Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis puts the fiction of Zoë Wicomb and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie into conversation with particular reference to three issues: authorship, history and gender. Apart from anything else, what Wicomb and Adichie have in common is an interest in the representation of marginalised or minority ethnic groups within the nation - the coloured people in the case of Wicomb, and the Igbo in the case of Adichie. Yet what both writers also have in common is that neither seems to advocate the reification of these ethnic groups in reformulations of nationalist discourse. The thesis argues that through their focus on various forms of marginality, both Wicomb and Adichie destabilise traditional notions of nation, authorship, history, gender identity, the boundary between domestic and public life, and the idea of “home”. The thesis focuses on four main topics, each of which is covered in a chapter: the question of authorial voice in relation to history; perspectives offered by women characters in relation to oppressive or traumatic historical moments; oppressive or traumatic histories intruding into the intimate domestic space; and the issue of transnational migration and its (un)homely effects. Employing concepts of metafiction and mise-en-abyme self-reflexivity, the study begins by considering the ways in which Wicomb’s David’s Story and Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun both reflect on the idea of authorship. Focusing on the ways in which each text draws the reader into witnessing authorship, the thesis argues that the two novels can be put into conversation as they both stage dilemmas about authorship in relation to those marginalised by national histories. Following on from this idea of marginalisation by nationalist histories, the thesis then proceeds to examine both writers’ foregrounding of women’s stories that are set in oppressive and/or violent historical times – under apartheid in the case of Wicomb’s You Can’t Get Lost in Cape Town, and during the Biafran war in the case of Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun. Utilising ideas about gender, history and literary history by Tiyambe Zeleza, Florence Stratton and Elleke Boehmer, the study analyses how, beginning with father-daughter relationships, Wicomb and Adichie wean their female characters from their fathers’ control so that they may begin telling their own stories that complicate and subvert the stories that their fathers represent. Drawing on Sigmund Freud’s theory of “the uncanny” and Homi Bhabha’s postcolonial reading of that theory, the study then turns to discuss the ways in which oppressive national histories become manifest in domestic spaces (that are usually marginalised in national histories), turning those spaces into unhomely homes, in Wicomb’s Playing in the Light and Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus. In both novels, purity (whether racial or religious) is cultivated in the family home, but this cultivation of purity, which is reflected symbolically in the kinds of gardens each family grows, evidently has “unhomely” effects that signal the return of the repressed, of that which is disavowed in discourses of purity. Since both Wicomb and Adichie are African-born women authors living abroad, and since the “unhomely” aspects of transnational existence are reflected upon in their fiction, the study finally considers the forms of marginality to the national posed by the migrant. Transnational migration is examined in Wicomb’s The One That Got Away and in Adichie’s The Thing Around Your Neck, placing stories from these two recently published sets of short stories into dialogue. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis plaas die fiksie van Zoë Wicomb en Chimamandi Ngozi Adichie in gesprek met mekaar, met verwysing na veral drie sake: outeurskap, geskiedenis en geslag (gender). Afgesien van ander kwessies het die fiksie van Wicomb en Adichie ‘n belangstelling in die fiktiewe voorstelling van gemarginaliseerde of minderheidsgroepe in die nasie in gemeen – die kleurlinggroep in die geval van Wicomb en die Igbo in die geval van Adichie. Nogtans beveel geeneen van hierdie twee skrywers ‘n reïfikasie van nasionalistiese diskoers aan nie. Die tesis voer aan dat, deur hulle fokus op verskeie vorme van marginaliteit, beide Wicomb en Adichie tradisionele konsepte van nasionalisme, skrywer-skap, geskiedenis, geslagsidentiteit, die grens tussen private en publieke lewe en die idee van ‘n eie tuiste destabiliseer. Die vier hoof-onderwerpe van die tesis is word elk in ‘n eie hoofstuk behandel: die kwessie van ‘n skrywerstem in verhouding tot die geskiedenis; perspektiewe wat belig word deur vrouekarakters in kontekste van onderdrukkende of traumatiese historiese momente; hoedat onderdrukkings- of traumatiese geskiedenisse die private sfeer binnedring; asook die kwessie van ‘n migrasie oor landsgrense en die ontheimingseffek hiervan. Deur die gebruik van metafisiese en mise-en-abyme selfrefleksie begin die studie deur te reflekteer op hoe Wicomb se David’s Story en Adichie se Half of a Yellow Sun [aangaande] die idee van outeurskap reflekteer. Deur te fokus op die wyses waarop beide tekste die leser betrek om skrywerskap waar te neem, voer die tesis aan dat die twee romans met mekaar in gesprek geplaas kan word, terwyl albei dilemmas van outeurskap met betrekking tot diegene wat in nasionale geskiedskrywing gemarginaliseer word, sentraal plaas. Volgende op hierdie kwessie gaan die tesis dan voort om albei skrywers se vooropstelling van vroue se verhale gesitueer in onderdrukkende of gewelddadige tye – onder apartheid in die geval van Wicomb se You Can’t Get Lost in Cape Town en gedurende die Biafraanse oorlog in Adichie se Half of a Yellow Sun – te ondersoek. Met behulp van idees aangaande gender, geskiedenis en literêre geskiedenis van Tiyambe Zeleza, Florence Stratton en Elleke Boehmer, analiseer die tesis hoedat, beginnende met vader-dogter verhoudings, Wicomb en Adichie hul vroulike karakters loswikkel van hul vaders se kontrole sodat hulle kan begin om hul eie verhale te vertel – stories wat die verhale van hul vaders kompliseer en ondermyn. Met behulp van Sigmund Freud se teorie van die onheimlike en Homi Bhabha se postkolonialistiese interpretasie van daardie idee, gaan die tesis dan voort deur maniere waarop onderdrukkende nasionale geskiedenisse in die tuis-ruimtes (wat gewoonlik deur nasionale geskiedskrywing gemarginaliseer word) manifesteer, met die onheimlike effek hiervan op die tuisruimte – beide in Wicomb se Playing in the Light en in Adichie se Purple Hibiscus – te ondersoek. In albei romans word reinheid ( van ras of geloof) in die familie-tuiste gekultiveer, maar hierdie nadruk op reinheid – simbolies gereflekteer in die tuine wat deur albei gesinne aangelê word – het wel onmiskenbare onheimlike gevolge wat die terugkeer van wat onderdruk is (in die naam van reinheid) aandui. Omdat beide Wicomb en Adichie vroue-skrywers is wat in Afrika gebore is maar oorsee lewe, en omdat die onheimlike aspekte van ‘n transnasionale lewensstyl in hul fiksie oorweeg word, beskryf die tesis die vorms van marginaliteit met betrekking tot die nasionale wat deur die migrant tot stand kom. Transnasionale migrasie word in Wicomb se The One that Got Away en Adichie se The Thing around your Neck oorweeg, wat die verhale uit hierdie twee versamelings in gesprek met mekaar plaas.

This thesis probes how recent experimental American "crisis fictions" from authors including Mark Z. Danielewski, Kathryn Davis, and Evan Dara reformulate transatlantic Romantic literary debates about technological and environmental change. Arguing that such texts extend previously theorised ties between Romanticism and postmodernism, it identifies enduring ties between late-postmodern accounts of crisis and those of Romantic predecessors. Responding to the upheavals of digital revolution and ecological risks, these texts, published between 1995 and 2012, inventively engage several linchpin constructs in transatlantic Romantic writing: chiefly, the imagined supersession of subjective and temporal boundaries; a sense that the natural and non-human world is of crucial importance; and a reliance on idioms of sublimity to suggest the unrepresentability of the aforementioned crises. Although numerous critics have traced similarities between Romantic and postmodern modes, this thesis considers those resonances as deeper questions of cultural and literary history. It proposes to more carefully historicise the Romantic intellectual heritage in late postmodernism, identifying intermediating moments that inform contemporary accounts of crisis. It unearths how late postmodern technocultural and environmentalist imaginaries were always already Romantic. Deeply informed by countercultural, mid-century American movements and ideas that themselves drew significantly from transatlantic Romanticism, contemporary figurations of upheaval, syncretically figured in mid-century publications such as the Whole Earth Catalog, are indebted to both Romantic and neo-Romantic heritages. This thesis additionally argues that the digital revolution and unprecedented environmental crisis act as pressures on postmodern literary practices from the mid-1990s onward. Digital speeding and a looming sense of ecological risk register as even earlier crises than the terrorist attacks of "9-11", requiring a recalibration of what the postmodern might mean and do. Crucially, in their preoccupation with embodied realities and environments, including natural ones, the contemporary narratives examined here diverge from the assumption that the natural world bears little importance in postmodern fields of representation. Finally, many recent literary experiments figure themselves as materially participating in the technological and medial systems they respond to; formal experimentation is, accordingly, another centre of interest. This research examines how select texts deploy formal strategies to "materially instantiate" Romantic ideas, to borrow Katherine Hayles's term. Although numerous critics have suggested that Romantic discourse permeates digital cultural imaginaries, existing scholarship devotes little attention to how formal experimentation intersects with narrative strategies.

The thesis analyzes the possibilities of application of the fictional worlds theory as a possible basis for a different literary-theoretical approach to the study of literary texts. Not being a mere literature research, the thesis inquires into issues which are necessarily connected with the fictional worlds theory and which have been so far rarely dealt with, if discussed at all. It contributes to the discussion on advantages and drawbacks of the mimetic approach and of the fiction theory, it analyzes the possible applicability of the fictional worlds theory in literary history, it attempts to determine the correlation between the Seymour Chatman's textual types and the fiction theory nomenclature, and last but not least the thesis deals with the possibilities of this theory in the fictional worlds of lyrical poetry. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Este trabalho procura ler o Naturalismo brasileiro como parte importante de um movimento internacional e analisa algumas das adequações estéticas, temáticas e de método pelo qual passou. Considera que, a partir do modelo de romance experimental proposto por Émile Zola, autores como Aluísio Azevedo, Júlio Ribeiro e Adolfo Caminha, entre outros, escreveram romances que transformaram em matéria literária o processo de modernização econômica conservadora do Brasil no final do século 19, construindo personagens e tramas que deixaram marcas mais profundas na literatura brasileira do que tradicionalmente é reconhecido. Romances como O cortiço, A carne e Bom-Crioulo tocaram em questões traumáticas para o país, como a escravidão e o controle da sexualidade dos indivíduos, numa sociedade que se aburguesava em vários sentidos, e significaram uma modernização nas letras e nas mentalidades do país. / This work attempts to read the Brazilian Naturalism as an important fact of this international movement and examines some of aesthetic, thematic and methodological adjustments it has been passed in Brazil. It considers that the model proposed by Emile Zola was adapted in Brazil by authors such as Aluisio Azevedo, Julio Ribeiro and Adolfo Caminha, among others. The novels written by these authors expressed the conservative economic modernization of Brazil in the late 19th century, building characters and plots that have left marks in the Brazilian literature that are deeper than is used to recognize. Novels like O cortiço, A carne e Bom-Crioulo touched on traumatic issues, such as slavery and sexuality of individuals, in a progressively bourgeois society, and meant an expressive modernization in Brazilian letters and mentalities.

<p>Предмет истраживања докторске дисертације јесте<br />фигура оца у историјској драми српског<br />предромантизма и романтизма. Намера<br />истраживања је да на основу обимног корпуса<br />драмских текстова изврши темељна анализа драма<br />у којима је идентификована фигура оца као и да се<br />пружи преглед ликова који се јављају у овој<br />улози. Истраживачки рад ће бити усмерен на<br />проучавање и допуну резултата досадашњих<br />анализа улоге мушких ликова. Успоставиће се<br />примерена типологија главних и епизодних ликова<br />који се у историјским драмама српског<br />предромантизма и романтизма појављују у<br />улози оца. Полазиште дисертације је историјска<br />драма и фигура оца као њен незаобилазни део.<br />Почетна претпоставка је да је психолошка<br />уверљивост наступа појединих јунака последица<br />породичних прилика, а не историјских догађаја.<br />Тежиште истраживачког рада је приказивање<br />јунака чија ауторитативна природа доводи до<br />сукоба, отуђења од породице и самоотуђења.<br />Докторска дисертација би требала подстаћи нека<br />нова питања и одговоре као и нова проучавања<br />историјске драме</p> / <p>Predmet istraživanja doktorske disertacije jeste<br />figura oca u istorijskoj drami srpskog<br />predromantizma i romantizma. Namera<br />istraživanja je da na osnovu obimnog korpusa<br />dramskih tekstova izvrši temeljna analiza drama<br />u kojima je identifikovana figura oca kao i da se<br />pruži pregled likova koji se javljaju u ovoj<br />ulozi. Istraživački rad će biti usmeren na<br />proučavanje i dopunu rezultata dosadašnjih<br />analiza uloge muških likova. Uspostaviće se<br />primerena tipologija glavnih i epizodnih likova<br />koji se u istorijskim dramama srpskog<br />predromantizma i romantizma pojavljuju u<br />ulozi oca. Polazište disertacije je istorijska<br />drama i figura oca kao njen nezaobilazni deo.<br />Početna pretpostavka je da je psihološka<br />uverljivost nastupa pojedinih junaka posledica<br />porodičnih prilika, a ne istorijskih događaja.<br />Težište istraživačkog rada je prikazivanje<br />junaka čija autoritativna priroda dovodi do<br />sukoba, otuđenja od porodice i samootuđenja.<br />Doktorska disertacija bi trebala podstaći neka<br />nova pitanja i odgovore kao i nova proučavanja<br />istorijske drame</p> / <p>The subject of the doctoral thesis research is the<br />figure of a father in the historical drama of<br />Serbian Preromanticism and Romanticism.<br />Based on the large corpus of drama texts, the<br />intention of this research is to do a thorough<br />analysis of dramas where the figure of a father<br />has been identified as well as to present a<br />review of characters appearing in this role. The<br />research work will be aimed on studying and<br />completing the results of the previous analysis<br />of male characters. An appropriate typology of<br />main and episodic characters which appeared in<br />historical dramas of Serbian Preromanticism<br />and Romanticism in the roles of a father,will be<br />established. A starting point of the thesis is the<br />historical drama and the figure of a father as its<br />unavoidable part. The initial assumption is that<br />the psychologically stringent appearance of<br />some heroes is the consequence of family<br />events and not of the historical ones.The centre<br />of the research work is a presentation of the<br />heroes whose authoritative nature leads to<br />conflict, alienation from the family and self<br />alienation, too. The doctoral thesis should<br />induce some new questions and answers as well<br />as a new studying of historical drama</p>

Ondrej Hanus Czech Sonnet in the 1st Half of the 20th Century Abstract This thesis examines the history of Czech sonnets in 1885-1948. Based on a carefully selected material, it analyses the position of particular texts both in the work of individual writers (from Jaroslav Vrchlicky to Jan Zabrana) and in the defined period of Czech literary history. This period is divided into three phases (1885-1900, 1900-1930 a 1931-1948). Both formal aspects (metre, rhyme, strophic structure) and functional aspects (the various roles of the sonnet in the individual phases of Czech literary history) are taken into account. An important part of the thesis is the revision of the standard narrow formalistic definition of the sonnet. This is substituted with a much broader definition, allowing us to regard various formal experiments as fully-fledged sonnets.

Em fins do século XIX um jovem empresário estadunidense fundou uma empresa exportadora de bananas na República da Costa Rica: a United Fruit Company. Mesmo que o comércio de bananas e outras frutas tropicais tenha representado apenas uma parte dos produtos exportados pelos países da América Central a exportação de café, por exemplo, sempre foi mais significativa , as companhias bananeiras foram eternizadas por diversos romancistas em alguns dos países centro-americanos em que atuaram. Este trabalho pretende mostrar a trilogia bananeira: Viento fuerte (1949), El Papa verde (1954) e Los ojos de los enterrados (1960) do escritor guatemalteco Miguel Angel Asturias, como uma possibilidade de representação da história da United Fruit Company na Guatemala. Utilizando romances como fonte histórica e realizando a articulação entre o discurso literário e o discurso histórico, a intenção é mostrar a interpretação de Asturias sobre a ação desta multinacional em seu país. Problematizando o encontro entre ambos os discursos e fazendo dialogar a informação histórica sobre o ocorrido e o tratamento literário que Asturias dá a esses mesmos fatos em sua trilogia bananeira. / In the end of the XIX Century a young American enterpreneur founded in the Republic of Costa Rica a company to export banana: the United Fruit Company. Even though the banana commerce and other tropical fruits had represented only a part of the exported products by the Central America countries the coffee export for instance has always been more significant the companies that traded bananas were eternalized by a great variety of novelists in some Central American countries were they acted. This work aims to show, as a possibility to represent the History of the United Fruit Company in Guatemala, the books that composes the Banana Trilogy: Viento fuerte (1949), El Papa Verde (1954) and Los ojos de los enterrados (1960) from the Guatemaltec writer Miguel Angel Asturias. Using novels as a historic source and accomplishing the joint between the literary and historic speech, the intention is to show the interpretation of Asturias concernig the action of this muitinational company in his country, to open debate between both speeches and to articulate the historic information and the treatment that Asturias gives to this information in his Banana Trilogy books.

Genres are constituted, implicitly and explicitly, through their construction of the past. Genres continually reconstitute themselves, as authors, producers and, most importantly, readers situate texts in relation to one another; each text implies a reader who will locate the text on a spectrum of previously developed generic characteristics. Though science fiction appears to be a genre concerned with the future, I argue that the persistent presence of lost race stories – where the contemporary world and groups of people thought to exist only in the past intersect – in science fiction demonstrates that the past is crucial in the operation of the genre. By tracing the origins and evolution of the lost race story from late nineteenth-century novels through the early twentieth-century American pulp science fiction magazines to novel-length narratives, and narrative series, at the end of the twentieth century, this thesis shows how the consistent presence, and varied uses, of lost race stories in science fiction complicates previous critical narratives of the history and definitions of science fiction.

The Rights of Creativity is a study of Swedish copyright history from the birth of Sweden’s first copyright legislation in the early 19th century to the passing of the current law in 1960. As the title suggests, the law is regarded as part of a wider cultural context and the dissertation moves beyond the borders of legal history and analyses the law in relation to the history of literature, film, television and other media that partly reflect and partly intersect with the legislative process. The main object of the study is to see how the author is constructed in legal and cultural discourses during the 19th and 20th century. The dissertation focuses on three Swedish copyright laws from 1877, 1919 and 1960, but these laws and their preambles are also related to a few contemporary cultural intertexts, namely: August Strindberg’s novel Röda rummet [The Red Room] from 1879; the director Mauritz Stiller’s films Gunnar Hedes Saga [The Blizzard] and Gösta Berlings saga [The Saga of Gösta Berling] from 1923 and 1924, and finally the television shows Hylands hörna and Skäggen from 1962 and 1963. Apart from this it also pays some attention to the Freedom of the Press Act from 1810 that came to include Sweden’s first copyright statement, as well as to the development after 1960. Eventually it aims to show how the historical legacy has affected the copyright legislation and debates of today. / Skapandets rätt handlar om hur den juridiska synen på upphovsmannen rätt och skapandets villkor har förändrats i förhållande till den kulturella utvecklingen i Sverige under 1800 och 1900-talet. Avhandlingen består av en kronologisk studie av de upphovsrättslagar som antogs 1877, 1919 och 1960, men den behandlar också 1810 års tryckfrihetsförordning och de senaste årens rättsutveckling i korthet. Denna upphovsrättshistoriska exposé placeras in i ett litteratur- och mediehistoriskt sammanhang och lagtexterna underkastas en intertextuell analys där deras relation till några olika kulturella intertexter analyseras. Inledningsvis diskuteras hur 1810 års Tryckfrihetsförordning kom att innefatta Sveriges första upphovsrättsbestämmelse. Därefter kontrasteras Sveriges första separata upphovsrättslag från 1877 mot August Strindbergs genombrottsroman Röda rummet, allt i ljuset av Jürgen Habermas teori om den borgerliga offentligheten. 1919 års lagstiftning relateras sedan till Mauritz Stiller filmatiseringar av Selma Lagerlöfs romaner En herrgårdssägen och Gösta Berlings saga. Instiftandet av dagens upphovsrättslag från 1960 analyseras slutligen mot bakgrund av den nya tidens TV-medium som här exemplifieras av Hylands hörna och Skäggen. Avslutningsvis knyts allt samman i en kapitel där historiens lärdomar appliceras på dagens debatt. Här diskuteras hur tre föreställda oppositioner mellan konstnär-publik, privat-offentligt och original-kopia har format upphovsrättens historia och hur de fortfarande färgar samtidens upphovsrättsdiskussioner.

Thesis (Ph.D. (English)) - Rhodes University, 2008.