Includes bibliographical references (leaves 84-91) / My thesis focuses on the representation of marginalized voices and trauma in the selected fiction of Tsitsi Dangarembga and Yvonne Vera. I analyze three novels written by the Yvonne Vera—Without a Name (1994), Under the Tongue(1996) and The Stone Virgins(2002) set during the Zimbabwe liberation struggle period and postcolonial Zimbabwe dissident era respectively and Nervous Conditions(1988) and its sequel, The Book of Not (1996), by Dangarembga set during the 1960s to 1970s colonial Rhodesia period (the colonial name for Zimbabwe) and during the period of white‐minority rule in Rhodesia to the attainment of independence in 1980. I analyze these novels from the feminist/womanist, gender and postcolonial literary models. The rational for grouping these theoretical models in the analysis in this thesis is that they commonly highlight from a gender perspective the complex factors which oppress and marginalize women in the colonial and postcolonial contexts in which the two authors set their writings. These literary paradigms highlight the oppression of women from an African perspective and all acknowledge the need to address all factors which oppress and subordinate women (gender, race, class) if total emancipation for them is to be achieved. I also posit that Vera and Dangarembga offer discourses that challenge the silencing of narratives of oppression and violation in their novels selected for analysis in this thesis. The thesis has five chapters. In Chapter 1, I set out the argument of the thesis and give a brief history of gendered colonialism and the historical period which provides a setting for the fiction of the two authors. Next, I describe the conceptual framework I will use in analyzing the works of the two postcolonial Zimbabwe female writers. Then I will outline the research questions and hypothesis and expose the research methodology and approach that will serve as my vehicle for data collection, analysis and interpretation. In Chapter 2, I will focus on gender, class and race and discuss the ways Dangarembga explores these factors in Nervous Conditions and The Book of Not. I will also discuss innovate ways women explore to champion their freedom and voice in the fiction of Dangarembga. Chapter 3 focuses on the novels of Yvonne Vera— Without a Name, Under the Tongue and The stone Virgins —which articulate narratives of violated subjects and silenced voices. I will discuss the ways Vera explores to show how narratives of violated subjects are silenced by patriarchy, colonialism and masculine narratives of nationalism in these novels. Chapter 4 focuses on narratives of trauma. Using theories of trauma, I will analyze Without a Name, Under the Tongue and The Stone Virgins by Vera and show how these narratives articulate colonial and postcolonial trauma and female child trauma. I will also discuss The Book of Not by Dangarembga and show how the novel articulates colonial and racial trauma. My discussion of the novels of Vera and Dangarembga in this chapter will show that these novels work out traumatic experiences in the colonial and postcolonial eras and will also reveal the challenges of representing tra / English Studies / M.A. (English)

Le roman africain de la nouvelle génération s’élabore au carrefour des langues et des cultures. Dans son orientation théorique et paratextuelle, le discours romanesque de la nouvelle génération se résume en une « modernité universalisante », lieu de l’articulation dialectique entre l’africanité et la mondialisation. Le contexte idéologique de création de cette littérature et le questionnement identitaire nous amènent à considérer l’africanité comme une notion dynamique et la mondialisation littéraire comme une ouverture à la concurrence et à la légitimité littéraire. Le discours péritextuel, ce haut lieu de la lisibilité/visibilité, amorce les stratégies de cette altérité que le romancier développe largement dans l’énonciation textuelle.<p>La reconfiguration de l’énonciation dégage les ressorts d’une écriture nouvelle marquée par une narration éclatée, une spatialité multiple et une innovation thématique. La transgression narrative s’intègre au rang des discours de la déconstruction caractéristique de la postmodernité et se donne à lire comme le reflet de l’être de l’entre-deux qu’est l’écrivain migrant comme d’ailleurs son protagoniste. L’espace dans lequel évolue ce dernier peut être interprété comme une transteritorialité dans laquelle se moule la création littéraire marquée du sceau de l’altérité et traduit la « transidentité » du personnage évoluant dans cet espace. La perspective thématique renforce cette idée de l’altérité mondiale structurant le récit africain contemporain. Elle s’engage dans la voie des mutations et des transgressions caractéristiques de la mise en relation de l’africanité et de la mondialisation comme lieu de l’écriture/lecture du roman contemporain. <p>Le mode d’écriture nous offre un cadre linguistique et stylistique dans lequel se joue l’altérité africanité-mondialisation. Le romancier de la nouvelle génération retravaille la langue française à l’aide des ingrédients des langues et des cultures dans lesquelles il baigne. Cette manipulation linguistico-stylistique est rendue possible par le jeu interlinguistique et le registre humoristico-ironique qui produisent une esthétique du « risible » face aux défis de l’altérité. L’écrivain africain contemporain, décomplexé par ces manipulations linguistique et stylistique, exploite les ressources de l’oralité en vue de concilier la pluralité des formes d’expression et des pratiques langagières de son environnement. Cette stratégie d’écriture produit une esthétique de l’oraliture, celle-là même qui, tout en exaltant les vertus de l’écriture, recourt aux différents procédés offerts par l’oralité, versant de l’africanité du texte contemporain, pour marquer une opposition contre l’écriture et l’Occident qui l’incarne./The African novel by the new generation is made at the meeting point of languages and cultures. In its theoretical and paratextual orientation, the fiction discourse by the new generation can be summed up as a « universality-oriented modernity », a place of dialectic link between africanity and globalization. The ideological context of creation of this literature and the identity questioning bring us to consider africanity as a dynamic notion and the literary globalization as a way to competition and literary legitimacy.<p>The peritextual discourse, which is a high place of readability/visibility, initiates the strategies of this otherness which the novelist develops largely in textual enunciation. <p>Reshaping the enunciation shows the motivation of a new writing characterized by a breaking up narration, a multiple area coverage and a thematic innovation. Narrative transgression is integrated in the rank of discourses of deconstruction characterizing postmodernity. It is to be read as a reflection of the being in the space between, this is the migrant writer as well as his protagonist. The space in which the latter evolves can be interpreted as a transterritoriarity in which is moulded literary creation sealed by otherness and shows « transidentity » of the character evolving in that space. The thematic perspective reinforces this idea of global otherness structuring the African contemporary narration. It moves into mutations and transgressions characterizing the relationship between africanity and globalization as a place of writing/reading of contemporary novel. <p>The writing mode gives us a linguistic and stylistic framework in which takes place the otherness africanity-globalization. The new generation novelist works on the French language he uses by means of ingredients of languages and cultures surrounding him. This linguistic and stylistic manipulation is made possible by an interlinguistic game and the humoristic and ironic register which produce aesthetics of the “funny” in front of otherness challenges. The contemporary African writer, encouraged by these linguistic and stylistic manipulations, exploits the oral ressources in order to reconcile the plurality of forms of expression and of language practices of his environment. This writing strategy produces aesthetics of orality, the one which, in addition to exalting the virtues of writing, has recourse to different procedures of orality, showing thus africanity of contemporary text, to mark an opposition against writing and the Western world which embodies it. <p><p> / Doctorat en Langues et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

In the 1928 romance novel, Dark Princess, W. E. B. Du Bois used the form of a love letter to ask "the first question of our world-work: What are you and I trying to do in this world?" Structured around this vexed notion of "world-work," "'Our World-Work': Gender and Labor in African Diasporic Literatures" takes seriously this communal question of what “you and I”—or we—are "trying to do." I extend Du Bois’s idea to locate the boundaries of the "we" in the face of variations in labor and gender. Thinking world and work together, I consider the grounds of collective narration and social organization on a broad scale, one structured by gender even as anti-sexism is evoked, such as in the case of Du Bois, who is often called a feminist by contemporary scholars. "'Our World-Work'" covers a range of twentieth-century writing, focusing on how figures and figurations of the "black woman," often at the site of the domestic, came to embody some of the urgent issues raised by the globalization of capital. Reading multi-genre works by Du Bois, Alice Childress, Ousmane Sembène, Paule Marshall, and others, "'Our World-Work'" explores how black writers and intellectuals were thinking, writing, and critiquing the world—and worlds—through their encounters with labor and gender during the middle of the last century. Attention to gender in this dissertation illuminates how modes of affiliation also contain exclusions. "'Our World-Work'" contributes to scholarship on accounts of worlding, intervening in critical debates around race, gender, and labor in the fields of black, feminist, postcolonial, and comparative literary studies.

Bibliography: pages 217-232. / Yali-Manisi, a Xhosa writer, performs and writes traditional praise poetry (izibongo) and modern poems (isihobe) and can, therefore, be regarded as a bard because he also performs his poetry. One can safely place him in the interphase as he combines performance and writing. The influence of oral poems and other oral genres can be perceived in his works as some of his works are a product of performances which were recorded, transcribed and translated into English. The dissertation, among other things, examines the way in which Yali-Manisi's work has been influenced by such manipulations. In this study we examine lzibongo Zeenkosi ZamaXhosa, lmfazwe kaMianjeni, Yaphum'igqina and other individually recorded poems. His poetry is characterised by an interaction between tradition and innovation. The impact of traditional poetic canon on the poet, the way of exploiting traditional devices are the most outstanding characteristics concerning his poetry. His optimistic disposition towards the future of the South African political situation leaves one with the impression that he envisages an end to the Black-White political dichotomy. Yali-Manisi manipulates literary forms to articulate specific socio-political and cultural attitudes which are dominant among the majority of South Africans. His writings coincide with some of the major political changes in South Africa. In his recent works, he is explicit and protests against Apartheid structures especially in Transkei and Ciskei. In his earlier works he could not articulate the feelings of his people as an imbongi because of the fear of censorship and themes of protests had to be handled with extreme caution if one's manuscripts were to be published at all. He often alludes to national oppression of the majority by the minority and instigates the former to be politically conscious. In some instances (e.g. in his historical poems) he seeks to correct inaccuracies which are presented in history books. Thus showing the listener/reader another side of the coin. He displays very keen interest and deep knowledge of natural phenomena such as seasons of the year and the behaviour of animals during each period. Poems about historical figures are characterised by certain allusions which refer to realities and events in the life of the 'praised one' or his forefathers. This helps to shed light on the present situation. Although fictitious adaptations of genuine events have been done, an element of reality is still prevalent.

This project charts two tandem phenomena in late modern Britain: the emergence of a new mode of political theatre that I term “claustrophobic dramaturgy” and the growth of the carceral state. Through close textual analysis, performance reconstruction, and archival research, I demonstrate how two generations of feminist playwrights have honed and exchanged a complement of narrative and/or theatrical strategies which stage their dramatic protagonists as entrapped. These literal representations of confinement work to suggest more abstract, structural modes of confinement, including criminalized social identities, punitive public policies, and new carceral technologies. I draw together a surprising constellation of plays, produced since 1979, and united by a common investigation of the impacts of privatization and austerity on British state institutions. Chapter 1 identifies social housing plays as a distinct sub-genre of British social realism. This sub-genre reveals how, as social housing became increasingly residualized, social renters were subjected to increasing state surveillance. Chapter 2 extends overdue critical attention to Clean Break Theatre Company, which has, since 1979, dedicated its entire oeuvre to the topic of women’s incarceration. Chapter 3 investigates theatre’s surprising preoccupation with psychiatric hospitals in the midst of broadscale deinstitutionalization and funding cuts to the mental health sector. Finally, Chapter 4 examines the conjunction of Shakespeare adaptation and claustrophobic dramaturgy, both to reveal how carceral logics are embedded in the Shakespeare texts themselves and to demonstrate the new political dramaturgy’s saturation of British theatre culture. To the field of theatre studies, this project advances a critical reevaluation of late modern and contemporary British theatre history. While Socialist theatre often has been characterized as the province of a white boys’ club of the 1970s, I demonstrate how women playwrights take up this Socialist mantle to decry the carceral consequences of dismantling the welfare state. Case studies of plays by Black British playwrights are central to each chapter, weaving the history of Afrodiasporic theatre in the UK into the heart of my account of dramaturgical innovation. This project also offers one of the earliest examinations of professional theatre guided by questions and insights from the growing, multi-disciplinary field of carceral studies. If, as carceral studies scholars assert, the carceral is an ever moving and expanding target, we, as audiences and scholars, can look to claustrophobic dramaturgy to illuminate new carceral incursions on civic life and institutions.

The thesis looks at how the poets Sepamla, Serote, Gwala and Mtshali (SSGM) make concerted efforts to demonstrate how different forms of social activities have sought to whitewash black people in believing myths about themselves. These myths were perpetuated by the government of apartheid policies and its related bureaucratic organs like the education system. The fallacies were also communicated through biased literature and denigrating terminologies. The study analyses how the selected poems of SSGM set out to conscientize black people to realise how they had unconsciously accepted certain behaviours. This had led them to compare themselves to the “privileged cultures” and to strive to be identified with those who were in power and those who were despised and were therefore powerless. The main aim of this study is to demonstrate how the poetry of Sepamla, Serote, Gwala and Mtshali exposed the extent to which black people had been psychologically subjected to internalising negative views of who they were. From the title of the thesis we note a claim that conscientization was the motive behind the poetry of Sepamla, Serote, Gwala, and Mtshali. This claim was discerned from the poetry that was analysed. It was also deemed fit to verify this through structured interviews and questionnaires that were arranged and conducted with the poets. However the interviews did not include the late Sepamla who had been called to higher service by the time the research was conducted. The researcher’s interactions with the poets confirmed the claim that conscientization was indeed the motive behind their poetry. Aspects of peoples’ lives which had been targeted as tools for disempowering black people were experienced in the form of racism, apartheid policies, Bantustan institutions, and laws, demeaning terminologies, cultural superiority, and prejudiced beliefs, arts, music, literature, theatre and sport. An analysis of the poetry under review led to the conclusion that the poetry of SSGM was not protest poetry as some scholars had claimed. The aim of the poetry was not to instigate any militancy against oppressors but to make black people aware of their identity and to affirm them in their resistance against cultural hegemony. The study makes use of Marxist theories and specifically cites those aspects which relate to the tools used to analyse the poetry of SSGM. Georg Lukacs’s viewpoint that literature reflects the social reality of its time is applied to some of the selected poetry. Eagleton and Althusser talk about the formalization of literature which makes ideology to become visible to the reader. Gramsci says the task of producing and disseminating ideology is performed by organic intellectuals. Writers are regarded as organic intellectuals. In spite of the limiting circumstances the four black writers whose poetry is being considered, managed to conscientize people around issues that needed to be opposed or rejected. This study is significant in so far as it exposed how poetry of black selected writers conscientized people and indirectly contributed to the liberation of the oppressed in South Africa. It is suggested that further studies are undertaken to re-assess the role of literature written by the black writers during the apartheid regime. A special attention must be given to those literary works that were banned and reasons for such action by those who were hell bent on subjugating black people. One of the challenges encountered during the research was that some of the books were out of print. However, a thorough and persistent search did result in the final access to those books which were not easily available. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2013.

This is a comparative study of a selection of the works of H.I.E. and R.R.R. Dhlomo in an attempt to specify the ways in which both writers contributed to constructing a sense of African modernity. While the focus will be on the content of the writing, it will include an analysis of the form and style of the literature, as well as the historical and political setting of the work, and of the authors. By employing the theoretical work of Alain Locke, David Attwell and Tim Couzens, I will address the issue of how Herbert and Rolfes Dhlomo negotiate the issue of a Christian modernity, as well as the ambiguous relationship between tradition and modernity. Another matter that I will focus on is that of the differences and similarities of their writing, in terms of aesthetics and their positions vis-a-vis tradition, modernity and the role of the Black subject, among other topics. Some questions that I will address are whether they are both contributing to an African modernity, and in what sense, and whether Rolfes' work complements that of Herbert, and vice versa. This will be done through a close reading of selected works across a range of mediums, from literary texts such as plays, poems and short stories to the print media. In the Introduction I will outline the key theoretical work and definitions that I will make use of in my research, as well as give brief biographies of the two writers under examination. In Chapter One I will make a close reading of selected works of Herbert Dhlomo, and will attempt to show his changing role in the establishment of a sense of an African modernity. In Chapter Two the focus of my work will be selected prose fiction of Rolfes Dhlomo. I will examine the major themes of these works, and show how they pertain to a sense of an African modernity. In Chapter Three I will examine Rolfes Dhlomo's "R. Roamer Esq." column from the Bantu World. I have selected in particular the year 1941, and I will show how Rolfes Dhlomo used satire and topical issues to help in the creation of a sense of African modernity. The Conclusion deals with the findings of my research on the role that Herbert and Rolfes Dhlomo played in the creation of an African modernity in South Africa. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2004.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1993.

This study is, by its intention at any rate, an attempt at assembling the scattered fragments of Can Themba’s life to make a composite being out of the various existing phenomena that shaped the contours of his life in both literary and literal senses. Given the disjunctive manner in which Can Themba and his work have been represented thus far, a combination of Historical and Biographical research methods will underpin the approach of this study. The resultant approach is the Historical-Biographical method of research. According to Guerin et al (2005, 22) the Historical-Biographical approach “sees the work chiefly, if not exclusively, as the reflection of author’s life and times or the life and times of the characters in the work.” This research is premised on the conviction that an individual is a constellation of multiple factors that play a pivotal role in the construction of their persona. These factors will be traced from his family background, early schooling, tertiary education, socio-economic conditions as well as his contribution to various newspapers and journals. While so much has been written about Themba and his work, there is no comprehensive biography of Can Themba as a person. Most importantly, the factors that contributed to his making as well as his breaking, or destruction, have not been interrogated in a form of comprehensive academic research. Rightly or wrongly, Themba’s meteoric rise into the South African literary canon is often traced from the moment he won the inaugural Drum Magazine short story competition. Themba became one of the most popular journalists and rose within the ranks of Drum to become the Assistant Editor. However, my research demonstrates that winning the Drum short story competition was the culmination of a literary talent that was developed and had been simmering for a number of years. Themba studied at the University of Fort Hare between 1945 and 1951 alongside the likes of Dennis Brutus, Ntsu Mokhehle, Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, and many other prominent individuals. He was a regular contributor to The Fortharian, a university publication that published opinion pieces, poems and short stories. This is a vital component of Themba’s intellectual growth and it remains the least explored aspect of his life. As a result, what has been discursively documented by various scholars, writers and journalists, thus far, is a very parochial representation of Can Themba’s oeuvre. / English Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (English Literature)

The main thesis of this dissertation is that even a casual analysis of African writing reveals that contemporary African literature has and is still undergoing a distinctive metamorphosis. This change, which amounts to a significant departure from the early fifties, derives its creative impulse from demonic anger and cynical iconoclasm and is triggered by the mind-shattering disillusion that followed independence. The proclivity towards tyranny and the exploitation of the ruled in modern Africa is traced by radical African creative writers to an ancient source: the legendary and god-like rulers of precolonial Africa. Ouologuem's Bound to Violence and Armah's Two Thousand Seasons and The Healers hypothesize that past sins begot present sins. The legendary warrior heroes of the past, whose glory and splendour were once exalted in African writing, are now ruthlessly disentombed and paraded as miscreants and despots, who not only brutalized and sold their people into slavery but also ideologically fabricated their own legends and myths in order to maximize their tyrannical power. The preoccupation of these works is, therefore, to divest the ancient heroes of their false glory. contemporary critics tend to perceive this anti-traditional posture purely as a modern trend in African literature. The truth of the matter, however, is that the literary foundations of this anti-nativist/anti-Afrocentric literary tradition were laid by Thomas Mofolo and Sol Plaatje, whose Chaka (1925) and Mhudi (1930) are the precursors. The five primary works in this study parody and veer away from the generally accepted traditional African epic heroism and recorded history towards a communal heroic ideal which celebrates the larger community instead of the single epic heroes normally romanticized in African legendary tradition. These novelists, while dismantling the European and African myths about Africa's Golden Age, also disfigure the often glorified ancient historical landmarks and the fabled heroes of Africa's oral and recorded history. The rationale behind this investigation is the fact that though these works have innovated, assimilated, and parodied the African oral arts, particularly traditional African epic heroism, no detailed study has been made to explore the literary transformation these texts have undergone as written works. Treating African texts only as appendages of Western literature may undermine the ability of the critical evaluations which go into the heart of these texts and unravel their deeper meanings. The outcome of this kind of approach is that pertinent issues of style and theme originating from negro-African metaphysics, oral traditions, and iconography could thereby be left unexplored. Besides, the bulk of the current body of criticism on African literature, particularly on colonial Africa, tends to concentrate on colonialist Christian values and Western literary production models. One of the overriding concerns of this research, therefore, is to veer away from merely rehashing Eurocentric pronouncements on European influences and literary modes parodied by these works, by taking a fresh. look at the texts from the perspective of Afrocentrism and in particular from the point of view of the traditional African oral bards. To this end, therefore, the dissertation is divided into six main chapters and a short concluding chapter: Chapter 1, A Survey of Black Representations of Pre-colonial Africa, functions as an introduction, sketches the European image versus the Black counter-discourse, and locates the study within the current debate on the concept of pre-colonial Africa's Golden Age. Chapter 2, Thomas Mofolo's "Inverted Epic Hero", the nucleus of the study I analyzes the anti-epic and ironic modes manipulated by the text and also maps out the epic generic framework which structures the whole dissertation. Chapter 3, Traditional African Epic Heroism Revised, discusses Plaatje's Mhudi, paying special attention to the text's deployment of the African epic genre as well as the caricaturist and the anti-heroic modes. In Chapter 4, Yambo Ouologuem's Bound to Violence is examined under the title A World Trapped in an Orgy of Violence, Barbarism and Servitude. African oral art is used as the hermeneutic key in unlocking the complexities of Ouologuem's novel. Chapter 5, The African Anti-Legendary Creative Mythology, scrutinizes Armah's Two Thousand Seasons, highlighting, among other topics, Armah's daring innovative stylistic experimentation. Chapter 6, entitled The Akan Iconic Forest of Symbols, deals with Armah' s The Healers, concentrating on the Akan iconographic backdrop which shapes and informs this work. And finally, The Metamorphosis of Traditional African Epic Heroism, the title of the concluding chapter, sums up this dissertation.