abstract: This dissertation considers the potential of desire to protect humans, animals, and the environment in the biopolitical times of late capitalism. Through readings of recent South African Literature in English from a postcolonial ecocritical perspective, this project theorizes desire as a mode of resistance to the neocolonial and capitalist instrumentalization of communities of humans and nonhumans, where they are often seen as mere "resources" awaiting consumption and transformation into profit. Deleuze and Guattari posit this overconsumption as stemming in part from capitalism's deployment of the psychoanalytic definition of desire as lack, where all desires are defined according to the same tragedy and brought into a money economy. By defining desire, capitalism seeks to limit the productive unconscious and attempts to create manageable subjects who perform the work of the capitalist machine--subjects that facilitate the extraction of surplus value and pleasure for themselves and the dominant classes. Thinking desire differently as positive and as potentially revolutionary, after Deleuze and Guattari, offers possible resistances to this biopolitical management. This different, positive desire can also change views of others and the world as existing solely for human consumption: views which so often risk bodies towards death and render communities unsustainable. The representations of human and animal desires (and often their cross-species desires) in this literature imagine relationships to the world otherwise, outside of a colonial legacy, where ethical response obtains instead of the consumption of others and the environment by the dominant subjects of capitalism. This project also considers other attempts to protect communities such as animal rights, arguing that rethinking desire is a necessary corollary in the effort to protect communities and lives that are made available for a "non-criminal putting to death" since positive desire precedes the passing of any such laws and must exist for their proper administration. These texts often demonstrate the law's failures to protect communities through portraying corrupt officials who risk the communities they are charged with protecting when their protection competes with government officials' personal capitalist ambitions. Desire offers opportunities for imagining other creative options towards protecting communities, outside of legal discourse. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2014

Explorar outros caminhos, até agora pouco seguidos, no intuito de participar de forma pertinente do debate acerca da inteligibilidade de Macunaíma de Mário de Andrade, isto, pode ser considerado o eixo que norteia este estudo comparado. Para levar adiante esta pesquisa comparativa apelamos para Kaydara, não apenas por ser uma obra prima da literatura africana de expressão francesa, mas também porque traz o olhar de dentro para fora de uma sociedade tradicional africana, capaz de dialogar com a literatura brasileira a ponto de lançar luz sobre alguns elementos culturais de origem afro-brasileira presentes nela. Por isso, fomos mergulhar naquilo que a maioria das sociedades africanas considera sua referência na Antiguidade: o Egito Antigo. Agora, quando se põem duas obras de grande valor estético frente a frente, o que sói acontecer é uma ajudar a ler a outra, por isso, nossa abordagem deixa de ser unilateral para privilegiar uma relação de leitura mútua, dando destaque às mais variadas consequências disso. / Explore other ways, until now little followed in order to participate in a meaningful way to the debate about the intelligibility of Macunaíma, this can be taken as the shaft that drives this comparative study. To carry out this comparative research we appeal to Kaydara, not only because it is a masterpiece of african french literature, but also because it brings - the look of the inside of a traditional african society, capable to converse with the brazilian literature, point to shed light on some cultural elements of afro-brazilian origin present in it. So we have been diving in what the vast majority of african societies consider his reference in antiquity: Ancient Egypt. Now, when you put two works of great aesthetic value face to face, which is usually happen is one help to read other, so our approach is no longer unilateral and privilege a relationship of mutual reading, highlighting various consequences.

O objetivo desta dissertação de Mestrado é analisar a representação da violência por J.M. Coetzee nos romances Waiting for the Barbarians (1980) e Disgrace (1999), o primeiro escrito numa época de grandes convulsões sociais na África do Sul devido, especialmente, à implantação do grande apartheid; e o segundo, logo após o fim do regime e a eleição do primeiro presidente negro sul-africano. Nossa pesquisa visa analisar a forma de representar o mal em épocas distintas da história do país, buscando apreender o determinismo histórico presente na construção de ambos os romances, bem como a posição do autor frente aos movimentos ocorridos na sociedade sul-africana, cujas transformações profundas ocorridas no período que vai da publicação de um romance à do outro afetaram diretamente o poder da antiga classe dominante, à qual pertence o escritor. Concluímos que a violência representada em Waiting for the Barbarians prenuncia os eventos de Disgrace, em que, segundo o narrador deste último, a história completa seu círculo. Waiting for the Barbarians apresenta a história de um Império que está se construindo ao mesmo tempo em que pavimenta o caminho de sua própria queda. Em Disgrace, de forma bastante pessimista, o autor traz ao leitor os elementos geradores da violência na atual sociedade sul-africana, propondo a negociação como a única saída para seus conterrâneos brancos que optaram por lá ficar. / The objective of this M.A. dissertation is to analyze J. M. Coetzees representation of violence in the novels Waiting for the Barbarians (1980) e Disgrace (1999); the former was written at a time of great social upheaval in South Africa, mostly due to the institution of the Great Apartheid, and the latter, immediately after the end of the regime and the election of the first Black South-African president. This research aims at analyzing the manner in which evil is represented at different times in the history of the country, attempting to capture the historical determinism present in both novels, as well as the authors position on the movements which occurred within South-African society, whose profound transformations, in the period between the publications of both novels, directly affected the power of the former ruling class, of which the author is a member. The conclusion is that the violence depicted in Waiting for the Barbarians foreshadows the events in Disgrace, in which, according to its narrator, history completes its cycle. Waiting for the Barbarians presents the story of an empire which is building itself at the same time it paves the way to its own fall. In Disgrace, in a severely pessimistic manner, the author brings to the reader the elements which have generated the violence in the current South-African society, proposing negotiation as the only answer for his White peers who decided to remain in the country.

Prison, a place that no one can call home, a place where all that was familiar no longer exists, a place where a friendly face is nowhere to be seen, a place that is full of hostility. That which becomes ‘home’ is nothing more than a concrete space, a hole in which one is expected to live. Those with whom the prisoners come into contact are hostile, unkind and unfair. Thus, as a means by which to retain sanity and show the world what happens on the ‘inside’, prisoners begin to write – they begin to write in hostile spaces. This study will argue that the body of writings that constitute ‘South African prison literature’ is both substantial and under-researched. For both of these reasons it warrants closer examination. Another argument that this thesis will advance is that specific authors have made major contributions to this collection of works, with Herman Charles Bosman being the foremost of these. Bosman not only pioneered the prison novel in South Africa, but also set the mould within which most of the other prison-authors have patterned their works. Herman Charles Bosman is often referred to as the ‘father’ of South African prison literature. Such a statement of course presupposes that there is a discernible body of writing that can be called ‘prison literature’. This study will attempt to show that within the larger corpus of South African literature there is indeed a body of writing that can usefully be categorized under the broad rubric ‘prison literature’. Undertaking such a categorization, however, requires generating certain criteria, and then applying these criteria to determine whether specific works adhere to them. For the purposes of this study, the most important criterion is that, for a work to be considered as belonging to the corpus of South African prison literature, it must be about the writer’s personal experience of prison. In other words, fictional (imaginative) narratives about prison life will fall beyond the purview of this study. While it must be conceded that this criterion is not unarguable and self-evident, as the study proceeds it will, I believe, be seen that there is good sense in excluding purely fictional works. (Chapter Three advances the argument for this criterion in more detail.) Other variables have been accommodated – for example, from which prison the prisoner is writing, whether the prisoner writes about his or her experience during or after imprisonment, the nature of the crime committed and when the imprisonment took place. In addition, there is no rigidity about the number of criteria a particular work must fulfil in order to be included in this study (Chapter Three also discusses these criteria at length). One of the questions this thesis will attempt to answer is why prisoners write in the first place. Society’s stereotypical view of a criminal – someone lacking in morals and education – is no doubt dominant, and the notion of a ‘criminal’ adding value to the study of literature is not often conceptualized by many. Writing becomes a powerful tool for the authors examined here, often for different reasons and purposes, but a tool nonetheless. Paul Gready says that, “the word is a weapon that both inflicts pain and secures power. Prisoners are relentlessly rewritten within the official ‘power of writing’… Within this process the prisoner’s sense of self and world is undermined, pain is made visible and objectified in writing and converted into state power [but] prisoners write to restore a sense of self and world, to reclaim the ‘truth’ from the apartheid lie, to seek empowerment in an oppositional ‘power of writing’ against the official text of imprisonment” (1993: 489). The thesis will attempt to show that, notwithstanding their considerable diversity, individual works within the corpus of South African prison literature share many common characteristics. Despite this the study will show also that, even though the prison writings have many common threads running through them, there are many differences within individual writings and the body of literature as a whole. It could be argued that, in earlier years, the works that are the subject of this study were quite satisfactorily regarded as part of other genres (for example, autobiography). So is the whole process of reclassification necessary? In other words, is there any point in attempting to argue for a distinct category of writing (‘prison literature’)? One of the points that will be made in detail later is that frequently the prison writings of a particular writer are only a small aspect of his or her larger oeuvre, and these writings have merely been included in more general discussions of the author’s body of work as a whole. Clearly, this does not do justice to the distinct nature of such a writer’s prison writings. It is the purpose of this study to give the works that make up the corpus of South African prison literature their due. The thesis begins with a brief summation of the prison system in South Africa. This chapter puts the experiences that follow into context. Many of the laws under which these writers were held no longer exist and so, in the interest of better understanding, these are explained in the first chapter as well. This is followed by a brief survey of prison literature. Chapter Two attempts to provide a concise and up-to-date list of the primary and secondary sources that make up the category ‘prison literature.’ Chapter Three introduces the term ‘prison literature’. The chapter includes many of the common characteristics found in prison writing, and outlines the essential criteria of this body of writing. This is followed by a brief examination of the various theories of literature that can be found in prison literature. Chapter Four introduces a vital aspect of the thesis and the argument provided within it. An examination of the theories of Foucault takes place in this chapter. He offers a thread that binds all prison literature together when he states that the prison system is put in place to punish an offender. Modern power to punish is based on the supervision and organization of bodies in time and space. The thesis will then argue that it is in this very space that prisoners write. Thus the hostile space of prison and prison life provides the context in which the literature under examination can be created.The second section of the thesis contains the close examinations of the prison writings of various authors. This section begins with a fairly comprehensive chapter on Cold Stone Jug (Chapter Five), and attempts to describe the foundation that Bosman laid in the writing of this novel. The chapters thereafter include comparisons between each individual prisonauthor’s work and Bosman’s seminal novel, noting the similarities and differences. Each of these chapters (Chapters Six to Nine) also provides a justification for the selection of each of the authors discussed and attempts to show why their writing must be considered some of the greatest prison literature produced in South Africa. Chapter Six examines the prison novel as exemplified in the writings of Breyten Breytenbach and Hugh Lewin. Chapter Seven introduces the concept of prison poetry. It is shown how poets like Jeremy Cronin and Dennis Brutus have also followed the example of Bosman, despite the generic difference in their work. This chapter also attempts to show why poetry must be considered an important part of this novel-dominated category of writing. This argument continues in Chapter Eight, in which prison letters and diaries are discussed and shown to be a vital part of prison literature. The main focus of this chapter is the writings of Ahmed Kathrada. Chapter Nine introduces the writing of women prisoners. This writing shares the typical characteristics found in the works of the prisoners’ male counterparts. No one novelist or poet is examined in detail. This section rather examines women’s writing as a topic in terms of the study as a whole. Importantly, however, it shows that prison writing is not gender- or race-specific. The thesis concludes by discussing the notion that these authors wrote and lived in hostile spaces not only during their imprisonment, but also afterwards: life after imprisonment becomes a hostile space too. The conclusion argues that a clear development can be found in this writing – vii from the publication of Cold Stone Jug in 1949 up until the publication of the final documents from Robben Island in the 1990s.

La présente recherche s’inscrit au plan scientifique dans la réflexion contemporaine menée sur l’élève lecteur et ses modes d’appropriation et de reconfiguration du texte lu. L’objet de ce travail est de mettre en évidence les problèmes spécifiques à la réception du personnage en liant étroitement pédagogie de la lecture littéraire et compétences culturelles, affectives et sociales requises et développées chez le lecteur dans le contexte scolaire tunisien. Notre interrogation principale consiste à nous demander si les modes d’approche du texte axés sur un rapport d’identification au personnage favorisent la motivation à la lecture et contribuent par là même à l’élaboration du sens et à la construction identitaire des jeunes lecteurs. Les investigations menées sont centrées sur deux sujets privilégiés : le statut du personnage romanesque dans le contexte pré-universitaire et son rôle dans l’appropriation du phénomène littéraire au lycée. L’objectif étant d’illustrer comment les différentes émotions peuvent devenir d’importants alliés dans la construction du sens.Une fois posés le cadre conceptuel de la recherche relative au personnage et l’état des lieux des savoirs sur la réception des lycéens, la réflexion se développe à partir de l’exemple de la lecture de la trilogie de Yasmina Khadra. Il s’agit d’un exemple à partir duquel nous proposons des perspectives didactiques pour la construction d’une façon de lire, à la fois participative et analytique / This scientific research is part of contemporary thinking on the student-led drive and its modes of appropriation and reconfiguration of the text. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the specific problems at the reception of the character by closely linking teaching of reading literary and cultural skills, as well as emotional and social skills required and developed at the level of the reader in the Tunisian school context. Our main question is to ask whether the ways of approaching a text-based report identifying the character promote reading motivation and thus contribute to the development ofmeaning and identity construction of young readers. The investigations focus on two main issues: the status of the fictional character in the pre-university context and its role in the appropriation of the literary phenomenon in high school. The objective is to illustrate how different emotions can become important components in the construction of meaning.Once laid the conceptual framework of research on the character and the inventory of knowledge on the reception of students, thinking will develop from the example of reading the trilogy by Yasmina Khadra. This is an example from which we offer didactic opportunities to build a way of reading, both analytical and participatory

M.A. (Afrikaans) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

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.

The concept of a distinctively South African poetry in English has been, and still is, derided as a "pipe dream" as part of the fallacy which stems from the desire for a "national" literature. In 1955, for instance, C.J. Harvey (in an article containing much common sense as well as sound literary judgment) denounced the self-conscious hunting for "Local Colour" which engrosses so many South African writers. Harvey claimed: "Our civilization is not "South African", except in trivial details, it is Western European, and more specifically as far as poetry written in English is concerned, English ... ". There is a serious error of emphasis here. It would be more accurate to say that our ancestors brought Western European civilization to this continent. To imagine that this civilisation has not undergone and is not still constantly suffering a subtle but far-reaching metamorphosis in Africa would be to fly in the face of reality. White South Africans do not only carry the same identity-card but they can be distinguished from Frenchmen, Englishmen or Irishmen by more than "trivial details". This thesis is an examination of some af the earliest English written in southern Africa, particularly of the verse produced by our poetasters and near-poets. It attempts, during the course of this examination, to call attention to a few of the more significant changes which have arisen as the result of the importation of Western civilsation to an African frontier. Further I hope to show some at the varying ways in which these differences affected the white pioneer and how this has been reflected in our verse since pioneering times. In this sense the Frontier may be thought of as the background against which South African English writers developed certain characteristic traits. Intro., p. 1-2.

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.

This study consists of a comparative analysis of three novels by three prominent African women writers which cast light on the ways in which women are oppressed by traditional and cultural norms in three different African countries. These three primary texts also explore the ways in which African women's lives are affected by other issues, such as colonialism and economic factors, and this study discusses this. An analysis of these novels reveals that the inter-connectedness of racial, class and gender issues exacerbates the oppression of many African women, thereby lessening the opportunities for them to attain self-realization. This study goes on to investigate whether there are possibilities of empowerment for the women in the primary texts, and examining the reasons why some women fail to transcend their situations of oppression. The primary novels will be discussed in different chapters, which explore the problems with which various women are beset, and discuss the extent to which the various women in the novels manage to attain empowerment. In conclusion, this study compares and contrasts the ways in which the women in the primary texts are oppressed and highlights the reasons why some women are able to attain empowerment, whilst others are unable to do so. It also shows that many women are beset with comparable forms of oppression, but they may choose to react to these situations differently. Over and above these issues, the study seeks to draw attention to the fact that women need to come together and contribute to the ways in which they can attain various forms of empowerment.