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Elele nje usathetha: Ukukhapha as an expression of amaXhosa language world-sense

- Dana, Zikho

  • Authors: Dana, Zikho
  • Date: 2022-10-14
  • Subjects: Xhosa language Discourse analysis , Guides (Spiritualism) , Grief Religious aspects , Historical linguistics , Xhosa language Religious aspects , Xhosa (African people) Death , Death Religious aspects
  • Language: English
  • Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/406309 , vital:70257
  • Description: This study examines ukukhapha as an expression of amaXhosa language world-sense. Firstly, it examines how ukukhapha as a rite of passage to accompany the spirit of the deceased from the physical realm into the spiritual realm maintains the nexus between the living and the dead. Secondly, it explores ukukhapha as a ritual of collective mourning. Both dimensions of the study are pursued using language as a point of departure. This study draws on four key texts written across different times in history, namely: Intlalo kaXhosa (The Social Life of amaXhosa) by Tiyo Burnside (TB) Soga (1974); the three volume Greater Dictionary of isiXhosa (1989, 2003 and 2006); Nokuzola Mndende’s (2002) PhD thesis entitled: Signifying practices: AmaXhosa ritual speech; and Khaya Dlanga’s (2015) memoire: To Quote Myself. This thesis examines ukukhapha in the context of death to establish how amaXhosa speak about death and how this shapes their understanding and its practice. Discourse analysis is employed to clarify some practices and examples of ukukhapha. It’s also used to trace the evolution of ukukhapha over time in isiXhosa. It is utilized as a reservoir of knowledge epitomizing the world-sense of amaXhosa rather than solely as a means of communication. This study reveals that while ukukhapha as a ritual slaughtering of an ox to accompany the deceased is found in literature, its examination as a practice of communal and collective grief is scanty. The four key texts studied in this thesis reveal that ukukhapha goes beyond a mere ritual slaughtering of a sacrificial beast to accompany the spirit of the deceased to the ancestral realm. It is a practice that has allowed amaXhosa to collectively grief. Furthermore, it has provided the bereaved various forms of support which are pivotal in maintaining and strengthening kinship and communal ties among the living. This study further reveals that for the Africans in general, and for amaXhosa in particular, death is not the end of life. It is a continuation of life where the deceased morphs and graduates to an ancestor who joins a larger community of ancestors who act as intermediaries between the living and uMdali, the Creator. The findings demonstrate that through ukukhapha, there is no bifurcation between gender and age, rather they complement each other as the successful execution of the mourning period and farewell of a loved one is dependent on the roles played by both women and men respectively. , Olu phando luceba ukuphonononga ukukhapha njengendlela yokuphila equlathwe kulwimi lwamaXhosa. Okokuqala, luzakuphanda indlela ukukhapha njengesiko lokukhapha umphefumlo womfi ukusukela kwelenyama ukuya kwelemimoya kugcina ngayo ubudlelwane phakathi kwabaphilayo nabaleli ukuthula. Okwesibini, luzakuphanda ukukhapha njengesiko lokuzila ndawoni nye. Zombini ezi nkalo zizakuvelelwa ngokugxila kulwimi. Olu phando lucaphula kwimibhalo emine engundoqo kumaxesha ohlukileyo kwimbali, iquka: Intlalo kaXhosa owabhalwa nguTiyo Burnside Soga (ngowe1974); isichazi-magama esinemiqulu emithathu iThe Greater Dictionary of isiXhosa (ngowama-1989, owama-2003 nowama-2006); ithisisi yePhD kaNokuzola Mndende (ngowama-2002) ebizwa Signifying practices: amaXhosa ritual speech; nencwadi engunomalisa wobom, ebhalwe nguKhaya Dlanga (ngowama-2015) ebizwa To Quote Myself. Le thisisi isebenzisa ukukhapha kwilixa lokufa ukuphanda indlela amaXhosa athetha ngkufa, nokuba le ndlela yokuthetha iyichaphazela njani indlela abakuqonda ngayo ukufa nendlela abakhaphana ngayo. IDiscourse Analysis isetyenziswa njengesixhobo sokucacisa ukukhapha. Iphinde isetyenziswe ukunika imizekelo yeli siko nendlela yokuphila kwakunye nendlela ukukhapha kutshintshe ngayo ekuhambeni kwexesha kulwimi lwesiXhosa njengokuba sizakusetyenziswa njengovimba wolwazi, endaweni yokusetyenziswa njengesixhobo sonxibelelwano kuphela. Olu phando lubonisa ukuba njengokuba ukukhapha njengesiko lokuphalaza igazi lenkomo ukukhapha umfi kubhaliwe ngako kuncwadi, indlela abaphilayo enyameni abakhaphana ngayo iyasilela kuncwadi. Le mibhalo mine echongiweyo nephononongiweyo kolu phando ivelisa ukuba ukukhapha akuphelelanga ekuphalazeni igazi lenkomo kuphela njengesiko lokukhapha umfi ukuze awelele kweleminyanya, yindlela eyavumela amaXhosa ukuba azile ngemanyano apho uluntu luxhasa abafelweyo ngeendlela ezahlukeneyo ezithi zomeleze imanyano phakathi kwabazalanayo noluntu lwabaphilayo. Olu phando lutyhila into yokuba kumaAfrika jikelele, ingakumbi amaXhosa, ukufa ayikuko ukuphela kobom, nto nje luhambo olugqithisa umfi kubom obulandelayo apho ongeza kwinani kwelezinyanya apho izinyanya zilikhonco phakathi koMdali nabaphilayo. Iziphumo ngokukhapha zibonisa ukuba akukho ukuchasana phakathi kwesini neminyaka, nto nje, le miba mibini iyathungelana ekuncediseni nasekuqinisekiseni ukuba abafazi namadoda benza iindima zabo ngokufanelekileyo ekuqinisekiseni ukuba ixesha lezila nokubeka umfi kwikhaya lakhe lokugqibela ziyimpumelelo. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
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  • Date Issued: 2022-10-14

Fractured flowers

- Cunningham, Cornelia

Poems caught in dreams

- Jafta, Nthabiseng Rose JahRose

  • Authors: Jafta, Nthabiseng Rose JahRose
  • Date: 2022-10-14
  • Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , South African poetry (English) 21st century
  • Language: English
  • Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/406249 , vital:70252
  • Description: My thesis is a collection of Lyrical and Prose Poetry. I am strongly influenced by Marina Tsvetaeva’s observation that “The condition of creation is a condition of dreaming.” As a writer I want to contribute to human knowledge by drawing from a wide literary ancestry, participating in a community of distinct voices and styles to capture and preserve the language of dreams. I fuse inherited knowledge, visions, dreams, my own experiences and what I have discovered through listening to music, reading and my own experiments in exploring poetry in dreams, thoughts and lived experiences. I am inspired by Sindiwe Magona, how she chose to express her spirituality and personal narratives into her work, and Aimé Césaire’s vision “The ground of poetic knowledge, [is] an astonishing mobilization of all human and cosmic forces.” I particularly enjoy intense forms of expression that hold substance and provoke one to elevate in knowledge and in writing. Exploring these combination of forces from these writers affords me an opportunity to write my dreams as reality. Exploring the characters, the different scenes, symbols and colours as poems flashing super/naturally yet leave one with fathomable felt, though sometimes hazy interpretations. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
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  • Date Issued: 2022-10-14

Portraits

- Fredericks, Gaireyah

The Daily Sun subscribers

- Mahe, Xolani

  • Authors: Mahe, Xolani
  • Date: 2022-10-14
  • Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , Diaries -- Authorship , Books Reviews , South African fiction (English) 21st century , Short stories, South African (English) 21st century
  • Language: English
  • Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/406276 , vital:70254
  • Description: My thesis comprises interlinked short stories, verfabula, sketches, fragments, flash fiction, folktales, anecdotes, and the epistolary form. I write in English tinged with IsiXhosa. In terms of specific influences, the collection is strongly influenced by the experimental writing of Kathy Acker and Samuel Delany notably the uncompromising ways in which they contort formal grammar and sexuality, the defamiliarizing function of the phantasmagoria in the films of Alejandro Jodorowsky and David Lynch, the techniques of the picturesque as used by Amos Tutuola, and, importantly, narration in the present tense as deployed in Dambudzo Marechera’s House of Hunger which results in negation and subversion of the narrative depiction of the past, the present, and the future. On the stylistic level, I am strongly influenced by the haunting surrealism of Sony Labou Tansi, the eccentric meditations of Julio Cortázar, and the iconoclastic rants of Lesego Rampolokeng. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
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  • Date Issued: 2022-10-14

Alien crosstalk

- Stuart-Watson, Andrew Joseph

Along the river that flowed south

- Mohlomi, Teboho Samson

  • Authors: Mohlomi, Teboho Samson
  • Date: 2022-04-07
  • Subjects: Uncatalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: Master's theses , text
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/234195 , vital:50171
  • Description: Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
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  • Date Issued: 2022-04-07

Exploring structures and beliefs underlying textbook praxis in German foreign language courses at a South African university – a social realist perspective

- Engelbrecht, Natasha

  • Authors: Engelbrecht, Natasha
  • Date: 2022-04-07
  • Subjects: German language Study and teaching (Higher) English speakers , Curriculum change South Africa , German language Textbooks History and criticism , Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (Project) , Decolonization South Africa , Educational change South Africa , Social realism
  • Language: English
  • Type: Doctoral thesis , text
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/232657 , vital:50011 , DOI https://doi.org/10.21504/10962/232657
  • Description: Commercial textbooks, aligned with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), are prescribed in almost all undergraduate GFL courses offered at South African universities. Although providing practical relevance and quality assurance, the CEFR-level descriptors were developed for the European context. The projected relevance and appropriateness of teaching materials presently implemented in German curricula in South African higher education have been determined in Germany, not for local contexts, but for learners vaguely described as “Anfänger” (Evans, et al., 2012, p. 8) and “Erwachsene und Jugendliche ab 16 Jahren” (Hueber, 2019, p. 11), often with a focus on learning for prospective German immigrants or for the use in refugee- or immigrant integration courses. However, the textbook occupies a central position in the GFL course because of the structured grammar progression that it lends to the curriculum. The variety of resources available to lecturers (tests, worksheets, online learning platform) and students (exercises, English-German glossary, English grammar explanations) is also an asset to GFL courses. Calls for the transformation and decolonisation of higher education have prompted academic disciplines to re-evaluate the common-sense assumptions which underpin knowledge practices in their curriculum. Following a social realist perspective and an exploratory case-study approach, this study presents a critical analysis of the textbook prescribed in the German Studies 1 course at Rhodes University and student experiences of the textbook to disentangle the complex relations which cause textbook praxis and lay bare power structures and tensions in the system. , Thesis (PhD) -- Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
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  • Date Issued: 2022-04-07

Gray

- Fouché, James De Clerque

Hiding no scars

- Mhlongo, Sanele

Magnitude

- Seddon, Deborah Ann

  • Authors: Seddon, Deborah Ann
  • Date: 2022-04-07
  • Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , Zimbabwean poetry (English) 21st century , Diaries -- Authorship , Polish literature 21st century History and criticism , English poetry 20th century History and criticism , English literature Irish authors History and criticism , American poetry 21st century History and criticism
  • Language: English
  • Type: Master's thesis , text
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/234400 , vital:50192
  • Description: My thesis is a collection of lyric, narrative, and prose poetry directed towards two forms of death – physical death and the disavowal of the self. Many poems focus on the death of my mother, and the work required after loss to sort through a family’s life in my Harare childhood home. This associative exploration draws together childhood memories, encounters with physical objects, letters, and songs, as well as with the city and its people. Tadeusz Rózewicz’s Mother Departs has influenced my approach to writing of my mother’s death, particularly how to grant her a voice in the telling. I also draw on the poetry of Harmony Holiday and Pascal Petite, in their attention to the complexities and emotional dangers of the mother-daughter bond. Other poems draw on the work of Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Judy Grahn, Ocean Vuong, and Saeed Jones, in terms of imagining queer life into poetry, the use of the erotic as a means of empowerment, and developing a queer political identity, to examine various aspects of queer love, including the heartaches associated with self-denial. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
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  • Date Issued: 2022-04-07

Praying mantis

- Kenene, Thobeka

  • Authors: Kenene, Thobeka
  • Date: 2022-04-07
  • Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , Diaries -- Authorship , South African fiction (English) 21st century , South African essays (English) 21st century , Portuguese fiction 20th century History and criticism , Russian fiction 20th century History and criticism , Zimbabwean fiction (English) 20th century History and criticism , American fiction 20th century History and criticism
  • Language: English
  • Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/292726 , vital:57010
  • Description: (Prologue) I could only see in black and white as if I had travelled through time. I was the star of the medieval people who waited on me. The city was Johannesburg where strange faces called me a traitor because I was an educated black person. I hid between the skyscrapers and ran into a mirror image of myself as a man. “I write this book,” he said to his readers, “To invoke a yearning in our youth to awaken from slumber. To set examples for them to desist from characters like Velesazi and Nongendi, and imitate Nomsa and Themba. And also, to contribute to Xhosa literature.” He signed off by calling himself our servant. These are the words from the note my great-grandfather left me. We walked together across a barren field and past a graveyard. I was feeling tired and lost; I wanted to get home as fast as possible. We quickened our step and entered a church site. Inside the church were all my close relatives. I saw myself on stage looking down at them, and when I opened my mouth to sing, they began laughing at me. I imagined him in his 1917 suit, as a writer, penning down his first novel that is dedicated to his mother. His round cheeks enveloped in a haze of candle light. He visited my dream in 2012 and in the dream he asked me, “Do you see?” I said, “Yes, I see.” My great-grandfather hummed a song from his belly. I inhaled deeply into my belly and then exhaled a sound. Together we hummed this song that made everyone fall silent and listen. In the dream I could feel my lungs expanding and deflating along to the rhythm of the song. As my great-grandfather and I sang it, the night lamps shone brighter. I had become my great-grandfather, wearing his suit and black leather shoes. His friends were my friends. They turned and asked me what my clan name was. When I told them, they whispered something among themselves. One of them said to me, “Unogcwabevu.” I saw a white unknown woman who was afraid of me. I told her it is going to be okay, and that I would not harm her. But the colour of my skin frightened her. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
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  • Date Issued: 2022-04-07

Skipping stones

- Le Roux, Jade-Eden

  • Authors: Le Roux, Jade-Eden
  • Date: 2022-04-07
  • Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , South African fiction (English) 21st century , Suicide in literature
  • Language: English
  • Type: Master's thesis , text
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/234389 , vital:50191
  • Description: My thesis takes the form of a novella exploring suicide and the unanswered questions it leaves. The main protagonist is a young girl who struggles to come to terms with her best friend’s suicide. The work is situated in contemporary South Africa, where inequality and depression is rife, especially among young people, and social media too often provides a smokescreen to conceal emotions. My writing is motivated by my desire to explore the human condition and the world around me, through my own subjective lens of experience. By working between fact and fiction I seek to trouble conventional narratives attached to suicide and highlight the subjectivity of truth. I am influenced by Lydia Davis's ability to write obliquely about loss, and her light-handed approach to emotionally charged topics; Susan Steinberg's dark motifs, vivid imagery, and her fragmented narrative that captures the characters’ responses to trauma and interrogates the notion of truth; Lidia Yuknavitch's cinematic imagery and immediacy of tone and compact storytelling; and Kate Zambreno's poetic prose that lends itself to clear societal commentary. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2022
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  • Date Issued: 2022-04-07

The memory altar

- Alexander-McKenna, Hilary Jane

Aloe

- Sauls, Aloysius Albeus

  • Authors: Sauls, Aloysius Albeus
  • Date: 2021-10-29
  • Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , Nama language , Nama poetry 21st century , Lyric poetry 21st century , Diaries Authorship , Lyric poetry History and criticism , Fiction History and criticism
  • Language: English
  • Type: Master's theses , text
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/190673 , vital:45017
  • Description: My thesis, ‘Aloe’, isse poetry collection, wat focus op modern Khoekhoegowab. Die opgittiekkinne wēke van my Ancestry se mēnse van mēnse, |xam-poets: Diä!kwain, Kweiten-ta-ǁken, |a!kúnta, |Hanǂkass’o, en oek ǁKabbo, deērie Dytse filoloog, Wilhelm Bleek, dien asse guide, moerrie vēse gisoak in combinations van Ancient Indigenous, en modern Goema-klangke. Die purpose vannie collection is ommie use van Khoekhoegowab innie Afrikaans literature asse integral component te view, ennie iets foreign nie, diessèlle way wat Arabic, Indonesian, Malay en Dutch languages, die culture ennie language gishape en givorrim-it. Deēl vannie skryf-style wat ek employ in my thesis isse fusion vannie lyric poetry van Linton Kwesi Johnson, Gill Scott Heron ennie praāt-poems van Peter Snyders, oa. Music, assie primal connection toerrie past, speēlle central rōl in my wēk asse 21st-century Indigenous writer. Die thesis reference die works van veteran cultural en linguistic aātisse en lyrical poets; in echoes van marginalised en displaced creatives soes Tinariwen, wattie stōrie vannie Tuareg vocalise in woōdt en klang, ennie Chamorro poet, Craig Santos Perez van Guam, innie Western Pacific Ocean, wierrie indigenizing mandate se vlag lat wappe, bínne innie gisig vannie American presence daā. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2021
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  • Date Issued: 2021-10-29

Biton’s Lost Siege Engine: Experimental archaeology in Classical Studies

- Rademan, David John

  • Authors: Rademan, David John
  • Date: 2021-10-29
  • Subjects: Pergamum (Extinct city) , Dimensional analysis , Engineering History To 168 B.C. , Fluid mechanics History To 168 B.C. , Byzantine literature History and criticism , Siege warfare History To 168 B.C. , Biton of Pergamon , Isidorus of Abydos , Poliorcetics
  • Language: English
  • Type: Master's theses , text
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/192330 , vital:45216
  • Description: This thesis entails an examination of several problems inherent in placing a technical treatise by the Hellenistic Greek engineer, Biton of Pergamon, at a siege of 156-154BCE, with a view to galvanising the existing case of previous scholarship through a combined approach of literary, textual, geographical, and technical analysis. Particular focus is given to the following problems: technical errors in current translations of the treatise of Biton; technical considerations in scholars’ reproductions of a particular engine in the treatise; an assessment of the practical implications of the treatise in situ at the physical site of the ancient city of Pergamon in the second century BCE, as evidenced by archaeological findings and surveys; assessment of those implications by way of historical records of similar conflicts from the Hellenistic period; and suggesting a procedure of dimensional analysis for testing a hypothesis regarding the feasibility of the ancient engineer’s recommended engines as a stand-in for the city’s original defenses, in a manner that harmonises the methodologies of historicism and experimental archaeology with sound and appropriate modern engineering practice from the field of Fluid Mechanics. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2021
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  • Date Issued: 2021-10-29

Hermēs Dolios: Performances of Hermes as trickster in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes

- Nel, Aiden Pieter

  • Authors: Nel, Aiden Pieter
  • Date: 2021-10-29
  • Subjects: Hermes (Greek deity) , Hymn to Hermes , Tricksters in literature , Loki (Norse deity) , Hynes, William J , Doty, William G, 1939-J , Wakdjunkaga (Winnebago Trickster) , Ture (Zande Trickster)
  • Language: English
  • Type: Master's theses , text
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/190978 , vital:45046
  • Description: This thesis explores the Greek god Hermes' representation in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes to establish the extent to which he partakes in Hynes' defined set of characteristics associated with mythological 'trickster' figures. Hermes is an unorthodox figure as although he embodies many aspects of the trickster, he willingly relinquishes some of these aspects within his hymn. I first outline and explore the trickster phenomenon and the complex methodological issue concerning global comparison. Hynes’ criteria are first applied to three other tricksters the Amerindian (Winnebago) trickster Wakdjunkaga, the central African (Azande) trickster Ture and the northern European (Norse) trickster Loki, which establishes a baseline that will help determine how Hermes conforms to this typology. All three figures’ cultural contexts are first addressed, as the cultural context is key in understanding a figure’s potential inclusion in the trickster category. I then explore Hermes’ performances within his hymn and other genres to formulate how his patron powers and actions relate to his designation as a trickster. I argue, in conclusion, that Hynes’ typology is a useful tool in determining any figure’s degree of ‘tricksterness’ and show that Hermes and the other three figures do embody Hynes’ characteristics. Each, however, embodies them differently and in a specific manner. I argue that the manner in which they relate to the criteria is dictated by their respective cultural contexts, and what their narrators intended to illustrate through the stories wherein tricksters reside. I further argue that narrative intent, genre and cultural context appear to be the main factors that mould each respective figure. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2021
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  • Date Issued: 2021-10-29

Jungle Drive and Other Stories

- Koenig, Nathalie

  • Authors: Koenig, Nathalie
  • Date: 2021-10-29
  • Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , South African fiction (English) 21st century , South African poetry (English) 21st century , Short stories, South African (English) 21st century
  • Language: English
  • Type: Master's theses , text
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/192225 , vital:45207
  • Description: My thesis comprises prose in a variety of forms with porous borders, including the short story, flash fiction and prose poetry. I am attracted to a processual approach to writing as I like the potential for experimentation with spontaneity and textual improvisation within and across forms that this allows. I am influenced by Joanna Ruocco’s novellas, The Mothering Coven and Dan, whose worlds are built with generously scattered references, interesting words and strange features, delivered in a dead-pan tone that joyfully scrambles my logic. At the same time, I am inspired by the precision and beauty of Tina May Hall’s prose, and how she plays in the space between the natural and magical worlds. In addition, I draw on the musicality and rhythm of Noy Holland and JA Tyler’s prose, adding a corporeal layer to the words, sounds and movement of the text. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2021
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  • Date Issued: 2021-10-29

L’analyse du Panafricanisme dans la littérature africaine d’expression française: étude de Les Soleils des Indépendances d’Ahmadou Kourouma

- Batubenga David-Roger, Ndaye

  • Authors: Batubenga David-Roger, Ndaye
  • Date: 2021-10-29
  • Subjects: African literature (French) History and criticism , Kourouma, Ahmadou. Soleils des indépendances , Pan-Africanism in literature , Postcolonialism in literature , Africans in literature , Identity (Philosophical concept) in literature , Ethnicity in literature
  • Language: French
  • Type: Master's theses , text
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/${Handle} , vital:45204
  • Description: Analysis of pan-Africanism in French African literature: case study of The Suns of independences by Ahmadou Kourouma. (L’analyse du Panafricanisme dans la littérature africaine d’expression française : étude des Soleils des Indépendances d’Ahmadou Kourouma) This study seeks to analyse the concept of pan-Africanism in French African Literature as depicted in The Suns of independences by Ahmadou Kourouma. The theme as well as the plot of the novel are both part of the post-colonial era, when African states acceded to the so-called national sovereignty. Theoretically, this was the end of colonization. Indeed, the advent of independence in Africa was, among other things, the fulfilment of one of the objectives of the pan-Africanism movement. Those objectives, according to Estanilas Ngodi (2003:6), were to promote the well-being as well as the unity of African people and those of African descendants around the world; to ensure equal civic rights for African people; to ensure the total abolition of all forms of racial discrimination; and to demand a self-determination and genuine independence of and for African’s people and states. To understand this challenging concept of pan-Africanism, we will draw inspiration from the studies of Edward Wilmot Blyden (1832-1912) who defined it as emerging a distinctive African personality: It is accepted in this study that the manner in and the extent to which the concept of pan-Africanism will be analysed should not be confused with other concepts such as Negroism or Negritude. The concern of asserting African history and identity by African people is justified by the fact that for centuries the philosophical and anthropological Eurocentric trend that Africans and their cultures and knowledge had no value. For this purpose, Trevor Roper (1963:871) asserted: “Perhaps in the future, there will be some African history, but at present, there is none; only the history of Europeans in Africa. The rest is darkness…and darkness is not a subject of history…” This denial of African history and civilization was, according to Europeans, the reason for the slave trade and colonization, and the development of pan-Africanism was the reaction or resistance against these views. That is the reason why, in the novel (The Suns of 4 independences), Kourouma depicts the concept of pan-Africanism and reveals the need for African people to assert themselves in humanity as being equal to all other races. Indeed, the advent of independence in Africa was an opportunity for Africans to regain their pre-colonial roots. Because it raised hopes and expectations to see Africa being led by its own sons. Unfortunately, independences have become a missed rendezvous or a disappointment for Africans. This argument is confirmed by the metaphor of Fama, a traditional king in the post-independence Africa: find himself “dried and undressed by colonization and Independences” (p.116). Broadly speaking, Kourouma interrogates the evolution of African societies in the light of pan-Africanism and denounces political, economic, and social issues that are affecting Africa in the post-colonial era. These issues include dictatorship, mismanagement, corruption, poverty, and the challenge of regaining African personality from colonial influence. What differentiates my study from the previous research is that I seek to investigate to which extent Kourouma portrays the failure of African society in the light of pan-Africanism before and after the colonialist era, and the impact of this failure upon the establishment of the pan-Africanist vision in Africa. Little attention has been given to the analysis of this novel (The Suns of independences) in this perspective. Kourouma is an Ivorian writer. In 1970, he published his first novel (The Suns of Independences) which is considered as a masterpiece in French African Literature and which many critics have classified it as one of the founding works in African Literature. In this study, in accordance with the novel above-mentioned I have considered three different aspects of pan-Africanism. Firstly, I described pan-Africanism as the search for the dignity of black people. Secondly, I examined it as the desire of regaining or rebuilding the African unity (African states without colonial borders). Thirdly, I analysed it as the return of African people to their history, their origin, and their cultural identity, in short, the return of Africa to its original state before the slave trade and colonization. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2021
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  • Date Issued: 2021-10-29

Retrospective

- Pillay, Previn

  • Authors: Pillay, Previn
  • Date: 2021-10-29
  • Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) South Africa , South African poetry (English) 21st century , Identity (Philosophical concept) in literature , Grandmothers in literature , Families in literature
  • Language: English
  • Type: Master's theses , text
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/191636 , vital:45128
  • Description: My thesis is a collection of poems, divided into 4 sections. The first section draws on my experiences and background as an Indian South African, presenting a portrait of a KwaZulu-Natal Indian community, infused with the lingo of the streets. It also delves into my background by sharing real stories from my childhood and youth. The second section is about my grandmother, who is an influential character on my writing and a source for many unique stories. The third section is a brief look at my recent past and the fourth section is a sharing of my life and what is most important to me. My collection is a timeline of my life and the events which have shaped me. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2021
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  • Date Issued: 2021-10-29
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