfilment of our responsibilities as readers and to the prevention of further suffering.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Lloyd, Dylan Reumen
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Rape -- South Africa , Rape -- Fiction , Rape in literature , Rape in literature -- South Africa , Psychic trauma in literature , Post-traumatic stress disorder in literature , Dystopias in literature , Coetzee, J. M., 1940- Disgrace , South African fiction (English) -- History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/166173 , vital:41335
- Description: This thesis is concerned with describing the stakes of reading, writing and criticising fictional depictions of rape in a country plagued by high levels of sexual violence. I consider the capacity of rape representations to cause harm to women and rape survivors, and worsen the various injuries suffered by survivors as a direct or indirect consequence of rape. The possibility of such harm prompts me to examine the role and responsibilities of readers and critics in facilitating or preventing such harm. I further discuss the potential strategies of harm prevention that readers of novelistic portrayals of rape might adopt as well as the positive outcomes that such reading strategies make possible, and which might balance out the risks that accompany them. My description of the potential harm of rape representations combines postmodern critical feminist analysis with Miranda Fricker’s work on epistemic justice and Judith Herman’s work on trauma in order to illustrate the way that these representations shape our conception of rape in a manner that affects everything from how it is enacted to our treatment of survivors to the possibility of their recovery from posttraumatic stress disorder. In order to situate my analysis in the context of South African literature and to explore the notion of responsibility in relation to the writing of scenes of rape, I utilise a close reading of J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace. Furthermore, I discuss the utility and limits of the critical feminist strategy of using a normative critical approach to rape representations in order to prevent harm. Ultimately, I argue that the use of such a strategy, along with the development of a purpose-honed adaptive critical style, is essential to the fulfilment of our responsibilities as readers and to the prevention of further suffering.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
Hope in a small town
- Authors: Ngubelanga, Xolisa
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: South African fiction (English) -- 21st century , South African fiction (English) -- History and criticism , Short stories, South African (English) -- 21st century
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145089 , vital:38407
- Description: Writing has always experienced as the elite relative in the family of arts, especially among African artists and art consumers. Somehow writing has in past and to a great extent still is in the present been referred more than song, storytelling and dancing. Interrogating the past of colonization of African narratives I could point that this is the case because African expression had always packaged in a ‘come see the Africans are dancing, singing or storytelling. Listen to their clicks.’ Writing, however, could only be executed by those Africans of white assimilation with higher social status and missionary education. Among amaXhosa, the disparity of socially lesser African arts and that of the educated has been termed the narrative of Amaqaba and Amagqobhoka. Amaqaba being those whose stories have taken longer to be documented in modern means of writing but have been enriched through years of live telling. Amagqobhoka on the other hand who easily documented their narrative after having been trained in writing have enjoined the audience of readers and access into literary space longer.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Ngubelanga, Xolisa
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: South African fiction (English) -- 21st century , South African fiction (English) -- History and criticism , Short stories, South African (English) -- 21st century
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145089 , vital:38407
- Description: Writing has always experienced as the elite relative in the family of arts, especially among African artists and art consumers. Somehow writing has in past and to a great extent still is in the present been referred more than song, storytelling and dancing. Interrogating the past of colonization of African narratives I could point that this is the case because African expression had always packaged in a ‘come see the Africans are dancing, singing or storytelling. Listen to their clicks.’ Writing, however, could only be executed by those Africans of white assimilation with higher social status and missionary education. Among amaXhosa, the disparity of socially lesser African arts and that of the educated has been termed the narrative of Amaqaba and Amagqobhoka. Amaqaba being those whose stories have taken longer to be documented in modern means of writing but have been enriched through years of live telling. Amagqobhoka on the other hand who easily documented their narrative after having been trained in writing have enjoined the audience of readers and access into literary space longer.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
Power in Africa: a comparison of selected South African and Nigerian dystopian fiction
- Authors: Simelane, Smangaliso
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Dystopias in literature , Africa -- In literature , South African fiction (English) -- History and criticism , Nigerian fiction (English) -- History and criticism , Beukes, Lauren -- Moxyland , Herne, Lily -- Deadlands , Bandele-Thomas, Biyi, 1967- The Sympathetic Undertaker and Other Dreams , Bandele-Thomas, Biyi, 1967- The Man Who Came in from the Back of Beyond
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/148171 , vital:38716
- Description: Dystopias have frequently been explored in literature to better understand the present and imagine the effects of certain elements of society if taken to a logical extreme. In this way, dystopian fiction can act as both cautionary tales and a form of social commentary. This can be explored within the context of African dystopian fiction where power is a recurring theme, highlighting the anxiety and turbulent history several countries on the continent continue to face. To demonstrate this, I compare selected South African and Nigerian Dystopian texts. With regards to South Africa, I analyse novels by South African science fiction authors Lauren Beukes and Lily Herne, namely Moxyland (2008) and Deadlands (2011) respectively, to investigate how South Africa’s past under Apartheid shapes the segregated societies presented. Nigerian dystopian texts by Biyi Bandele-Thomas, namely The Sympathetic Undertaker And Other Dreams (1993) and The Man Who Came in from the Back of Beyond (1992), are discussed with regards to the way Nigeria’s colonial past and several military juntas have contributed to the kinds of corruption that are depicted. I argue that all four texts warn of the dangers of power, albeit in ways that pertain specifically to their countries of origin. With regards to the South African texts, readers are shown the ways in which those in power can manipulate the desire to survive to keep those they subjugate dependent and, consequently, obedient through what Judith Butler terms ‘passionate attachments’. In the case of the Nigerian dystopias, I argue that Bandele-Thomas’s texts warn of tyranny and effects of the corruption that result from misused power strategies. While the dire settings of dystopian fiction may be grim enough, on their own, to motivate change in the real world, this may not be enough to prevent the texts from becoming pessimistic and fatalistic outlooks. Hence, I seek to understand how the selected novels maintain hope and, consequently, convince readers that the depicted dystopias are ones that can be avoided. Typically, dystopian literature fosters hope by setting the narratives in the future, giving readers hope that they may take steps today to protect their societies from becoming like the damned worlds described by dystopian authors. However, the selected texts are not set in the future. Hence, I explore three literary techniques that might foster hope within the selected African dystopian texts in lieu of temporal distancing. They are, namely: identification with the protagonist, defamiliarization and cognitive estrangement.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Simelane, Smangaliso
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Dystopias in literature , Africa -- In literature , South African fiction (English) -- History and criticism , Nigerian fiction (English) -- History and criticism , Beukes, Lauren -- Moxyland , Herne, Lily -- Deadlands , Bandele-Thomas, Biyi, 1967- The Sympathetic Undertaker and Other Dreams , Bandele-Thomas, Biyi, 1967- The Man Who Came in from the Back of Beyond
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/148171 , vital:38716
- Description: Dystopias have frequently been explored in literature to better understand the present and imagine the effects of certain elements of society if taken to a logical extreme. In this way, dystopian fiction can act as both cautionary tales and a form of social commentary. This can be explored within the context of African dystopian fiction where power is a recurring theme, highlighting the anxiety and turbulent history several countries on the continent continue to face. To demonstrate this, I compare selected South African and Nigerian Dystopian texts. With regards to South Africa, I analyse novels by South African science fiction authors Lauren Beukes and Lily Herne, namely Moxyland (2008) and Deadlands (2011) respectively, to investigate how South Africa’s past under Apartheid shapes the segregated societies presented. Nigerian dystopian texts by Biyi Bandele-Thomas, namely The Sympathetic Undertaker And Other Dreams (1993) and The Man Who Came in from the Back of Beyond (1992), are discussed with regards to the way Nigeria’s colonial past and several military juntas have contributed to the kinds of corruption that are depicted. I argue that all four texts warn of the dangers of power, albeit in ways that pertain specifically to their countries of origin. With regards to the South African texts, readers are shown the ways in which those in power can manipulate the desire to survive to keep those they subjugate dependent and, consequently, obedient through what Judith Butler terms ‘passionate attachments’. In the case of the Nigerian dystopias, I argue that Bandele-Thomas’s texts warn of tyranny and effects of the corruption that result from misused power strategies. While the dire settings of dystopian fiction may be grim enough, on their own, to motivate change in the real world, this may not be enough to prevent the texts from becoming pessimistic and fatalistic outlooks. Hence, I seek to understand how the selected novels maintain hope and, consequently, convince readers that the depicted dystopias are ones that can be avoided. Typically, dystopian literature fosters hope by setting the narratives in the future, giving readers hope that they may take steps today to protect their societies from becoming like the damned worlds described by dystopian authors. However, the selected texts are not set in the future. Hence, I explore three literary techniques that might foster hope within the selected African dystopian texts in lieu of temporal distancing. They are, namely: identification with the protagonist, defamiliarization and cognitive estrangement.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- «
- ‹
- 1
- ›
- »