This study examines the contribution of popular culture and artefacts in the narratives of the James Bond films and postulates that these narratives in turn become popular cultures of their own. In the audiovisual industry the actuality and novelty of the content and the production thereof relates directly to the success of the production. The main reason is because of actuality of the theme, topic and the popular culture portrayed in the production. The popular culture products at the time of production is set to change rapidly within weeks from the time the premiere has been broadcast. These products include technologies like colour, grain and resolution which are quite evident even to the untrained eye. Furthermore, and as the aim of this study, social products like fashion, hairstyles, language, décor, cars, watches, slang, paradigms, narrative schemes and actuality news stories will have rapidly changed and might not be accepted and embraced by the viewers. The unique way in which all of these elements are incorporated into the narrative scheme for the production can proclaim a stake in box-office income for a film. These popular culture elements are usually developed with a short term and immediate goal of success in mind. For the purposes of this study though, and as a result of its success, the James Bond 007 films by Eon Productions are studied as a unique case study of a sustainable popular cultural phenomenon. Although initially thought of as too popular for academic inquests Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels soon attracted the attention of academics like Kingsley Amis and Umberto Eco. In the years to follow numerous theorists the likes of Roland Barthes, Robin Wood, Tony Bennett, Janet Woollacot and James Chapman investigated the academic and socio-cultural implications of Bond. According to Chapman (1999:4-13) the main reason that the James Bond “phenomenon” is still not receiving much academic attention is because it is merely “unfashionable in the present intellectual climate”. Trahair (1976:1) states that merchandising the hero’s image is important in creating a popular hero. He adds that this is only possible if you have a “saleable” item, in this case Bond. Not only is the Bond phenomenon well marketed but also well accepted by audiences. It is estimated that almost half the world’s population has seen at least one Bond film (Chapman, 1999:14; Smith & Lavington, 2002:1). According to Smith and Lavington (2002:1) the Bond franchise is seen as: “the longest-running, most commercially successful and perhaps most recognisable film series in the history of the medium”. Bond raked in record breaking audiences and or box-office income for almost every newly released James Bond film over a period of forty years. It is also recorded as the highest grossing film franchise in the world with added grosses of more than $3 billion until 1999 (Chapman, 1999:14). This gives an indication of the acceptance of the holistic concept that is James Bond 007. It leads to the question of why James Bond works in a world that has changed enormously in the last forty years. What is presently in fashion and technologically advanced could be easily outdated and succeeded by the time it is sold. It is then the popular nature of the franchise as created through the narrative scheme and popular culture elements within this narrative recipe that lead to this enquiry. After branding Bond as being extremely popular, Smith and Lavington (2002:1) remarks that: “We know that. Everyone knows that. And that’s the point.” They are referring to the fact that Bond is so well known and accepted that an inquiry into its popularity is inevitable. Although many such enquiries have been made this study will focus on the use of popular commodities or popular culture artefacts to popularise the narratives of the James Bond films. These narratives in turn commodify the films as a popular franchise. / Dr. F.P. Duvenage

M.Phil. / This study is undertaken against the backdrop of the "narrativistic turn" in the human sciences. While narratives were traditionally regarded as the terrain of literary studies, it has increasingly become a focus in various disciplines since the 1970s. The usefulness of the concept "narrative identity" is investigated as a means to deal with the problematization of the subject (and personal identity) in postmodern thought. The influence of 20th Century language theory and constructionism on the problematization of the subject is also discussed. It is argued that the self (and personal identity) can not be regarded as a pre-existing subject that simply finds expression in narratives (as sometimes happens in narrative therapy). Such a view would presuppose a pre-linguistic cogito. The self (and personal identity) is not readily available for examination by the self. From a hermeneutical point of view, the self is always an interpretation. Paul Ricoeur's discussion of "narrative identity" is used tot discuss the processes of identity construction in self-narratives. The way in which a "narrative identity" is constructed in a self-narrative is examined with reference to Karel Schoeman's autobiography (Die laaste Afrikaanse boek – literally "The Last Afrikaans Book"). An autobiography is a representation of a life in which a subject is self-consciously constructing an identity. This specific autobiography makes explicit, self-conscious use of literary devices and refers to literary texts which makes it possible to examine the influence of fiction on self-narratives. In the process of this study it is demonstrated that insights provided by literary studies could contribute to narrative psychology and in this sense it is demonstrated that the strict boundaries that often exist between disciplines could be dissolved. Various ways by which the study of literature could contribute to the expansion of the hermeneutical basis on which individuals base their self-narratives, and the spin-offs for narrative therapy, is the most important result of the study. Some gains of narratology (within literary analysis) for narrative therapy are also examined.

M.A. / 'Writing the city'‘, particularly writing the city of Johannesburg, in post-apartheid South African fiction can be considered as a new approach to interpreting South African culture; a new approach that takes into consideration and reflects the changes taking place in present-day South African society. By means of close textual analysis, this study examines the ways in which the city of Johannesburg is in the process of being re-imagined and reinvented in post-apartheid South African fiction and, therefore, in the post-apartheid memory. Particular attention is paid to narrative techniques utilised in the primary material as a means of not only re-writing the space of the city, but the space of South Africa as well. This is essential in order to reveal how transformation is narrated in post-apartheid, transitional texts and how this narration changes in post-transitional South African fiction. The chosen texts are read and interpreted as a type of cultural history or memory – as a means of constructing South African culture and history through textual production. In particular, this dissertation illustrates how texts written on Johannesburg, such as Phaswane Mpe‘s Welcome To Our Hillbrow (2001), Ivan Vladislavić‘s The Restless Supermarket (2001) and Kgebetli Moele‘s Room 207 (2006) are utilising the subject matter and every day life of the city as an 'idea‘; as a means of expressing societal concerns and other important changes taking place in the country as a whole. This study focuses on how each of the three chosen novels contributes to South African culture and history by narrating its transformative history. Topics such as the depiction of Johannesburg as a palimpsest and as a cultural archive of historical moments in present-day South Africa are explored. In this regard, themes and representations of movement, transition and transformation in the city of Johannesburg, as well as attempts to memorialise this space, are dealt with. In addition, the representation of a 'gendered‘ city as a means of narrating such transformation is also discussed. Here, reference is made to concerns such as the shifting position of men and women in the city, changing gender-related city consciousness, and altered gender discourse surrounding the city. This dissertation identifies and considers how depictions of the city of Johannesburg are being altered and modified in contemporary South African literature and contemplates the ways in which the narratives reveal how transformation is narrated via the Johannesburg landscape.

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Conrad Aiken’s observation that the “landscape and the language are the same, and we ourselves are language and are land,” depicts the material terrain we inhabit as necessarily informing the language we speak. An important corollary to Aiken’s observation is language itself writes the land. I argue that the binary division between culture and nature, as well as the attempts to universalise languages, abstracts discourse from necessary situated knowledges, alienating the land from the language it embodies. The severing of culture and nature as implied by Aiken’s observation is indicative of humanity’s progressive isolation from the land through language, as well as from their embodied natures. Remoteness results in what Marlene van Niekerk’s novel Agaat (2006) terms a “poverty disease” (2006: 251). Michiel Heyns confirms that the character Agaat relates this barrenness of spirit to her “diagnosis of spiritual ills through human dealings with the soil” (2009: 132). I illustrate the novel’s revitalisation of language as an act of ecological recuperation that alleviates dis-eased consciousnesses by potentially recognising, valuing and responding to situated knowledges revealed in land narratives.1 My argument therefore uncovers the challenges that the novel directs at an unreformed and universal Western2 To this end I use critiques of colonialism that reveal culture’s assimilation of the Other, rationalist discourse that continues to appropriate nature as resource for a hierarchical culture. 3 By combining this literary analysis with a wider eco-theoretical enquiry I position my study in an interdisciplinary field of investigation. This is in response to the damaging consequences of the inherited and fragmentary nature of specialisation. In addition, by detailing literary and feminist especially the work of Val Plumwood, Donna Haraway and Nicole Brossard. I use these critiques to analyse self/Other oppositions that Western culture constructs and patrols to maintain a defensive culture of domination. I show how nature and all those feminised and marginalised by Western discourses that hierarchise culture have been consistently overlooked and under-represented by those who purport to ‘control’ the environment and privilege the symbolic language as the carrier of culture. Agaat provides fruitful terrain for the reflection of marginalised voices; voices that confirm the environment and language as necessarily both feminist and social justice issues. 1 My preference for the hyphenated usage of the word ‘dis-ease’ signals the equation between discomfort or unease and disease or sickness. 2 While I am concerned over emphasising words such as Western and Apartheid by capitalising them, I have decided to retain this form so as not to diminish the magnitude of the effect these discourses have had on global and regional communities. 3 When referring to Others I, like Karen J. Warren, capitalise the term. Warren defines Others as all earth Others subjected to “unjustified domination-subordination relationships” (2005: 252). responses to Western patriarchal discourse and its impact on nature, I show the ways in which literature negotiates the possible re-conceptualisation of our collective cultural imagination. Van Niekerk’s novel offers a sustained critique of the oppressive Western conceptual frameworks that have dominated Others through hegemonic constructions. Furthermore, I investigate what this writer might offer as an alternative to systems of social, political and ecological control and the violence it inflicts.

A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (in Music Research). Johannesburg, March 2016 / The thesis entitled Wherefore Musician? is a critical engagement with the experiences of musicians who were involved in dramatic theatre productions at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg between 2010 and 2014. The study is a narrative inquiry, which uncovers the lived experiences of musicians from their narration of select collaborative encounters. The narratives speak to integrated cross-disciplinary models of theatre making, where various signifiers and performance texts contribute towards a cohesive production. / MT2017

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How do ELA spaces, here defined as classroom practices, curricula, and assignments, invite students to locate “their” voice? To enact one? To what extent do or might pedagogical approaches to and community norms for a class discussion; the possibility and opportunity to lean into uncertainty; the texts students read and are exposed to; and the kinds of writing assignments and different narrative perspectives with which they experiment each play a role in shaping that voice? The chapters that follow will explore occasions and sites where voice may be located in different iterations in the ELA secondary classroom. Based on student claims and written responses on which I report in this dissertation, ELA spaces emerge as a kind of laboratory theater for locating a writerly identity. The results of my research suggest that Harkness pedagogy; reading and writing in response to literature; dialectical journaling; essaying that embraces uncertainty; experiment and play with different narrative perspectives; and being in conversation with literature are all promising pedagogical approaches to ELA instruction whose aim is to help writers locate and develop their own writerly voice.

The research project asks the question: What role does storytelling have in enhancing cultural self-awareness and achieving perspective transformation in terms of values, attitudes, and assumptions about the world? The study group comprised people who participated between 1995 and 2009 in a year-long Colorado Vincentian Volunteer (CVV) program for young adults. It combined an online survey with 1-hour follow-up interviews by phone with nine individuals. This data is augmented with written stories produced during their volunteer year by the interviewees. The study shows that over 90% of those surveyed agree that regular, structured reflective story-telling sessions helped consolidate their learning and foster perspective transformation as defined by Mezirow (1990). Analysis of interviews plus evidence from written stories supports these claims and also illustrates volunteer development of cultural self-awareness as described by Yoshikawa (1980). I conclude that storytelling can be a significant emotional, psychological, and intellectual support to people involved in voluntary intercultural experiences.

The utility of narrative as a persuasive mechanism has been increasingly investigated in recent years especially within the context of health behaviors. Although many studies have noted the effectiveness of narrative-based persuasive appeals, conceptual inconsistencies have made it difficult to determine what specific aspects of narrative messages lead to the most effective persuasive outcomes. In the present study, 145 female college students were randomly assigned to read one of four narrative health messages about a female freshman college students experiences with the human papillomavirus (HPV). Two elements of the narrative message structure were manipulated: the message frame (gain framed vs. loss framed), and the grammatical person of the text (first-person vs. third-person).The messages were presented via the medium of an online blog. After reading a narrative participants responded to a brief questionnaire designed to measure perceptions of threat regarding HPV contraction, perceptions of efficacy regarding HPV prevention, and intentions to get the Gardasil vaccine. Participants exposed to loss framed messages reported higher levels of perceived threat (susceptibility and severity) than participants exposed to gain framed messages although participants in the gain framed message conditions reported higher levels of perceived self-efficacy. Significant correlations were also found between levels of reported character identification and the two threat variables. No effects were found for grammatical person.