This dissertation approaches the work of South African/Botswanan novelist Bessie Head, especially the novel A Question of Power, as positioned within the critical framework of the postcolonial paradigm, the genius of which accommodates both African and African American literature without recourse to racial essentialism. A central problematic of postcolonial literary criticism is the ideological stance postcolonial authors adopt with respect to the ideology of the metropolis, whether on the one hand the stances they adopt are collusive, or on the other oppositional. A key contested concept is that of universality, which has been widely regarded as a witting or unwitting tool of the metropolis, having the effect of denigrating the colonial subject. It is my thesis that Bessie Head, neither entirely collusive nor oppositional, advocates an Africanist universality that paradoxically eliminates the bias implicit in metropolitan universality.

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. Johannesburg, 1993. / This dissertation examines the work of Bessie Head with a view to sophisticating prevailing understandings of her texts which tend to concentrate on Head's place in a tradition of African women writers. Current critical works emphasise selected aspects, of Head's biography and assume her presentation of the 'tradition' and 'orality' of Serowe to be accurate. We argue in this dissertation that Head has constructed and manipulated concepts of 'tradition' and 'orality' in her texts to suit both her intellectual concerns and her fictional intentions. Broadly these are to present her works as the recorded history of an 'oral African' society. Head's six novels as well as aspects of her letters and interviews are examined in order to demonstrate this assertion. / AC2017

This study probes selected stories from Bessie Head's The Collector of Treasures (1977) in order to elicit instances of contiguity and disjuncture between orality and literacy, to establish Head's complex identity configurations which are often manifested in the interactions between aesthetic form and content, authorial consciousness, character delineation, and narrative voice. At the same time, the dissertation explores her portrayal of the proscribed condition of women, the subversive consciousness that undercuts women's subjugation by patriarchy, and her vision for the liberatory possibilities for women from the exigencies of patriarchal domination. I also examine Head's (re-)vision of culture within the framework of hybridity and creolity and determine how some of these perspectives are crystallized in discourses such as When Rain Clouds Gather (1968), Maru (1971) and A Question of Power (1973). I juxtapose my reading of Head with other African writers such as Bâ, Emecheta and Nwapa to draw references in instances where the context permits. The dominant critical approach adopted in this thesis is a contextual approach. I consider this approach useful for my purposes because of its flexibility, the attention it pays to the formal properties of literary texts and, its cognizance of the socio-historical genesis of texts and its demonstration of literature's timeless value. / English Studies / M.A. (English)

This study probes selected stories from Bessie Head's The Collector of Treasures (1977) in order to elicit instances of contiguity and disjuncture between orality and literacy, to establish Head's complex identity configurations which are often manifested in the interactions between aesthetic form and content, authorial consciousness, character delineation, and narrative voice. At the same time, the dissertation explores her portrayal of the proscribed condition of women, the subversive consciousness that undercuts women's subjugation by patriarchy, and her vision for the liberatory possibilities for women from the exigencies of patriarchal domination. I also examine Head's (re-)vision of culture within the framework of hybridity and creolity and determine how some of these perspectives are crystallized in discourses such as When Rain Clouds Gather (1968), Maru (1971) and A Question of Power (1973). I juxtapose my reading of Head with other African writers such as Bâ, Emecheta and Nwapa to draw references in instances where the context permits. The dominant critical approach adopted in this thesis is a contextual approach. I consider this approach useful for my purposes because of its flexibility, the attention it pays to the formal properties of literary texts and, its cognizance of the socio-historical genesis of texts and its demonstration of literature's timeless value. / English Studies / M.A. (English)

This mini-thesis is located in historical discursive practices, choreographing history, biography as a source for making dance in South Africa and choreographic transformations in South African choreography since the 1994 democratic elections. Derridian concepts of deconstruction will be referenced in an attempt to focus the argument of this research, which comments on choreographic transformations since 1994, by subverting the influence of the 'violent hierarchies' enforced by the apartheid regime on South African cultural life and choreographic identity. The researcher draws on these considerations in order to explore the hybrid nature of South African choreography that has emerged since 1994. Chapter one examines the fallacious nature of historical discourse through a consideration and application of Derrida's notions of deconstruction and fabrication. Chapter two explores the notion of choreographing history in theatre through a focus on the objective/subjective fallacy and the history of the body as a textual medium. Chapter three focuses the study specifically in biography as a discourse within the idea of theatre. This approach to biography can be encapsulated by the phrase 'telling lives'. This chapter also explores the relationship between the traditional binaries of writing as a purely cerebral act and choreography as a purely visceral experience. Chapter four brings the focus to the specific post-apartheid South African context. This chapter considers the hybrid forms of dance emerging in South Africa as well as the notion of protest in relation to theatre and dance. The final chapter is an investigation and analysis of two choreographic works created by South African choreographers since 1994 in relation to biography and concepts of deconstruction. These works are Gary Gordon's Bessie's Head (2000) and Gregory Maqoma's Miss Thandi (2002). The focus of the analysis also reveals the inherent difficulty in objective interpretation, and considers the problematics of collaboration and autobiography when choreographing within a biographical context.

M.A. (Linguistics) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

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This dissertation seeks to explore the perceived intricate relationship that exists between constructed identity, discrimination and violence as portrayed in Bessie Head's trilogy from varying perspectives, including aspects of postcoloniality, materialist feminism and liminality. Starting with a background to some of the origins of racial hybridity in Southern Africa, it looks at how racial identity has subsequently influenced the course of Southern African history and thereafter explores historical and biographical information deemed relevant to an understanding of the dissertation. Critical explorations of each text in the trilogy follow, in which the apparent affinities that exist between identity, discrimination and violence are analysed and displayed. In conclusion the trilogy is discussed from a largely sociological perspective of hope in a utopian society. / English Studies / M.A.(English)

Thesis (M.A. (English Studies)) -- University of Limpopo, 2014 / This study discusses African identity as portrayed in Zakes Mda’s The Madonna of Excelsior (2002) and Bessie Head’s Maru (1971). It explores identity and its subcomponents within the South African context as asserted in these novels. Mda employs a retrospective communal voice that blends historical accounts with fiction in order to subvert and satirise apartheid nationalism. Head, on the other hand, constructs a positive image of feminine identity in the world characterised by tribalism, patriarchal system and stereotypical subjugation of women. She dismantles established racial and ethnic prejudice against minority groups and the underprivileged. The study applies a trilogy of theoretical framework to analyse and interpret selected data: Discourse Analysis, Text Analysis and Afrocentricity. It further examines a fluidity of identities in both social and political spheres and demonstrates how suppression of these identities affects individuals and nation states. It reveals that, as a microcosm of Africa, South Africa reflects atrocious injustices of the past, carried out in the form of colonisation and apartheid, bringing about a different kind of identity of the African people. These two novels take us back to the past so that we can understand the present and subsequently build Africa’s identity of the future. KEY CONCEPTS Afrocentricity; Identity; Discrimination; Miscegenation; Otherness; Hybridity; Animalistic Dehumanisation.

Reproduction de : Thèse doctorat : Littérature africaine d'expression anglaise : Cergy-Pontoise : 2008. / Titre provenant de l'écran titre. Bibliogr. p.284-293. Index.