Pitied plumage and dying birds : the public mourning of national heroines and post-apartheid foundational mythology construction
- Authors: Kerseboom, Simone
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Women heroes -- South Africa , Nationalism -- South Africa , Nationalism and collective memory -- South Africa , Post-apartheid era -- South Africa , Women political activists -- South Africa , Dead -- Political aspects -- South Africa , Critical discourse analysis
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2625 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1019884
- Description: The original contribution of this thesis is the examination of the official construction of a post-apartheid foundation myth through the analysis of the dead body politics of five iconic South African women that spans the three presidencies that have defined South Africa’s democratic era. This thesis examines the death and funeral of Albertina Sisulu, the return and burial of Sara Baartman, and the commemoration of Charlotte Maxeke, Lilian Ngoyi, and Helen Joseph. Sisulu, Baartman, Maxeke, Ngoyi, and Joseph have been constructed as heroines and as foundational figures for the post-apartheid nation in official rhetoric. It will contend that the dead body politics of these women not only informs a new foundational mythology, but also features in the processes of regime legitimation when the ANC-dominated government faces strong societal criticism. Although such official expressions of nationalism may appear exhausted, this thesis will show that nationalism remains a powerful and dangerous force in South Africa that attempts to silence opposition and critical analysis of perceived failing government policies or inaction. This thesis will indicate that as women’s bodies and legacies are appropriated for nationalist projects they are subsumed in discourses of domestic femininity in official rhetoric that dangerously detract from women’s democratic rights and their ability to exercise responsible and productive citizenship in the post-apartheid state. It will argue that women’s historic political activism is contained within the meta-narrative of ‘The Struggle’ and that women are re-subsumed into the patriarchal discourses of the past that are inherited in the present. This thesis approaches this topic by considering a top-to-bottom construction of post-apartheid nationalism through applying feminist critical discourse analysis to official rhetoric articulated at the public mourning and commemorative rituals of these five women.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Kerseboom, Simone
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Women heroes -- South Africa , Nationalism -- South Africa , Nationalism and collective memory -- South Africa , Post-apartheid era -- South Africa , Women political activists -- South Africa , Dead -- Political aspects -- South Africa , Critical discourse analysis
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2625 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1019884
- Description: The original contribution of this thesis is the examination of the official construction of a post-apartheid foundation myth through the analysis of the dead body politics of five iconic South African women that spans the three presidencies that have defined South Africa’s democratic era. This thesis examines the death and funeral of Albertina Sisulu, the return and burial of Sara Baartman, and the commemoration of Charlotte Maxeke, Lilian Ngoyi, and Helen Joseph. Sisulu, Baartman, Maxeke, Ngoyi, and Joseph have been constructed as heroines and as foundational figures for the post-apartheid nation in official rhetoric. It will contend that the dead body politics of these women not only informs a new foundational mythology, but also features in the processes of regime legitimation when the ANC-dominated government faces strong societal criticism. Although such official expressions of nationalism may appear exhausted, this thesis will show that nationalism remains a powerful and dangerous force in South Africa that attempts to silence opposition and critical analysis of perceived failing government policies or inaction. This thesis will indicate that as women’s bodies and legacies are appropriated for nationalist projects they are subsumed in discourses of domestic femininity in official rhetoric that dangerously detract from women’s democratic rights and their ability to exercise responsible and productive citizenship in the post-apartheid state. It will argue that women’s historic political activism is contained within the meta-narrative of ‘The Struggle’ and that women are re-subsumed into the patriarchal discourses of the past that are inherited in the present. This thesis approaches this topic by considering a top-to-bottom construction of post-apartheid nationalism through applying feminist critical discourse analysis to official rhetoric articulated at the public mourning and commemorative rituals of these five women.
- Full Text:
The fantastic subject: a visio-cultural study of Nollywood video-film
- Authors: Makhubu, Nomusa Mary
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Motion picture industry -- Nigeria , Motion pictures -- Nigeria , Supernatural in motion pictures , Art and popular culture -- Nigeria , Fantasy in motion pictures , Fantasy in art
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2516 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1021166
- Description: The increasing popularity of Nigerian video-film, defined as the ‘Nollywood phenomenon’ (Barrot 2008, Haynes 2010, Adesokan 2011), has attracted recent interdisciplinary academic attention, now known as ‘Nollywood Studies’. The aesthetics and ideological approach of Nollywood video-film are often differentiated from those of the long-established and illustrious African Cinema. Films of Africa are, however, generally characterised by seemingly unique forms of the fantastic – an uneasy theme in scholarship on Nollywood. Although Nollywood video-film is commended by some scholars, its representation of the supernatural and the fantastic is often perceived to be demeaning. Considering the complexity of fantastic themes in creative arts of Africa, this study contributes to this field of study by positioning Nollywood as an interventionist artistic practice that subverts the division between art and popular culture. Further, it considers how this positioning could shift our thinking about what constitutes art and creative practice in Africa. The distinctions between art and popular culture have been inherited from particularly Western disciplines. A critical analysis of the fantastic in Nollywood could expand interpretations of the broader uses of new media and appropriation and develop the discourse on contemporary creative practices of Africa and the parameters of the art history discipline. I interrogate the visual language of the video-film medium through a discussion of other forms of artistic media such as photography, video art, and performance art. The fantastic themes, such as ‘magic’, ‘fetishism’ and violence, conveyed through new media open up a field of questions regarding contemporary social-political dynamics. The cultural value of Nollywood video-film is often based on who makes it. As a proletarian product, Nollywood has been underestimated as a ‘low’ form of culture. Its use of appropriated material connotes the complex dialectics that formulate class difference. I consider how a positioning of video-film as a creative practice could be complicated by the fact that it also operates as a theocentric implement that is used by churches to evangelise. Moreover, I examine how ‘epic’ films construct idyllic notions of ‘ethnicity’ based on dialectics of rational/irrational or real/fantastic. Nollywood video-film also creates images of fantastic spaces. In this thesis, I address concepts of space in Nollywood from which fantastic desire is constructed.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Makhubu, Nomusa Mary
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Motion picture industry -- Nigeria , Motion pictures -- Nigeria , Supernatural in motion pictures , Art and popular culture -- Nigeria , Fantasy in motion pictures , Fantasy in art
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2516 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1021166
- Description: The increasing popularity of Nigerian video-film, defined as the ‘Nollywood phenomenon’ (Barrot 2008, Haynes 2010, Adesokan 2011), has attracted recent interdisciplinary academic attention, now known as ‘Nollywood Studies’. The aesthetics and ideological approach of Nollywood video-film are often differentiated from those of the long-established and illustrious African Cinema. Films of Africa are, however, generally characterised by seemingly unique forms of the fantastic – an uneasy theme in scholarship on Nollywood. Although Nollywood video-film is commended by some scholars, its representation of the supernatural and the fantastic is often perceived to be demeaning. Considering the complexity of fantastic themes in creative arts of Africa, this study contributes to this field of study by positioning Nollywood as an interventionist artistic practice that subverts the division between art and popular culture. Further, it considers how this positioning could shift our thinking about what constitutes art and creative practice in Africa. The distinctions between art and popular culture have been inherited from particularly Western disciplines. A critical analysis of the fantastic in Nollywood could expand interpretations of the broader uses of new media and appropriation and develop the discourse on contemporary creative practices of Africa and the parameters of the art history discipline. I interrogate the visual language of the video-film medium through a discussion of other forms of artistic media such as photography, video art, and performance art. The fantastic themes, such as ‘magic’, ‘fetishism’ and violence, conveyed through new media open up a field of questions regarding contemporary social-political dynamics. The cultural value of Nollywood video-film is often based on who makes it. As a proletarian product, Nollywood has been underestimated as a ‘low’ form of culture. Its use of appropriated material connotes the complex dialectics that formulate class difference. I consider how a positioning of video-film as a creative practice could be complicated by the fact that it also operates as a theocentric implement that is used by churches to evangelise. Moreover, I examine how ‘epic’ films construct idyllic notions of ‘ethnicity’ based on dialectics of rational/irrational or real/fantastic. Nollywood video-film also creates images of fantastic spaces. In this thesis, I address concepts of space in Nollywood from which fantastic desire is constructed.
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The rehabilitative value of sub-economic housing as illustrated by Schauder Township, Port Elizabeth, Cape Province, Union of South Africa, 1938-1948
- Authors: Stoker, F M L
- Date: 1954
- Subjects: Housing rehabilitation -- South Africa -- Port Elizabeth
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:3389 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1014554
- Description: [From Introductory discussion]. The modern approach to any sociological problem is characterised by the attempt to analyse the contributory factors in such a way that their inter-active association is clearly discernible. The simple concept of "single cause and effect" is now recognised to be a traversity of social fact. Social Pathology, therefore, may be said to attempt to isolate the multiple factors involved in a given situation, and to endeavour to determine thelr mode of inter-action in order that remedial techniques may be applied effectively. Slum conditions are obviously pathologic, by which it is understood that the environment imposes strains upon the individual to which there is ineffective adjustment. The rehabilitation of such a population would involve the converse process, restoring individuals to a condition where they are able to cope in every respect with the demands of life at their respective class levels. It is very rare indeed that only a single factor is involved in a social pathological condition and for this reason it is quite possible that one- sided efforts at rehabilitation - such as the attempt to re-house ALL slum dwellers in sub-economic houses - have a tendency to increase the pathology in another direction. Rehabilitation must therefore be based on multi-factorial analysis in which allowance is, as far as possible, made for the inter-connection of each of the individual deviations from the normal. The aim of this thesis is to evaluate the effect of good housing conditions on the 2335 Coloured slum families re-housed in sub-economic houses at Schauder Township, Port Elizabeth, from the time that these houses were first available for occupancy.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Stoker, F M L
- Date: 1954
- Subjects: Housing rehabilitation -- South Africa -- Port Elizabeth
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:3389 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1014554
- Description: [From Introductory discussion]. The modern approach to any sociological problem is characterised by the attempt to analyse the contributory factors in such a way that their inter-active association is clearly discernible. The simple concept of "single cause and effect" is now recognised to be a traversity of social fact. Social Pathology, therefore, may be said to attempt to isolate the multiple factors involved in a given situation, and to endeavour to determine thelr mode of inter-action in order that remedial techniques may be applied effectively. Slum conditions are obviously pathologic, by which it is understood that the environment imposes strains upon the individual to which there is ineffective adjustment. The rehabilitation of such a population would involve the converse process, restoring individuals to a condition where they are able to cope in every respect with the demands of life at their respective class levels. It is very rare indeed that only a single factor is involved in a social pathological condition and for this reason it is quite possible that one- sided efforts at rehabilitation - such as the attempt to re-house ALL slum dwellers in sub-economic houses - have a tendency to increase the pathology in another direction. Rehabilitation must therefore be based on multi-factorial analysis in which allowance is, as far as possible, made for the inter-connection of each of the individual deviations from the normal. The aim of this thesis is to evaluate the effect of good housing conditions on the 2335 Coloured slum families re-housed in sub-economic houses at Schauder Township, Port Elizabeth, from the time that these houses were first available for occupancy.
- Full Text:
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