No description available.

This dissertation examines the role the medium of comics plays in the construction and subversion of anti-Arab and Islamophobic discourse. It seeks to address the following questions in particular: how does the medium of comics interpellate subjects regarding the Western discursive formation that conflates Arab, Muslim, and terrorist? What does the medium of comics afford creators in subverting dominant discourses that dehumanize Arabs and Muslims? I argue that as a hypermedium in which text and repeated images are in continual tension, comics challenge the sort of foundational notion of truth necessary for dominant discourse. I use a Foucauldian lens to examine several comics in relation to larger discursive formations. In Chapter 1, I explain the problem, my methods, and my theory in more detail. In Chapter 2, I apply this theory as a lens to examine the rhetorical work the medium plays in subverting dominant discourse in Palestine, a nonfiction piece of comics journalism. I use Chapter 3 to problematize the assertions made in the first two chapters by looking at an instance where comics are used to reinscribe dominant discourse. Specifically, I analyze the graphic adaptation of The 9/11 Report. Chapter 4 acts as something of a retort to Chapter 3; it examines In the Shadow of No Towers to interrogate the ways in which Art Spiegelman explicitly addresses not only the issues he grappled with as a New Yorker during and after 9/11, but the complex relations of representation that arose from the event. Chapter 5 I examine how subversion works when a hypermedium is further remediated by analyzing Didier LeFevre's The Photographer: Into War-Torn Afghanistan with Doctors without Borders. The Conclusion is devoted to discussing the implications of this study, both in terms of pedagogy and in terms of theorizing the relationship and differences between image and text. I argue that comics demonstrate the productive ideological tensions that exist between modes of signification (such as verbal and visual). An understanding of this ideological tension is key for scholars of visual rhetoric and hegemonic discourse. / Ph. D.

The purpose of this thesis is to make a study of the third and fourth series of the Episodios nacionales. The study will deal with the plot structure, the characterization, and the historicity of the twenty novels which make up the two series.

In her book In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens Alice Walker addresses black American women's lack of opportunities to write their experiences for later generations. Walker points out that because black women historically were not allowed to write and often were unable to share their creative thoughts or experiences, black women's literary history has been less available. Walker suggests that women of color look back to their mothers and the oral traditions of their ancestors to recreate that lost history and thus create a more complete historical account that has been absent from white canonical representations of African American history. This undergraduate thesis examines three contemporary African American women's novels and demonstrates that they employ maternal genealogical experiences to reclaim and retell Afro-American women's history. Toni Morrison's Beloved, Octavia Butler's Kindred, and Gayl Jones' Corregidora are postmodern, postcolonial slave narratives ( often called "neo-slave narratives") that trace a broad historical memory of slavery through maternal genealogy. While scholars have addressed the presence of the mother in these texts, they have overlooked the importance of the matrilineal tradition of inherited memory as a tool to revisit and reclaim history.

This study examines the extent to which the teaching of Shona novels can be used to promote unhu (humanness) in Zimbabwean secondary schools where there has been a call for the teaching of cultural values. The school syllabi for Shona make this position abundantly clear. For that reason, anchoring the discussion on the role of literature in Africa as expounded by African scholars such as Ngugi wa Thiong’o (1981), p’Bitek (1986) and Achebe (1989) among others, the study observes that literature plays an important role in moulding character through advancing unhu. For instance, as Achebe (1989) argues that the novelist is a teacher, the study therefore locates literature as a life-affirming and life-extending affair. The discussion of the role of literature as a potential conduit for expressing unhu takes place within the theoretical confines of Afrocentricity, an African-centred theory that places the interests of Africa at the centre of any analysis involving African people. The selected novels namely Pfumo Reropa (1961), Kunyarara Hakusi Kutaura? (1983) and Ndafa Here? (2007) are therefore interrogated from an Afrocentric point of view. The three novels are representative of different historical epochs in Zimbabwe’s cultural trajectory. In addition, they have featured quite prominently on the school syllabi for Shona. Through a combination of interviews and critical analysis of the novels, the study crucially observes that the proper teaching of literature can effectively transform the thinking of learners thereby locating them in their own cultural platforms. However, for this to happen, teachers must be properly trained in order that they develop an appreciation of the value of literature in imparting unhu among learners. As a result, the study thus proposes sufficient conscientisation of teachers and learners on the concept and practice of unhu be systematically carried out. At the same, there is need for greater planning in constructing a more informing syllabus, as well as the deliberate inclusion of texts that canonise unhu. / African Languages / D. Litt. et Phil. (African Languages)

This study aims to evaluate the original white colonisers‟ or settlers‟ position and experience in Africa and South Africa during the transitional period between 1998 and 2011, as represented by English white male protagonists who feature in The Lostness of Alice (1998) by John Conyngham, The Good Doctor (2003) by Damon Galgut, and Lost Ground (2011) by Michiel Heyns. The analysis of the selected novels illustrates that the legacy of colonisation and apartheid still influences the settler descendants‟ perception of self and the other. The analysis focuses specifically on the males‟ experience of space and place in the construction of identity, and the awareness that the expansion of space and place through the transgression of physical and psychological boundaries contributes towards a more balanced personality. After the dissolution of apartheid, contemporary white South African men, as exemplified by the three protagonists, have become aware of their minority status and tend to dissociate themselves from the country as home. As borderline figures, they contend with feelings of marginalisation and isolation. Increasingly conscious of their contradictory non-African identity, the protagonists undertake journeys during which they acquire insight into themselves as well as an altered perception of the other. Although the former settlers‟ experience of alienation and ambivalence about colonisation and apartheid has been depicted in various novels, the significance of this experience relating to white South African male identity has not yet been fully explored in a comparative study of Conyngham‟s, Galgut‟s and Heyns‟s works with reference to the authors‟ place within a postcolonial paradigm, their implementation of the detective narrative frame and the role of intertextuality and irony that can be seen to define the novels and suggest other interpretative possibilities. The novels are critically analysed in terms of the concepts of space and place, the presence, transgression and transcendence of boundaries, and the influence of these paradigms on the characters‟ sense of self and their relationship with others and society at large. The novels‟ narrative frame and strategies in relation to the myths of Africa are also investigated. The thesis argues that the apprehension articulated by representatives of European settlers regarding the consequences of colonisation and apartheid has become more prominent during the post-liberation dispensation. The acceptance of responsibility for the past and for others, as well as intense self-appraisal, should enable the three protagonists to achieve a more expansive sense of self and a meaningful existence. / PhD (English), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

This study aims to evaluate the original white colonisers‟ or settlers‟ position and experience in Africa and South Africa during the transitional period between 1998 and 2011, as represented by English white male protagonists who feature in The Lostness of Alice (1998) by John Conyngham, The Good Doctor (2003) by Damon Galgut, and Lost Ground (2011) by Michiel Heyns. The analysis of the selected novels illustrates that the legacy of colonisation and apartheid still influences the settler descendants‟ perception of self and the other. The analysis focuses specifically on the males‟ experience of space and place in the construction of identity, and the awareness that the expansion of space and place through the transgression of physical and psychological boundaries contributes towards a more balanced personality. After the dissolution of apartheid, contemporary white South African men, as exemplified by the three protagonists, have become aware of their minority status and tend to dissociate themselves from the country as home. As borderline figures, they contend with feelings of marginalisation and isolation. Increasingly conscious of their contradictory non-African identity, the protagonists undertake journeys during which they acquire insight into themselves as well as an altered perception of the other. Although the former settlers‟ experience of alienation and ambivalence about colonisation and apartheid has been depicted in various novels, the significance of this experience relating to white South African male identity has not yet been fully explored in a comparative study of Conyngham‟s, Galgut‟s and Heyns‟s works with reference to the authors‟ place within a postcolonial paradigm, their implementation of the detective narrative frame and the role of intertextuality and irony that can be seen to define the novels and suggest other interpretative possibilities. The novels are critically analysed in terms of the concepts of space and place, the presence, transgression and transcendence of boundaries, and the influence of these paradigms on the characters‟ sense of self and their relationship with others and society at large. The novels‟ narrative frame and strategies in relation to the myths of Africa are also investigated. The thesis argues that the apprehension articulated by representatives of European settlers regarding the consequences of colonisation and apartheid has become more prominent during the post-liberation dispensation. The acceptance of responsibility for the past and for others, as well as intense self-appraisal, should enable the three protagonists to achieve a more expansive sense of self and a meaningful existence. / PhD (English), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

This study analyses how abusive treatment is handled in three novels for adolescents, Färglös, Näthat blues, and Fjärde riket, in order to reveal how these novels can be used as a basis for discussions of values in the teaching of Swedish in upper secondaryschool. The three novels were chosen because statistics showed that they were the most frequently borrowed books for young people under the subject heading bullying at a library in southern Sweden. The analysis shows that there are different forms of abusive treatment in the three books. Färglös describes abusive treatment against a social category, where the members of the vulnerable group are forced to protect themselves and each other as a group. Näthat blues is about net bullying, sexual harassment, and gender-related bullying against a specific individual, while Fjärde riket shows how abuse can be used as a strategy to achieve a higher power position. The latter book tells the story from the point of view of both the victim and the perpetrators. The conclusionis that the three novels, in different ways, invite changes of perspective and can function well as a basis for discussions about abuse using fictitious characters.

Thesis (MPhil (Visual Arts))--Stellenbosch University, 2008. / This thesis considers the author's project submission, a comic-book entitled The Number One Game, as production of a local heroic myth. The author will show how this project attempts to engage with mythic and archetypal material to produce an entertaining narrative that has relevance to contemporary Cape Town. The narrative adapts previous incarnations of the hero, with reference to theories of archetypes and mythic patterning devices that are derived from the concept of the “mono-myth”. Joseph Campbell's conception of myth as expressing internal psychic processes will be compared to Roland Barthes' reading of myth as a special inflection of speech that forms a semiotic “metalanguage”. The comic-book is a specific form of the language of comics, a combination of image and text that is highly structured and that can produce a rich graphic text. Using the Judge Dredd and Batman comic-books as models it will be shown how The Number One Game adapts traditions of representation, such as in genre references, to local perspective to create a novel interplay of archetypes. It will be shown that this interplay in the author's project work and the rich potential of the comic-book as a site for mythic speech makes the mythic a useful paradigm for considering the expression of ideology in the heroic comic-book.

Thesis (MPhil (Visual Arts. Illustration))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / The aim of this thesis is to decode my autobiographic graphic novel, Portrait in Pieces (a narrative of a mother / daughter relationship), utilising a genealogical mode of analysis. This takes place, firstly, through a discussion of the themes of photography, memory and repetition which occur in the graphic novel; secondly, through a consideration of the role of language and difference within a specific mother / daughter relationship; and thirdly, through the study of autobiography and the self as performative entities. In this thesis I interrogate the autobiographic genre in a manner that questions internalised notions of femininity and (patriarchal) cultural constructs, which precede and influence the performance of our ‘life scripts’. I posit Portrait in Pieces as a transitional object between my mother and myself, and language as a medium which can both Otherise and close the distance between us. Translation is the medium by which one reads this distance, turning miscommunication into communication, and misunderstanding into understanding. The illustrations and text constituting the graphic novel have been produced through creative play, representing the ‘post talking’ required for the process of healing, empathising, and taking ownership of one’s ‘life script’.