This study explores the triple imbrications of race, power and gender in the selected novels of Bessie Head. A critical analysis of Maru (1971) and A Question of' Power (1974) is undertaken with a view to identifying the subordinating and the marginalising tropes that result in silencing of female subjectivities in Head's protagonists. Linked to a critical reading of the novels, this study examines the role of cultural and psychological forces in maintaining patriarchal hegemony, which is based upon hierarchy and domination of women rather than equality. Furthennore, this dissertation suggests that Head's depiction of narrow ethnic and racial bigotry serves a broader etiological purpose of accounting for "the state of thingsff within the South African context. Thus this study oscillates between the abstract constructs and the concrete social experiences within which Bessie Head's literary imagination subsists. In this study, particular attention is paid, in addition to critiques of individual texts, to some of Head's biographical elements with a view on the one hand, to highlighting the moments, events and issues which are reflected as " contexts of her-story" and on the other, to amplifying how Head's formative experiences contribute to her critique of the exploitative racially structured narratives. By using Foucault's theories within the social constructionist model, this dissertation aims to demonstrate the insidious intersections between racism and sexism and how these constructs are implicated in the conception and construction of power. Specifically, this study argues that due to their arbitrary applications, racial and sexual difference be viewed as dynamic and contested, rather than fixed. A synthesis is reached which accords literarure a role within the framework of socio-cultural practice in general. / English Studies / M.A. (English)

Coetzee's own experience of living in apartheid South Africa provides the backdrop for novels infused with sardonic irony and rich metaphoric systems. In modes of metafiction that emphasize the destructive and violent nature of language, he optimizes his unique oeuvre to interrogate global, national and domestic power relations. This dissertation relies on psychoanalytical theories that examine microstructures of power within the individual, and in his domestic domain. Each of Coetzee's chief protagonists carries a secret related to a dysfunctional mother/son relationship. This hampers their psychosocial dynamics, their masculinity and sexuality. As they respectively strive toward an elusive new life they confront patriarchal power structures that speak on behalf of individuals, '[whose] descent into powerlessness [is] voluntary' (Coetzee 2007: 4-5). Coetzee's constructed white males perform their several identity roles in milieux that span divergent phases of colonial history. His critique points to white patriarchal hegemonic ideological discourses that bespeak the self/other dichotomy in a postcolonial world where the language of dominance supports an oppressive status quo. / English Studies / M.A. (English)

Unter dem Begriff des Poststrukturalismus wird eine disparate, auf den Axiomen des Strukturalismus aufbauende und diese zugleich überwindende Strömung verstanden, die sowohl innerhalb der Sozial- und Kulturwissenschaften als auch in interdisziplinär organisierten Feldern wie den Gender Studies von großer Tragweite ist. Geteilt wird die Auffassung, dass kulturelle Phänomene allgemein sprachlich strukturiert sind. Seine Tendenz, unter die Oberfläche vermeintlich stabiler, monolithischer Strukturen zu schauen, qualifiziert den Poststrukturalismus für eine Anwendung auf genderwissenschaftliche Kategorien wie Weiblichkeit und Männlichkeit, deren Bedeutung nicht aus sich selbst erwächst, sondern die als Signifikate innerhalb eines (phallokratischen) Systems zu denken sind.

Donna J. Haraway ist eine US-amerikanische Biologin, Wissenschaftsphilosophin und Literaturwissenschaftlerin, die an den Departments History of Consciousness und Feminist Studies der University of California lehrte. In dieser Position hatte sie die erste explizit der Feministischen Theorie gewidmete Professur in den USA inne. Haraways Arbeiten bewegen sich in einem thematischen Schnittfeld von feministischer Erkenntniskritik, Cultural Studies, politischer Theorie und Biowissenschaften.

Submitted by Johnny Rodrigues (johnnyrodrigues@ufcg.edu.br) on 2018-10-04T13:44:17Z No. of bitstreams: 1 VANUZA SOUZA SILVA - DISSERTAÇÃO PPGCS 2005..pdf: 18489316 bytes, checksum: 61f53d0e72fcaaa8de79ccadf8cf6ac2 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-10-04T13:44:17Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 VANUZA SOUZA SILVA - DISSERTAÇÃO PPGCS 2005..pdf: 18489316 bytes, checksum: 61f53d0e72fcaaa8de79ccadf8cf6ac2 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005 / Este trabalho discute as condições históricas da construção da autoria e obra de Lourdes Ramalho, percorrendo a trajetória de vida e intelectual da autora, perscrutando as relações que manteve com seus contemporâneos, com os livros que leu e como leu para pensar a maneira como essa autora imprimiu em seus textos a idéia de Nordeste e de nordestino. Pensar a autoria como um lugar histórico e social, significa ao mesmo tempo discutir as brechas e as contradições que também constituem a mesma, por isso a necessidade de ter discutido a idéia de povo enquanto lugar de distanciamento do lugar da autora, o modelo de feminino que a mesma constrói como um lugar de masculinização das mulheres da região, e por fim, a construção do riso em seus textos como um lugar, também, de regramento da inversão dos costumes da cultura nordestina. Inspirada na proposta Foucaultiana de análise de discurso, que sugere ver as relações de poder nas linhas de discurso, as verdades e os embates que são parte de todo escrever, na teoria de gênero de Butler e Foucault que pensam os sexos, os corpos, o gênero como dimensões outras dos discursos que tentam definir uma verdade para os sujeitos, e na proposta de Durval Muniz, que inspira o (re)pensar as identidades sociais, culturais e sexuais que inscreveram uma dada forma de ver e se fazer nordestino, imprime-se nesse texto uma outra maneira de ler a obra de Lourdes Ramalho e tudo o que ela cria, de (re)ver o lugar que ocupa a autoria nordestina e a naturalização que a define, porque as nossas identidades regionais misturadas às identidades de gênero naturalizaram a cultura nordestina e tudo o que nela é produzido, criando silêncios, negando a diferença, a diferença de ser homem, mulher, autor e obra no Nordeste, dentro e fora desse espaço. / This research discuss about the historic conditions of the authorship construction and Lourdes Ramalho's work, going through the authoress' intellectual and life path, descriting the relationships kept with her conteporaneans, with the books that she read and how she read to think about the way how this authores printed in her texts the Northeast and northeast people idea. Think about the authorship as a social and historic place, means at same time to discuss the gap and the contradictions that also make-up itself, that's why the need of have discussed the idea of folk while place of great distance from the authoress' place, the feminine model that herself makes as a place of male-processing of the women on this region, and the end, the making of the lagh in her text as a placealso, about inversion of the rules of the northeast culture uses. Base don the foucaultian proposal of speech analysis, that suggest to see the relations of power in the speech lines, the truths and conflicts that are parto f all the writtings, on the treory about genus of Butler and Foucault that thin about the sex, the bodies, the gens as other dimensions of the speech that inspire the (re)thinking of the social identities, culturally and sexually that mark a way of seeing and making a northeast, it can be found on this text another way for reading the work f Lourdes Ramalho and everything that she creates, to (re)see the place that ocupies he northheaster authorship and the naturalization that defines it, because our regional identities of this genus neutralized the northeaster culture and everything produced on it, producing silences, denying the difference, the difference of being a man, womwn, authoress and work on Northeast, in ando ut this space.

Text in English, Tswana and siSwati / This dissertation examines the multiplicity of social positions within which African women in the postcolonial era find themselves. It focuses on how the dramatic dialogue depicts the positions of women in Zakes Mda’sThe Nun’s Romantic Story, And the Girls in their Sunday Dresses and You Fool, How can the Sky Fall. The study is intended to explore the dramatic dialogue in these plays and to show whether there is any evidence of change in women’s positions. It seeks to demonstrate the extent to which the positions of women have changed and also how the dramatic dialogue in the selected plays of Zakes Mda indicates the change in women’s positions. / Thutopatlisiso eno e tlhatlhoba maemo a loago a mantsintsi a basadi ba maAforika ba ba tshelang mo motlheng wa morago ga puso ya bokoloniale ba iphitlhelang ba le mo go ona. E tota ka moo puisano ya terama e bontshang maemo a basadi ka gona mo The Nun’s Romantic Story, And the Girls in their Sunday Dresses le You Fool, How can the Sky Fall tsa ga Zakes Mda. Maikaelelo a thutopatlisiso ke go sekaseka puisano ya terama mo metshamekong eno go bontsha gore a go na le bosupi bope jwa diphetogo mo maemong a basadi. E batla go bontsha ka moo maemo a basadi a fetogileng ka gona le ka moo puisano ya terama mo metshamekong e e tlhophilweng ya ga Zakes Mda e bontshang diphetogo mo maemong a basadi ka gona. / Ledisetheshini ihlolisisa tikhundlanyenti tetenhlalo bomake base-Afrika labatitfola bakuto ngemuva kwesikhatsi sembuso webukolonali (umbusobucalu). Igcile ekutsini inkhulumomphendvulwane emidlalweni yaZakes Mda itikhombisa kanjani letikhundla tabomake; i-The Nun’s Romantic Story [Indzaba yelutsandvo yemasisitela], ne-Girls in their Sunday Dresses [Emantfombatana etingutjeni tawo teLisontfo] ne-You Fool [Wena Silima], How can the Sky Fall [Singawa kanjani Sibhakabhaka]. Lolucwaningo lwentelwe kuhlolisisa inkhulumomphendvulwane kulemidlalo kanye nekukhombisa kutsi ingabe bukhona yini bufakazi bengucuko etikhundleni tabomake. Ifuna kukhombisa kutsi tikhundla tabomake tigucuke kangakanani kanye nekutsi inkhulumomphendvulwane emidlalweni lekhetsiwe yaZakes Mda ikukhombisa kanjani kugucuka kwetikhundla tabomake. / English Studies / M.A.(Theory of Literature)