A thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy - Flinders University of South Australia, Faculty of Education Humanities, Law and Theology, June 2003. / Title from electronic thesis (viewed 27/7/10)

The thesis deals with one major issue of how the amaXhosa authors reflect change and transition in the lives of their characters in the period under consideration. This change pertains both to the socio-politico-economic life of the people concerned and the contents of the books and the style of the authors' writings. The study is ground-breaking in that it goes beyond common dissection of the structural elements of the books to a synthetic study of their themes, subject matter, character portrayal and setting. The primary aim is to give a holistic overview of the changing culture of the black people against the backdrop of subjugation and transformation. Chapter 1 contains all the formal preliminary information such as aim, method, context, relevance and topicality of study. Chapter 2 anchors the study in the newspaper age as a solid foundation for the amaXhosa literature. Chapter 3 is an overview of the beginnings of literary endeavours among the amaXhosa and how they reflect the impact of socio-economic pressures in the lives of the people. Chapter 4 further illustrates the impact of education and Christianisation on the blacks as well as growing political awareness among the authors. Chapter 5 focuses on culture-clash among the amaXhosa as a result of the alienating influence of both the church and the school. Chapter 6 highlights changes in society at the height of oppression under the previous political dispensation. Chapters 7 and 8 reflect the authors' thinking and how they depict changes in post-apartheid South Africa while Chapter 9 focuses on the role of Language Boards in restricting freedom of writing and expression during the apartheid years. Chapter 10 is a general conclusion that encapsulates the main points of the thesis. / African Languages / D. Litt, et Phil. (African Languages)

This study explores the notion of female cultural difference in the context of dominant patriarchal and other oppressive patriarchal structures. Essentially, its focus is on deconstructing stereotypical images of women, who are often perceived as homogenous. Throughout the study I argue that as much as their sensibilities are varied, African and African American women respond differently to the oppressive conditions they find themselves in. The following selected texts provided the opportunities for exploring and evaluating the genealogy of female cultural difference that is central to my research: Anthills of the Savannah (Chinua Achebe); Scarlet Song (Mariama Ba); The Joys of Motherhood and Kehinde (BuchiEmecheta); Their Eyes Were Watching God (Nora Zeale Hurston); Bitches Brew and Seven Steps to Heaven (Fred Khumalo). In the process of analyzing these texts, I demonstrated that the notion of cultural difference is often narrowly and erroneously construed. I discovered that the protagonists in these texts are not only conscious of their oppressed condition but often adopt strategic agency to contest male privileges that silence them. In pursuit of this critical perspective, I have proceeded to apply relevant theoretical frameworks constructed by Cornel West, Hudson-Weems, Bakhtin and a conflation of others whose philosophical tenets support the major theoretical frameworks. The aforementioned literary critics have enabled me to come up with a more comprehensive and richer analysis of the set texts. In my analysis I have advanced the argument that female visibility manifests itself variously and temporally through individual and sometimes sisterly attempts at empowerment, self- definition and esoteric discursive features. I noted that all this is evidence of the nascent creative potential in African women who refuse to be silenced. In my analysis of the Seven texts I have incorporated, modified and developed some of the insights from critical thinkers who engage in the ongoing debate about female cultural difference. This approach has enabled me to come up with new insights that ferret out veneers of African women’s rich cultural diversity, in light of the ever changing nature of women’s operational spaces. It is this transcendental vision that basically informs and resonates with my study. / English Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (English)

A ideia do País de Gales como uma nação que detém sua identidade própria foi-se diluindo aos poucos, na medida em que se incorporou à história geral e à cultura do Reino Unido, as quais por sua vez são determinadas pela Inglaterra e pelos valores ingleses. A identidade galesa, como qualquer outra identidade nacional, é uma construção feita a partir de muitos fatores determinantes, entre eles os eventos históricos. Nesta tese, apresento minha leitura do romance histórico Here Be Dragons, da autora estadunidense Sharon Kay Penman, para explorar e analisar a questão da identidade nacional galesa e para examinar como o conceito de Identidade Galesa se configura naquele universo ficcional. Este trabalho representa também uma busca pessoal e uma investigação sobre minha identidade e memória galesa, já que fui criado e educado numa Gales gerida pelo sistema educacional inglês, que excluía dos currículos quase todas as referências à história, ao idioma e aos valores do País de Gales. O romance estudado se passa em um período da Baixa Idade Média em que Gales luta por manter sua cultura e sua identidade, ao ser confrontada com um poder maior, o dos reis e barões anglo-normandos que buscam construir seu império. Como se trata de um romance histórico, considero importante explorar as relações entre narrativa histórica e narrativa histórica ficcional. Para tanto, apresento um esboço historiográfico e certas considerações sobre o romance histórico como gênero literário. Mais ainda, acredito ser necessário apresentar um pouco da história do País de Gales, não apenas para termos uma ideia do que seja a identidade galesa, mas também para colocar o romance analisado no seu contexto histórico apropriado. Esta tese está construída em três partes. Na primeira, examino os conceitos de identidade e memória cultural e nacional e aspectos históricos formadores da identidade galesa. Para tanto, me apoio em obras escritas por Anthony D. Smith, professor de Etnia e Nacionalismo da Escola de Economia de Londres, como embasamento teórico para os conceitos de nacionalismo e identidade cultural. A segunda parte, que trata sobre História, é dividida em três subseções. Na primeira apresento um esboço sobre historiografia, com considerações sobre como a História é apreendida e estudada. A segunda trata sobre o romance histórico, comentando como se tornou um gênero literário e como se relaciona com a narrativa histórica. A última subseção apresenta traços da história do País de Gales, para estabelecer as ligações com as questões de identidade nacional. A terceira seção da tese apresenta a minha leitura de Here Be Dragons, na qual examino como é construída na narrativa a questão da identidade galesa através das personagens principais e nas descrições das paisagens e de estruturas medievais como castelos e mansões. Na conclusão, apresento as últimas considerações sobre os processos que levaram ao apagamento e à consequente busca de resgate da identidade nacional galesa. Acredito assim estar cumprindo minha parte neste processo que é tão bem representado no romance Here Be Dragons de Sharon Kay Penman. / Wales, as a nation in itself, has to some extent been forgotten and absorbed into the general history and culture of the United Kingdom, which for the most part, is dominated by England and “English” values. Welsh identity, or indeed any national identity, is a construct of many determining factors, not the least of which are historical events. In this dissertation, I present my reading of the historical novel, Here Be Dragons by American author Sharon Kay Penman, in order to explore and analyze the question of Welsh national identity and to examine how the concept of Welshness is configured in this fictional universe. This work is also a personal search and exploration into Welsh identity and memory, as I was brought up and educated through an English educational system – in Wales – which excluded a greater part of Welsh history, language and values from the curriculum. The novel covers a late medieval period of between 1183 and 1234, during which Wales struggles to maintain its unique identity and culture against the greater power of the empire-building Anglo-Norman kings and barons. As this dissertation concerns a historical novel, in order to better understand the relationship between a history narrative and a historical-novel fictional narrative, an outline of historiography and a background to the genre of the historical novel are important. Furthermore, a description of the historical background of Wales is necessary, not only to give us an idea of the formation of the Welsh identity, but also to place the novel into its correct historical context. The dissertation is divided into three parts. In part one, I examine the concepts of national and cultural identity and memory and the cultural and historical aspects which form the identity of Wales. I have used the works of Anthony D. Smith, professor of Ethnicity and Nationalism at the London School of Economics as a theoretical basis for the concepts of national and cultural identity. Part two, which deals with history, is divided into three sub-sections. In the first sub-section I examine and briefly outline historiography, how history is studied and presented. The second sub-section deals with the historical novel, how it developed as a literary genre and its relationship with the history narrative. The final sub-section is a historical background to Wales in order to have a better understanding of Welsh identity. Part three of the dissertation is my reading of Here Be Dragons, in which I examine the construction of Welsh identity in the narrative in the principal characters and the symbols that represent Wales in the descriptions of landscapes and medieval structures such as castles and manor houses. To conclude, I present my final considerations of the processes which have led to the eradication and the consequent search to restore a Welsh national identity. Thus, I believe I am fulfilling my part in this process that is so well represented in Sharon Kay Penman’s novel Here Be Dragons.

A ideia do País de Gales como uma nação que detém sua identidade própria foi-se diluindo aos poucos, na medida em que se incorporou à história geral e à cultura do Reino Unido, as quais por sua vez são determinadas pela Inglaterra e pelos valores ingleses. A identidade galesa, como qualquer outra identidade nacional, é uma construção feita a partir de muitos fatores determinantes, entre eles os eventos históricos. Nesta tese, apresento minha leitura do romance histórico Here Be Dragons, da autora estadunidense Sharon Kay Penman, para explorar e analisar a questão da identidade nacional galesa e para examinar como o conceito de Identidade Galesa se configura naquele universo ficcional. Este trabalho representa também uma busca pessoal e uma investigação sobre minha identidade e memória galesa, já que fui criado e educado numa Gales gerida pelo sistema educacional inglês, que excluía dos currículos quase todas as referências à história, ao idioma e aos valores do País de Gales. O romance estudado se passa em um período da Baixa Idade Média em que Gales luta por manter sua cultura e sua identidade, ao ser confrontada com um poder maior, o dos reis e barões anglo-normandos que buscam construir seu império. Como se trata de um romance histórico, considero importante explorar as relações entre narrativa histórica e narrativa histórica ficcional. Para tanto, apresento um esboço historiográfico e certas considerações sobre o romance histórico como gênero literário. Mais ainda, acredito ser necessário apresentar um pouco da história do País de Gales, não apenas para termos uma ideia do que seja a identidade galesa, mas também para colocar o romance analisado no seu contexto histórico apropriado. Esta tese está construída em três partes. Na primeira, examino os conceitos de identidade e memória cultural e nacional e aspectos históricos formadores da identidade galesa. Para tanto, me apoio em obras escritas por Anthony D. Smith, professor de Etnia e Nacionalismo da Escola de Economia de Londres, como embasamento teórico para os conceitos de nacionalismo e identidade cultural. A segunda parte, que trata sobre História, é dividida em três subseções. Na primeira apresento um esboço sobre historiografia, com considerações sobre como a História é apreendida e estudada. A segunda trata sobre o romance histórico, comentando como se tornou um gênero literário e como se relaciona com a narrativa histórica. A última subseção apresenta traços da história do País de Gales, para estabelecer as ligações com as questões de identidade nacional. A terceira seção da tese apresenta a minha leitura de Here Be Dragons, na qual examino como é construída na narrativa a questão da identidade galesa através das personagens principais e nas descrições das paisagens e de estruturas medievais como castelos e mansões. Na conclusão, apresento as últimas considerações sobre os processos que levaram ao apagamento e à consequente busca de resgate da identidade nacional galesa. Acredito assim estar cumprindo minha parte neste processo que é tão bem representado no romance Here Be Dragons de Sharon Kay Penman. / Wales, as a nation in itself, has to some extent been forgotten and absorbed into the general history and culture of the United Kingdom, which for the most part, is dominated by England and “English” values. Welsh identity, or indeed any national identity, is a construct of many determining factors, not the least of which are historical events. In this dissertation, I present my reading of the historical novel, Here Be Dragons by American author Sharon Kay Penman, in order to explore and analyze the question of Welsh national identity and to examine how the concept of Welshness is configured in this fictional universe. This work is also a personal search and exploration into Welsh identity and memory, as I was brought up and educated through an English educational system – in Wales – which excluded a greater part of Welsh history, language and values from the curriculum. The novel covers a late medieval period of between 1183 and 1234, during which Wales struggles to maintain its unique identity and culture against the greater power of the empire-building Anglo-Norman kings and barons. As this dissertation concerns a historical novel, in order to better understand the relationship between a history narrative and a historical-novel fictional narrative, an outline of historiography and a background to the genre of the historical novel are important. Furthermore, a description of the historical background of Wales is necessary, not only to give us an idea of the formation of the Welsh identity, but also to place the novel into its correct historical context. The dissertation is divided into three parts. In part one, I examine the concepts of national and cultural identity and memory and the cultural and historical aspects which form the identity of Wales. I have used the works of Anthony D. Smith, professor of Ethnicity and Nationalism at the London School of Economics as a theoretical basis for the concepts of national and cultural identity. Part two, which deals with history, is divided into three sub-sections. In the first sub-section I examine and briefly outline historiography, how history is studied and presented. The second sub-section deals with the historical novel, how it developed as a literary genre and its relationship with the history narrative. The final sub-section is a historical background to Wales in order to have a better understanding of Welsh identity. Part three of the dissertation is my reading of Here Be Dragons, in which I examine the construction of Welsh identity in the narrative in the principal characters and the symbols that represent Wales in the descriptions of landscapes and medieval structures such as castles and manor houses. To conclude, I present my final considerations of the processes which have led to the eradication and the consequent search to restore a Welsh national identity. Thus, I believe I am fulfilling my part in this process that is so well represented in Sharon Kay Penman’s novel Here Be Dragons.

A large number of recent scholarship in (American) literary and cultural studies is devoted to describing the contemporary moment as a monumental break from the previous (or current) period, postmodernism, by hailing our contemporary times as the era of post-postmodernism, late postmodernism, metamodernism, cosmodernism, or of a similarly termed construction. In these different proclamations, we recognize a pervasive tendency to periodize, an attempt to separate phases of human existence and cultural creation into neat stages that ‘logically’ follow after one another to form a supposedly coherent narrative. This practice of periodizing comes with a number of pitfalls that many of these studies seem not fully aware of, and it in turn speaks to (and characterizes) the contemporary moment as one marked by a desire for the boundedness of such clear divisions. In the following pages, we chronicle the quandaries that follow from such implicit and explicit efforts of periodization by focalizing them through three different ‘creation myths’ of the contemporary that such efforts at periodization typically subscribe to. As a way of sidestepping these, we accentuate the strengths of more ‘local’ critical lenses, approaches that historicize without periodizing. As one such lens, we suggest to engage the contemporary moment through the ‘poetics of politics,’ a historical discursive formation in which literary and popular texts’ desire for political relevance is matched by a recognition, in politics, of the (meta)textual quality of political action.

This thesis examines the relationship between Southern literature and socio-cultural realities of the Southern region of the United States of America. Analyzing works of five distinguished Southern writers, this thesis examines the reflection of specific Southern culture features in literature of the region in the period from the end of the American Civil War to the second half of the 20th century. The thesis oppose the opinion that the primary goal of Southern literature was to promote Southern identity and its cultural superiority above the North. The central hypothesis, that is being verified by this thesis, is that despite the indisputable contribution of highly recognized Southern writers to building of Southern identity, these authors expressed in their works also often sharp critiques of the social conditions in the South.

The present alphabetical Bibliography ranging from `Abdalla` to `Zhukov` includes old and new titles on Swahili Literature, Linguistics, Culture and History. Swahili Studies or \''Swahilistics\'' have grown strong since the mid-1980s when scholars started to increasingly engage in international networking, first by communicating through the newsletter Swahili Language and Society: Notes and News from Vienna (Nos. 1.1984-9.1992) and Antwerp (No. 10.1993) and then through the journal Swahili Forum published at the University of Cologne (Nos. I. 1994 - IX. 2002), not to mention the numerous conferences held in Dar es Salaam, Nairobi, London, Bayreuth and other places, and not to forget the achievements of the journal Kiswahili from Dar es Salaam as another steady medium of Swahili scholarship. Of course, this Bibliography is not the only one: other useful and specialized bibliographical information appeared in articles, surveys, reference books and larger studies, which are indicated in the following. Part of the titles have been extracted from these sources and integrated into the present Bibliography after having had a physical look at them. As this was not always possible, it seems still to be advisable and necessary to consult the indicated sources themselves when it comes to selecting one\''s base of research literature.

This dissertation examines dog and idiot tropes—and, specifically, the conflation thereof—in William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury (1929), John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men (1937), and Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, Or The Evening Redness in the West (1985). In addition to illustrating the key roles the idiot/dog figure plays in canonical works of twentieth-century U.S. fiction, it argues that this conflation is too often presumed to signify denigration (i.e. a social, political, and ethical exclusion) and degeneration (i.e. a biological threat). Around the turn of the century, the idiot/dog emerges as an aesthetic figure in conjunction with contemporaneous practices of dog breeding and eugenics, as well as co-extensive discourses of national progress and racial purity. In this context, literary idiot/dogs can be read as enciphering a violent historical subtext. Yet, rather than simply condemn this figure as a dehumanizing stereotype, this dissertation challenges such a reductive approach on the grounds that it risks reproducing a hermeneutic that is both ableist and speciesist. A new approach is proposed: reading for the tropological confusion of idiocy and caninity and the destabilizing affective and epistemological effects this poses for liberal subjectivity. Reading for tropological confusion in the fictions of Faulkner, Steinbeck, and McCarthy not only develops new interpretations of three canonical works; it unlocks the idiot/dog figure as a site of textual excess. In so doing, this dissertation makes original contributions to twentieth-century U.S. fiction scholarship, Disability Studies, Animal Studies, and biopolitical theory. The idiot/dog figure’s in/determination—a paradoxical embodiment of humanized canine animality and animalized human mental disability—catalyzes hermeneutic and affective uncertainties. Ultimately, both impinge upon questions of readers’ own abilities to: (i) fully parse the fictions idiot/dogs appear in, and (ii) self-reflexively understand themselves as autonomous, human(e) subjects. Each chapter carefully elaborates this figure’s centrality to the textual operations of, respectively, The Sound and the Fury, Of Mice and Men, and Blood Meridian in terms of their narrative and meta-narrative dimensions; this reveals under-examined continuities. By arguing for idiot/dogs’ disruptive potentials (i.e. affective, epistemological, and ethical), this dissertation bridges and extends previous Disability Studies and Animal Studies interventions that link literary representations to social and material contexts. Also, it further intervenes in these subfields by elaborating the biopolitical reasons for and ramifications of the idiot/dog figure’s emergence in twentieth-century Anglo-American fiction. Each chapter outlines how and why idiot/dog figures constitute a means for harmonizing readers’ experiences, thoughts, desires, and feelings with the normative U.S. social and symbolic order—a national order that hinges on recognitions and denials of human subjectivity, as well as on the production of subjectivity in which fiction is implicated. Ultimately, by closely analyzing literary idiot/dog figures, this dissertation contributes a biopolitical critique of the ontological production and governability of readerly subjects themselves. / Graduate / 2021-09-05

Dans cette thèse, on examine les différents aspects de la réception et de la fortune des contes de la baronne d’Aulnoy à la fin du XIXe siècle, permettant d’enrichir les analyses critiques à propos des contes de fées classiques et de leur perception en époque moderne. L’étude porte, en un premier temps, sur le domaine de nouvelles éditions des contes qui voient le jour à partir de premières années du XIXe siècle, jusqu’aux premières années du XXe. La composition des volumes et la forme des textes permettent de comprendre comment c’est uniquement à la fin du XIXe siècle que Mme d’Aulnoy commence à être considérée comme une auteure classique : une écrivaine qui propose aux lecteurs des contes merveilleux originaux et non pas une simple transcriptrice de contes folkloriques. L’analyse des réécritures et des transpositions permet, en revanche, de comprendre le rôle de la baronne et de son œuvre dans le renouvellement du merveilleux de la fin du siècle, car les réécritures complètes de certains de ses contes présentent des traits stylistiques propres au genre du merveilleux perverti. Cela permet de saisir l’intérêt que les auteurs de cette époque portent sur la figure de l’écrivaine : elle est perçue comme un modèle, au même niveau que Charles Perrault, ce qui justifie la présence de réécritures complètes de son œuvre. D’un autre côté, certaines reprises de thèmes, motifs et personnages, permettent de mieux comprendre l’importance du souvenir littéraire dans le renouvellement du genre merveilleux. Les transpositions pour le théâtre sont, enfin, présentes uniquement dans la culture anglaise. Les contes de la baronne d’Aulnoy qui participent à ce phénomène permettent un profond renouvellement de certains genres du théâtre classique et la création de nouveaux, qui présentent, pour la première fois, le thème du grotesque. Ce travail permet, donc, de souligner la portée et l’importance de la production d’une écrivaine qui a été, pendant longtemps oubliée et de mettre en relief en quel sens ses contes merveilleux ont contribué à enrichir plusieurs genres et plusieurs modèles relevant de la culture de la fin du siècle. / In this thesis, the variousaspects of the reception and the fortune of the fairy tales of the baroness of d’Aulnoy at the end of the 19th century are examined, allowing enriching the critical analyses about classical fairy tales and their perception in modern time. In first place, new editions of the tales, printed from from first years of the 19thcentury, until the first years of 20th are examined. The composition of volumes and the shape of the texts make it possible to understand how it is only at the end of the 19th century that Mrs. d'Aulnoy starts to be regarded as a classical author. She begins to be considered as a writer that proposes to the readers original marvelous tales and not a simple rewriter of folk tales. The analysis of the rewritings and the transpositions allows, on the other hand, to understand the role of the baroness and her work in the renewal of marvelous literature at the end of the century. In fact, the complete rewritings of some of its tales present some stylistics features that can be connected with the perverted marvelous, typical of the end of the century. That makes it possible to seize the interest which the authors of this time carry on the figure of the writer. She begins to be perceived as a model, on the same level as Charles Perrault, which justifies the presence of complete rewritings of its work. On the other hand, the presence of some themes and characters that can originally be found in Mrs. d’Aulnoy’s works inside new works allows to better understand the importance of the literary memory in the renewal of marvelous literary genre. In the end, the transpositions for the theater can only be found in the English culture. The tales of the baroness d’Aulnoy which take part in this phenomenon allow a deep renewal of certain genres of the classical theater and the creation of new ones, presenting, for the first time, characters and topics linked to grotesque. This work allows therefore, to stress the range and the importance of the production of a writer which, has been forgotten for a long time and to highlight in which direction its tales contributed to enrich the marvelous at the end of the century.