Relying on Lucien Goldmann's theory of genetic structuralism, this study examines the relationship between ideology (world vision) and the autobiographical form in South African writing. The five autobiographers selected for discussion represent different social groups in the South African social formation. The central argument of this thesis is that there is a relationship between autobiographical self-portraiture and the collective interests, values and attitudes of particular social groups in South Africa. Therefore, most South African autobiographies are more concerned with the articulation of collective consciousness than with the celebration of individual talents and achievements. Chapter 1 on Peter Abrahams explores the values underpinning the ideology of liberal humanism and their influence on the process of self-representation within the mode of autobiography. The second chapter examines the apparently contradictory conceptions of self-identity in Bloke Modisane's autobiography. Chapter three focuses on the conflict between Naboth Mokgatle's ethnic loyalty to the Bafokeng tribe and his newly acquired radical working class consciousness. The fourth chapter examines the liberal-Christian ideology in Alan Paton's two volumes of autobiography. The fifth and final chapter explores counter hegemonic modes of self-definition in Sindiwe Magona's two-volumed autobiography. In all the five chapters there is an attempt to link the authors' self-presentation to specific social classes or groups. The thesis argues for a literary-sociological approach to the analysis of autobiography and seeks to challenge the deconstructive theoretical perspectives on autobiography which, by rejecting the validity of humanist assumptions regarding human subjectivity, deny any possibility of meaningful socio-political action. / English Studies / D.Litt. et Phil. (English)

The study critically investigated the concept of ―Double Consciousness‖ in selected African-American autobiographies. In view of the latter, W.E.B. Du Bois defined double consciousness as a condition of being both black and American which he perceived as the reason black people were/are being discriminated in America. The study demonstrated that creative works such as Harriet Jacobs‘ Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl: Told by Herself, Frederick Douglass‘ The Narrative of Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois‘ The Souls of Black Folk, Booker T. Washington‘s Up from Slavery, Langston Hughes‘ The Big Sea, Zora Neale Hurston Dust Tracks on a Road, Malcolm X‘s The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Maya Angelou‘s All God’s Children Need Travelling Shoes, Cornel West‘s Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud and bell hooks‘ Bone Black affirm double consciousness as well as critiqued the concept, revealing new layers of identities and contested sites of struggle in African-American society. The study used a qualitative method to analyse and argue that there are ideological shifts that manifest in the creative representation of the idea of double consciousness since slavery. Some relevant critical voices were used to support, complicate and question the notion of double consciousness as represented in selected autobiographies. The study argued that there are many identities in the African-American communities which need attention equal to that of race. The study further argued that double consciousness has been modified and by virtue of this, authors suggested multiple forms of consciousness. / English Studies

Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Technology: Education, Durban University of Technology, 2013. / In this study I have explored scientific insights towards establishing how the biochemistry of the human being could have a significant impact on human learning in a number of different ways. I have discovered that the biochemistry within the whole human being is triggered by the molecules of emotion occurring in a psychosomatic network active throughout the whole being. The molecules of emotion are neuropeptides such as endorphins, linked to their receptors, such as opiate receptors. This triggering of the molecules of emotion constitutes the pleasure principle which enables and encourages learning. In addition, the growth of myelin ensheathing all the neurons, through a process of myelination, also informs human learning biochemically. These biochemical processes make human learning ‘active’. These biochemical processes also constitute a network of subtle energies operating in the viscera of all human beings, and so account for the anthropology of learning, viz. what is common to all human learning, regardless of ethnic group, language, economic circumstances, religious belief system, level of education, social class, age, gender, rural or urban location, inter alia. I have then drawn on my own learning experiences – my autobiography - and the experiences of others – an autoethnography - for evidence of the operation of the biochemistry in my and their learning. I have presented evidence of the emotions of joy, love and fun activating whole-being-learning that occurs in all of personal, spiritual and educational human learning. I have described my living spiritual and living educational theory as one where human learning happens when there is joy-filled love and love-filled joy within a safe community of practice. Within this safe community of practice, at least three aspects are argued to be features of whole-being-learning:  the relationships between the learners, their teachers and the subject are characterised by joy-filled love and love filled joy.  the talents and gifts of both the learners and the teachers are explored, celebrated, and used for inclusive benefit.  the knowledges of, about, and between, learners and teachers become integrated and coherent. My original contributions to the body of scholarly knowledge evidenced by my study include the following :  I have established the link between human learning as a biochemical process and the efficiency of games as a learning tool, thereby showing the link between learning and fun.  I have explored the holistic, organic intrinsic connections between personal, spiritual and educational human learning.  I have contributed to a growing understanding of the study of self as a subject and object in terms of my ways of human knowing (my epistemology), my ways of being human (my ontology) and my values (my axiology) which (in)form my attitudes of joy-filled love and love filled joy in all that I do.

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Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The archive as mnemonic device and taxonomic structure plays a significant role in the visualisation of identity. This thesis draws on the example of the personal photographic archives of three trans men to suggest ways of understanding archives as discursive and visual practices through which fluctuating narratives of self can be uncovered, traced, erased, renegotiated and fictionalised. This thesis considers how these participants negotiate the roles of author, archivist and photographer in the creation of their personal photographic archives, and how such archives intersect with discourses on the social, somatic and political. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die argief speel as beide ‘n mnemoniese apparaat en ‘n taksonomiese struktuur ‘n beduidende rol in die voorstelling van identiteit. In hierdie tesis word die fotografiese argiewe van drie trans mans bespreek om maniere voor te stel waarop argiewe as diskursiewe en visuele praktyke funksioneer waardeur veranderlike narratiewe van self ontbloot, nagespoor, uitgewis, heroorweeg en verbeel kan word. Hierdie studie oorweeg die manier waarop hierdie deelnemers die rolle van outeur, argivaris en fotograaf onderhandel tydens die skep van hul persoonlike fotografiese argiewe, sowel as die wyse waarop hierdie argiewe as kruispunte dien waar diskoerse rondom die sosiale, liggaamlike en politiese bymekaarkom.

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: To write a life story the auto/biographer must reflect upon the past that was once experienced. When presented with this task of depending on memory and narrative, the auto/biographer often finds himself/herself in the position of creating and imagining, rather than reflecting or presenting the past as it was lived. Fragmentation, forgetfulness, selection, (re)construction and imagination are often inextricably connected to Memory which results in the reliance on an unstable memory to access the past. This dissertation explores how postmodern auto/biographies, specifically the (auto/bio)graphic novel, acknowledges the difficulty of writing about the past when concerned with truth. The (auto/bio)graphic novel disrupts the notion of truth by blurring the boundaries between fact and fiction, resulting in a hybrid form where text and image, reality and imagination co-exist to create new, and often more significant pasts (that can serve the present). / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Om ‘n lewensverhaal te skryf, reflekteer die outo/biograaf op dít wat eens geleef was in die verlede. Deur hierdie proses, wat ‘n afhanklikheid van die geheue behels, vind die outo/biograaf homself/haarself gereeld in ‘n situasie waar hy/sy ontwerp en verbeel, eerder as om die verlede weer te gee soos dit beleef was. Fragmentasie, vergeetagtigheid, selektering, (her)konstruering en verbeelding is soms onskeibaar van Geheue wat dui op die afhanklikheid van ‘n onstabiele geheue in die skryf- en illustreer-prosesse van ‘n outo/biografie. Hierdie verhandeling ondersoek hoe postmoderne outo/biografieë, spesifiek die (outo/bio)grafiese roman, bewus is van die kwessies rondom die skryf van die verlede in verhouding tot waarheid. Die (outo/bio)grafiese roman ontwrig die idee van waarheid deur die grense tussen feit en fiksie te ondermyn. Gevolglik onstaan ‘n hibriede vorm van outo/biografie waar teks en beeld, realiteit en verbeelding gekombineer word om nuwe en meer beduidende verledes te skep (wat so ook die hede op nuwe maniere kan dien). / mlb2013

Thesis (DLitt (Afrikaans and Dutch))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / Prior to 1990, autobiographical texts have received little attention within the cadre of South African literary science, because they, by tradition, have not been regarded as part of “high” literature or of the canon. In spite of this, autobiography has been claiming an increasingly important position in literary studies in postapartheid South Africa. This study focuses on the hybrid forms of South African autobiographical texts published since 1990 and on the manner in which the autobiographical self is represented and constructed in these texts. The following autobiographical texts are discussed in the study: Breyten Breytenbach‟s Return to Paradise and Dog Heart, Hennie Aucamp‟s triptych of diaries, Gekaapte Tyd, Allersiele and Skuinslig, Rian Malan‟s My Traitor‟s Heart, Antjie Krog‟s Country of My Skull and ‟n Ander Tongval, Abraham Phillips‟s Die Verdwaalde Land, and A.H.M. Scholtz‟s Vatmaar. Their self-referential texts are analysed on the basis of theoretical consideration of different autobiographical forms, such as travel writing, the diary, essay, memoire, testimonio, autoethnography and the autobiographical novel. The studied autobiographical texts resist categorisation under a single genre and thereby demonstrate their generic hybridity. These heterogeneous and hybrid autobiographical forms reflect the inner struggle of the autobiographers in their continuous search for an appropriate form of self-representation in the new South Africa. Through the self-representation of the South African autobiographers, the re-confirmation of their ethnic and cultural identities gives form to a strategic positioning of their own collective identity and a future agency for rehabilitating the collective self within the new South African community. They are seen to be manifesting their cultural identity on the one hand, while attempting to position this identity within the multicultural South African society on the other. The study presents the hybridity of identities, as well as of the genre, which characterises contemporary South African autobiographical writing as a measure of the dynamic process of change (at political, sociocultural and personal levels) in postapartheid South Africa.

Because of woman's peculiar relationship to language, and therefore to the means of comprehending and expressing her experience, female autobiographical writing is a problematic undertaking. An exploration of several premises about Western culture can help to illuminate the difficulties the female autobiographer encounters in creating her life/text. Among these premises are the following: (1) that the culture that provides the context for female experience is what feminist theorists call "patriarchal," that is, a culture dependent upon and reinforced by the supremacy of male interests, pursuits, and values. (2) that the habit of mind of this culture is essentially dichotomous, and that this bifurcation, although it serves very well to enable one person or group to gain power over another, fails to account for the sense of relatedness characteristic of female moral development as demonstrated by recent feminist psychologists. (3) that one lives through telling oneself the story of one's life (that is, that living itself is an essentially autobiographical act); that this narrative conforms to certain cultural conventions; and that these conventions present distinct problems to the narrator who is female. (4) that the human being constructs its self through language, and that the language of a patriarchal culture is problematic to female authenticity. In order to confront these theoretical problems in practice, twelve essays explore some experiences of a middle-aged, middle-class white American woman in the second half of the twentieth century. These include illness, both physical (multiple sclerosis) and emotional (depression, agoraphobia); suicide; relationships with men, strangers, and cats; motherhood; and above all, writing. They form a feminist project whose purpose is so to merge theory with praxis, nonfiction with fiction and poetry, scholarship with creation, that such distinctions become meaningless and the female writer can get on with the real business of making and contemplating her text. An annotated selected bibliography lists works in feminist theory and criticism, some of which inform the essays, thus providing a program for extensive feminist study, especially in literature, anthropology, and psychology.

This thesis investigates the experiences of Children’s Centre leaders of the National Professional Qualification in Integrated Centre Leadership (NPQICL) who find themselves in a newly developed role and lacking a professional identity. Its aim is to explore the developing professional identities of NPQICL participants from their own perspectives, focusing on ways in which their professional identities are developing and how, correspondingly, these might be better supported on the NPQICL. Clarification of core ideas embedded in these aims theoretically and conceptually reveals that professions are publicly shaped in line with established traditions, and therefore often prescribed. Processes of professional development are correspondingly seen as largely publicly organised processes of professional learning and/or acculturation. However, a key area for research is the interface between publicly shaped expectations of those learning to be professionals and the particular needs and expectations of course participants themselves especially with regard to how they see themselves as Children’s Centre leaders. Because this area is fluid, uncertain and shaped partly by professionals themselves it is hard to investigate. A flexible Adaptive Theory research design is selected along with an array of conceptual tools (orienting concepts and a conceptual cluster) which can be modified, discarded or replaced according to the demands of data collected. Using a relatively open-ended data collection device also allows a wide range of potentially revealing data to be ‘storied’ for analysis in order to preserve their individualised nature. Although a process of subjective self-conceptualisation in role can be used to explain how NPQICL participants adapt to expectations from the wider professional community and social context, there is a need to explain how public influences and individual co-constructions of professional identity shaped by professionals themselves are synthesised in individual responses to fluid, uncertain professional identities. The research aims are met by modelling the process of developing a professional identity on the NPQICL as an ‘autobiography’. This conceptual device brings together public and individual influences into a synthesis and allows insight into the experiences of individuals. It explains some of the success of the NPQICL course and some of its dynamics including how the development of Children’s Centre leaders’ identities can be supported in a professional learning programme.

This study compares German memory of life in the German Democratic Republic with Russian memory of life in the Soviet Union, as represented and created within fictional and autobiographical narratives of childhood, published since the collapse of each regime. The chosen texts are, to varying degrees, fictionalized and/or autobiographical. A comparison between German and Russian narratives is particularly interesting because the socialist past is remembered very differently in each country’s public discourse and culture. An examination of narratives about childhood allows for a complex relationship between the post-socialist present and the socialist past to emerge. I study the texts and their reception, in conjunction with an analysis of the dominant ways of remembering the socialist past circulating within German and Russian society and culture. This allows the analysis to go beyond a straightforward comparison between the representations of the socialist past in the two groups of texts, to also explore how those representations are interpreted and received. It also demonstrates how the surrounding memory cultures appear to be producing quite different approaches to representing memories of broadly similar socialist childhood experiences. Chapter 1 explores the role of literary texts in revealing and shaping both individual and collective memory with a review of relevant research in the field of memory studies. Chapter 2 draws on existing scholarship on post-socialist memory in German and Russian society and culture in order to identify dominant trends in the way the socialist past has been remembered and represented in the two countries since 1990/1. The analysis in Chapters 3 and 4 reveals a more detailed picture of the complexities and ambiguities inherent in looking back at childhood under socialist rule through the example of the chosen texts, and in the ways they are received by critics and by readers (in reviews posted online). I demonstrate that, in line with the surrounding memory cultures, questions of how the socialist past should be remembered are a more central concern in the German texts and their reception than in the Russian texts and reception. I show, however, that the nature of the Soviet past is often portrayed indirectly in the Russian texts and I explore how critics and readers respond to these portrayals.