Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1967. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2009. / Open access. Includes bibliographical references (p. 56-58).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2008. / Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 253-260).

This study examines the way in which three South African novelists, K. Sello Duiker, Phaswane Mpe and Sindiwe Magona portray the sexual abuse of men and women in the post-apartheid era. The novels under discussion are: Thirteen Cents (2000) and The Quiet Violence of Dreams (2001) by K.Sello Duiker, Beauty’s Gift (2008) by Sindiwe Magona and Phaswane Mpe`s Welcome to Our Hillbrow. It will also look at the characters and the events to show that sexual abuse can be physical, traumatic and emotional, and that it affects both males and females, reinforcing in a sense Pucherova`s assertion that “both men and women are oppressed by a patriarchal heterosexist society” (2009:937).

This thesis examines aspects of identity and representation using contemporary theories and definitions emerging out of a growing body of work known as whiteness studies. The condition of whiteness as it continues to inform identity politics in post-apartheid South Africa is explored in an analysis of selected texts written by white women, to demonstrate the ways in which whiteness continues to suggest normativity. In reading a representative selection of literatures produced in contemporary South Africa by white women writers, this study aims to illustrate the ambivalence apparent in the interstitial manifestations of emergent reconciliatory gestures that are at odds with residual traces of superiority. A sampling of disparate texts is examined to explore the representations of race and belonging in post-apartheid South Africa in the light of contemporary theories of whiteness which posit it as a powerful and invisible identification. The analysis attempts to plot a continuum from writers who are least, through to those who are most, aware of whiteness as a cultural construct and of their own positionality in relation to the discursive dynamics that inform South African racial politics. A contextualising overview of the terrain of whiteness studies is provided in Chapter One, marking the ideological and theoretical affiliations of this project, and foregrounding the construction of whiteness as an imagined identity in contemporary cultural criticism. It also provides a justification for the selection of the textual material under scrutiny. Chapter Two explores a genre that has been identified as a growing trend in South African fiction: the production of pulp fiction written by white middle-class women. Two such texts are the focus of this chapter, namely, Pamela Jooste’s People like Ourselves (2004) and Susan Mann’s One Tongue Singing (2005), and the complicities and clichés that are characteristic of popular literature are examined. Antjie Krog’s A Change of Tongue (2003) is the focus of Chapter Three. It is examined as a book offering the writer’s personal response to the difficulties of transformation within the first decade of South African democracy. Krog confronts her own defensiveness, her sense of normalcy, and her sense of alienation in relation to multiple encounters with different people. Chapter Four focuses on the journalism of Marianne Thamm. Her role as columnist for the popular women’s magazine, Fairlady is explored, particularly in relation to the inclusion of a contending voice writing against the general tenets of Fairlady. Thamm’s critique of the mores governing bourgeois white womanhood is read in relation to her role as officially sanctioned Court Jester. Her Fairlady columns have been collected in Mental Floss (2002) but the analysis includes selected columns from 2003 to 2005. Echo Location: A Guide to Sea Point for Residents and Visitors (1998) by Karen Press is the focus of Chapter Five. Her work is read as examining a white South African crisis of belonging in relation to the implications of mapping the co-ordinates of whiteness in South Africa. Chapter Six offers a reading of four short stories, written by Nadine Gordimer and Marlene van Niekerk. These stories are juxtaposed to trace an anxious impasse in white responses to suburbia, the place of enactment of white bourgeois mores, which both writers interrogate.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Creative Writing, 2017 / MT2018

A middle-aged woman, living in Johannesburg, has an experience which catapults her into changing her life. In the process of confronting her alcoholism, she realizes how patterns of addiction extend to other areas of her life and tries to make sense of the tragic events that have occurred. Her world becomes a different place as she questions everything that she has been taught about relationships, religion, race and her place in society. In the search for answers she uncovers stories about the lives of her parents, grandparents, relatives, friends and acquaintances. Embarking on a journey of discovery and rediscovery through her experiences and those of others, she explores the ways in which the things that she thought she knew defined her behaviour and expression of herself.

This novella presents three characters, each occupying a different sphere of reality. One is a ‘living dead’ who is forced to return to the land of the living for his continued existence. The other is a young woman who, having lost the will to live, must find a purpose if she is to continue living. The third is a young man who dwells more in the inner than the external world. Their lives intersect through the scripture known as ‘a fragment of a bone.’

My novella is set in South Africa in a post-apocalyptic world. The drone technology theorised for the near future is widespread and scattered survivors live under the constant threat of drone strikes. The protagonist tries to negotiate these dangers and the looming threat of a slave empire to reconnect with his friends and family. He encounters bizarre hallucinations and flashbacks as a result of exposure to an unidentified gas.

A novella of crime and suspense set in the townships surrounding the mining town of Welkom Two friends, both ex-miners, start a welding business only to see it fail because of interference by corrupt officials To make ends meet, they are drawn into the world of illegal gold-mining, working with criminals who employ ‘zama-zamas’: desperate foreign nationals who are prepared to live and work in the abandoned mine tunnels underground The friends make money, but the dark practices of illegal mining put a strain on their relationship, their values, and their family ties.