Includes bibliographical references (leaves 136-141). / This dissertation seeks to analyse insubordination and resistance manifested in postcolonial and post-apartheid poetry as ways of subverting dominant Western discourses. More specifically, I focus my analysis on textual strategies of resistance in the poetry of Linton Kwesi Johnson and Lesego Rampolokeng. The syncretistic quality in the oeuvres of both poets is related to diaspora, hybridity and crealisation as forms of writ[h]ing against (neo)colonially-based hegemonic discourses. Postcolonial critiques at large will frame this analysis of strategies of domination and resistance, but some discussions from the domain of history, sociology and cultural studies may also enter the debate. In this regard there is a great variety of theories and arguments dealing with the contradictions and incongruities in the question of power relations interconnecting domination and resistance. This study is arranged in three pivotal debates. There is firstly an in-depth discussion of underpinning theories that deal with strategies of domination and resistance in the postcolonial domain This is a threefold task carried out by scrutinising (a) the origins of colonial discourse and its binarist tendencies, (b) the pitfalls of anticolonialist resistance based on dualistic opposites, and (c) the hybrid and insubordinate nature of resistance as an efficient alternative to transcend such binaries. Afterwards I seek to investigate how strategies of diasporic resistance and cultural hybridism employed in the poetry of Linton Kwesi Johnson can contribute to moving away from the limitations of dichotomies and also subvert hegemonic power. And finally, I look at crealisation, mockery and insubordination as strategies of resistance in the postapartheid poetry of Lesego Rampolokeng. Besides that, this project is concerned with the increasing importance of academic studies on postcolonial literatures. The present research aims therefore to analyse postcolonial and post-apartheid poems as strategic techniques to decentre dominant Western rhetoric that tries to naturalise inequalities and injustices in the relations between power holders and the powerless in both local and global contexts.

This thesis examines three collections of poetry by Gary Snyder: Regarding Wave, Turtle Island and Axe Handles. It studies these works as an exploration of what I call the sacramental question, namely, "What is it in the nature of reality that can finally sanctify human existence?" I am particularly interested in four aspects of Snyder's treatment of this question: (1) the significance given to epistemological and ideological assumptions; (2) the concept of "woman", and particularly "the Goddess"; (3) the nature of those experiences which are presented in the poetry as "sacramental"; and (4) the poetic forms by which Snyder's approach is articulated. My analysis comprises five chapters and three appendices. The first chapter outlines the questions which the thesis addresses, placing these in the context of work by other critics, and providing a brief account of Snyder's writings as a whole. The three central chapters study one collection of poetry each, in chronological order, referring where appropriate to Snyder's other writings and to the oriental and other sources by which his approach to the sacramental question is informed. The final chapter summarises my conclusions. This is followed by an appended diagrammatic illustration of the structure of two poems, a chronology, and a glossary of foreign terms. In the thesis I refer to Anthony Wilden's model of "oppositional relations" in his critique of an epistemology which he calls "biosocial imperialism". In examining Snyder's use of form, I use two models for metaphor: Roman Jakobsen's account of metaphor and metonymy, and a model of metaphor as semantic transfer proposed by Eva Kittay and Adrienne Lehrer. The title of the thesis points to the conclusions which my work proposes. Snyder's later poetry suggests that our existence may be sanctified in an act of perception where the most everyday object or experience, because seen as it is, "in its thusness.., is acknowledged as a sacrament. Such an act of mind implies a recognition of the self as participant in a system of interdependent things, which in turn requires a critical reassessment of Cartesian dualism, and of its ideological manifestations. "Woman as nature" is Snyder's primary image for the source of sacramental transformation, and for alternatives to the ideology of patriarchal-technological culture. More significantly, however, the image of the feminine simultaneously appears, in the form of the goddesses VAK and GAIA, as a metaphor for the biosphere, the "whole earth", and so for a metaperspective on dualistic oppositions. As such, Snyder's Goddess is more than the reverse image of a patriarchal God. With respect to form, the use of syntax, metaphor, metonymy and open forms seems generally appropriate in articulating these concerns. Unlike some other readers I find that Snyder's use of broadly metaphoric structures is an important aspect of the poetry.

This dissertation investigates the debate between Georg Lukács and Bertolt Brecht in the 1930s, known as the Expressionist Debate and the controversy between Jean-Francais Lyotard and Juergen Habermas. which took place in the 1980s. The two debates. both of which took place among writers of the Left are juxtaposed in order to shed more light on the issues at stake in the Expressionist Debate when looked at in the light of postmodern concerns. The dissertation is based on selected texts by each of the four writers. Bibliography: pages 82-85.

This study is an examination of the development of the quest motif in Alice Walker's novels, from a male quest in the first novel, The Third Life of Grange Copeland, to the female quests which supersede it in the two later novels, Meridian and The Color Purple. In this analysis, brief reference is made to Walker's poetry, essays, and short stories, as well as to texts by black male writers and other Afro-American women writers.

South African poet laureate Keorapetse Kgositsile lived in extraordinary times marked by extraordinary challenges and changes. Born in 1938, exactly a decade before the draconian apartheid regime came into power, his life and work emerge from the milieus of British colonial South Africa, apartheid South Africa, civil rights America, anti-apartheid movements, anti-colonial wars in Africa, anti-imperialism in Asia, cold war politics, and the eventual demise of both the Berlin wall and the apartheid regime in South Africa. His poetry responds to these times in illuminating ways. His poetic influences point to his Tswanacentred upbringing, his encounter with Afro-American oral and literary traditions, the styles and poetics of Drum writers, the outpouring of African literature he received from the Makerere conference of Uganda, and anti-colonial critical thinkers from Africa and its diaspora. At age twenty three, post-Sharpeville massacres, he was sent into exile by the leadership of the ANC, and he took with him a corpus of Tswana literature which would in/form his poetic. He readily immersed himself in the oral and written tradition of Afro-America while in exile in the United States of America. His work interweaves the oral and literary traditions of black South Africa and black America, revealing a dynamic and complex relationship between the two geographical sites. Where oral traditions have largely been left out of the broader narrative of modernity, this study demonstrates how oral traditions remain alive and are reinvigorated, providing a resource that is then carried across the Atlantic and renewed in translation, rather than left behind to ossify. Kgositsile's prominent presence in black international periodicals and his collaborations with other diasporic cultural, political and musical figures there show that the relationship between the two geographical sites is more complex than its current positioning of Afro-America as a vanguard on which Africans model themselves. Through a reading of Kgositsile's revolutionary poetry, this study also shows how the indigenous resource base enables him to resolve the agonising temporal and spatial tensions presented by modernity's colonialism. He coins concepts that re-enchant the world through a poetic that fosters a dialogue between past and future, and traditional and modern in a simultaneous present he deems the NOW-time.

No description available.

Includes bibliographical references. / With the understanding that every generation shares a generational consciousness, which locates individuals not only in a common geographical location, but also a historical one, this study uses social-constructionist accounts of collective identity, narrative inquiry and positioning theory to trace the moral careers of twenty-six young, middle-class activists, based in Cape Town, South Africa. In doing so it explores the relationship between their activism and identities, and how this relationship is contingent on the social and political context of post-apartheid South Africa. The first part of this study provides an account of the dynamics of political community formation amongst this group of activists, how they generate a shared understanding of the world, how they construct borders of belonging and influence, and how these borders sometimes mirror broader social cleavages in post-apartheid in South Africa. The second part examines how participants draw on two major narratives, or morality plays, with which to construct their activist identities. The most significant of these is ‘the Struggle’, the story of the struggle against apartheid. The other is the ‘the TAC Method’, the story of the Treatment Action Campaign’s struggle for the treatment of those living with HIV and AIDS.

Utopia as a construct within an ideology offers minority groups a feasible space from which to negotiate an identity within a dominant discourse. Continuing human atrocities have led to a âspiral of oppressionâ, in which oppression continues, never resolving itself and never diminishing, but rather moving away from the utopian space within the centre. As the dominant discourse is threatened by the minority, minority groups are placed spatially, within this spiral of oppression into a marginal position called the âuniversal minorityâ, from which they have to negotiate with the dominant discourse, the âuniversal majorityâ, however unsuccessfully. Science fiction and utopian writing offer spaces in which minority groups can break through the âspiral of oppressionâ and negotiate directly with the dominant discourse. Trends in these two genres reveal which group is visioned as the âuniversal minorityâ, and the plight of the minority is highlighted in the alternative reality of these genres. Race (focussing on Hispanic discourse) and Sexuality (focussing on viable spaces for alternative sexuality) are two areas which are explored in this thesis as visions of the universal minority. Moreover, to understand the spiral of oppression, the Holocaust is reflected upon from a minority perspective, and literary responses as well as issues of post-holocaust compensation are addressed, reflecting the nature of the universal majority and universal minority. Finally, Utopia is often considered an unrealistic construct which cannot be attained by any legitimate agency other than an oligarchist regime or a strict governing body, which could lead to tyranny. Agency therefore is problematic; however, it will be argued that, even if full Utopia is not reached, the spiral of oppression can be broken and a utopian bridge of opportunity created through an idea of Brechtâs called Verfremdungseffekt (prompting self-awareness), using the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission as an example of a vehicle for this agency. The agency then becomes the awareness, which leads to the direct negotiation with the dominant discourse.

Section 1 will be a mostly descriptive engagement with the concept of 'post modern science', and will thus both quote and interpret scientific debate extensively. Although 'chaos' has been constituted as a formal discipline only after the publication of Gravity's Rainbow (GR), it has been included in the overview of postmodern science since it has both direct and indirect bearing on issues included within the scope of the thesis. Section 2 will deal with the use of postmodern science, and the 'scientific discourse' in general, within philosophical and artistic / literary activity. Special attention will be given to both limits and implications of this use. Section 2 will also develop the link with GR and Pynchcon's metaphorical use of the scientific discourse. Section 3 will deal more specifically with GR and will analyze various themes and topics in the light of the preceding discussion in Sections 1 and 2. Section 4 will focus on the broader connotations of GR and on possible avenues of 'escape' from cultural, economic, political and, even more elementary, linguistic processes and systems, in both definition and oppression of (and via) 'self.

Summary in English. / Bibliography: p. [181]-195. / Contemporary life is distinguished by a massive capacity for exchanging information. Increasingly comprehensive, global communication networks allow discrete realities to be linked. These prolific sources of representation generate a "membrane" of mediation, and a formal regime of fragmentation, depthlessness and allusiveness (Chambers, 11). These economic, epistemological and aesthetic conditions constitute postmodernism. This dissertation addresses the theoretical challenge of form by attempting to craft an approach commensurate to such semiotic density (Wollen, 65). Since formalist approaches have been criticised as ahistorical, attention is given to the concept's social dimensions hence the history and production context of communication technology is considered. The inquiry also acknowledges the specificities of its location. The matrix of unfamiliar allusions which characterises the South African experience of American texts, embodies the multi-tiered allusiveness of postmodernist texts. It also illustrates the cult precept that quotation can be appreciated even when its source is not recognized. Cult theorises viewership as active yet ambivalent (Eco, 1988, 454). The initial chapter delineates parameters in postmodernism, narrative, genre and cult theory. Subsequent chapters examine three postmodernist television series: Moonlighting, a detective series, Twin Peaks, a soap opera, and The Simpsons, an animated sitcom. Deploying parody, self-reflexivity and intertextuality, each has a complex relation with genre. Tony Bennett conceives of the latter as zones of sociality which constitute and are constituted by other zones (105). Changes in genre therefore articulate changes in modes of thinking and inscribe different reading strategies.