The research presented in this dissertation examines South African queer autobiography. The primary texts that I have chosen to analyse are four recent collections of autobiographical accounts by queer-identifying individuals, which I believe to represent a current trend in queer life writing in the South African context. These four texts are Hijab: Unveiling Queer Muslim Lives (Hendricks 2009), which is a collection of short pieces of writing by queer Muslims; Yes I Am! Writing by South African Gay Men (Malan & Johaardien 2010), a collection of writing by gay men; Reclaiming the L-Word: Sappho’s Daughters Out in Africa (Diesel 2011), a collection of lesbian writing; and Trans: Transgender Life Stories from South Africa (Morgan, Marais & Wellbeloved 2011 [2009]), a collection of writing by transgender individuals. I have isolated a number of chosen narratives from each collection and engaged in a critical exploration of the construction of autobiographical selfhood through the theoretical lens of collective identity and the African humanist concept of ubuntu. I begin by individually examining the major concepts relating to queer theory, ubuntu, collective identity and autobiography, and then charting the manner in which they intersect in the primary texts. I illustrate the relational nature of autobiographical self-construction by examining how it is constructed in various social locations and the interactions in these locations, including: community spaces, family spaces and spiritual/religious spaces. I foreground how the community is represented as shaping the family structure, and how each of these two institutions contributes to the manner in which the autobiographical subject views and presents the self textually. In terms of ubuntu and spirituality/religion I explore the Ubuntu Theology of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu. I consider how it offers new modes and progressive ways of positioning the queer autobiographical self in terms of spirituality/religion, especially when one considers the often discriminatory manner in which monotheistic religion views the position of queer-identifying individuals. I conduct my analysis in this dissertation in a manner that not only seeks to engage with the literariness of each of the primary texts, but also highlights the socio-political value inherent in the texts, as well as how they function as vital tools in the struggle for equality that the queer minority is currently engaged in. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2012.

William Butler Yeats published the first section of the Autobiographies in 1915 with the appearance of Reveries Over Childhood and Youth and published the last contribution to the final volume of 1955 with Dramatis Personae in 1935. For a period of twenty years, Yeats was formulating this official version of his life. The constant building and selecting for this version created a volume that, for the most part, carefully edited out too personal reflections and also served to present an incomplete and disjointed autobiography.

This thesis consists of two parts: an autobiographical documentary film and a written exegesis. The film, My Lovers Both, is a record of two journeys back to my native South Africa wherein I confront aspects of my past. These two trips offer a means to explore a personal history around the experiences of immigration, displacement and exile. In the exegesis, I argue that autobiography is changing and rather than offering catalogues of public achievement, contemporary personal histories deal with sites of trauma and challenge dominant narratives of official memory. Likewise, the New Documentary is embracing fictional strategies and moving towards increased subjectivity and introspection. As a consequence, new forms are created that generate novel insights into causality and time. The exegesis goes on to examine the major influences on my work as a filmmaker and then articulates a reflective analysis of the creative process which produced My Lovers Both.

The thesis Mapping the Self-Portrait: Navigating Identity and Autobiography in Visual Art is a practical project. It explores the relationship between autobiography and self- portraiture, and how these notions of the self can be represented in visual art. The exhibition 360 Potential Truisms forms the major component in this thesis, and is accompanied by a written exegesis. This exegesis explores notions of the self-portrait and autobiography in relation to identity, with focus on a post-structural approach to fragmentation and movement. Artworks have been developed to reflect a shift towards an idea of the fragmented self, involving drawing, photography, and text to allow a constantly changing interpretation of self-portraiture.

Doctor of Philosophy / This thesis explores the sense of place formed during childhood, as remembered by adult Australians who reconstruct their youth through various forms of life writing. While Australian writers do utilize traditional tropes of Western autobiography, such as the mythology of Eden and the Wordsworthian image of the child communing with Nature, these themes are frequently transformed to meet a uniquely Australian context. Isolation and distance from Europe, and the apparent indifference of our landscape towards white settlement, have received much critical attention in Australian studies generally and, indeed, broadly influence the formation of children’s sense of place across the continent. However, writers are also concerned with the role of place on a more local level. Through a comparison of writing from Western Australia, Queensland and Victoria, this thesis explores regional landscape preoccupations that create an awareness of local identity, variously contributing to or frustrating the child’s sense of belonging. Western Australian writing is dominated by images of isolation, the fragility of white settlement in a dry land lacking fresh water, and a pervasive beach culture. A strong sense of the littoral pervades writing from this region. Queensland’s frontier mythology is of a different flavour: warm and tropical, nature here is exuberant, constantly threatening to overwhelm culture, already perceived as transient due to the flimsy aspect of the “Queenslander” house. Writing from Victoria, to some extent, tends to more closely follow English models, juxtaposing country and city environments, although there is a distinctly local flavour to many representations of urban Melbourne and its flat, grid-like organization. As Australian society becomes more concentrated on the coastal fringe, the beach is an increasingly significant environment. Though more prominent in writing from some regions than others, coastal imagery broadly reflects the modern Australian’s sense of inhabiting a liminal zone with negotiable boundaries.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Toronto, 2006. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 44-06, page: 3001.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Wollongong, 2005. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references: leaf 241-255.

Thesis (doctoral)--Stockholms universitet, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 172-184).

Thesis (M.A.)--George Mason University, 2009. / Vita: p. 154. Thesis director: Ricardo F. Vivancos Pérez. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Oct. 12, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. 147-153). Also issued in print.

Thesis (doctoral)--Stockholms universitet, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 172-184).