Thesis (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2007. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2002. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 212-220). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Performativity” is employed in this study as a methodological approach to an understanding of patriarchy and its effects. As the materialized effect of the use of language and symbolization (speech acts, larger discourses, rituals) it fits within the broad frame of rhetorics, where the last highlights the creational or shaping force of language. Specifically the study focuses on an adapted version of Judith Butler’s notion of “performativity” in an analysis of the lives of various women. The term “performativity” is used in two fundamentally different senses. In the first, it refers to the prescriptions and expectations of patriarchy in regard to the identity and behaviour of its subjects, presented to them through master narratives. This sense of the word is pejorative in that “performativity” is a means of oppression and control. In the other sense of the word, “performatives” are those alternative ways of behaving and responding, chosen by women in their attempts to free themselves from the stifling effects of patriarchy and the master-narrative that it dictates. In this sense, the term actually refers to contra-performatives. Any study focusing on patriarchy necessarily requires an understanding of the origins and workings, as well as the effects, of that phenomenon. The study traces the development of the patriarchal system from pre-history, through Antiquity, into the Middle Ages and the Modern Era. This examination reveals the universality of patriarchy around the world and throughout history. The phenomenon is defined as an oppressive system of male domination within the family and society. As the study focuses particularly on the lives of two fourteenth century English women, Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich, an examination of English society of that period as a strongly gendered culture, is undertaken. The very limited options available to women are delineated: the choice confronting them was either marriage and procreation, or church and chastity. Margery Kempe initially chose the former, while Julian of Norwich chose the latter. How did these choices impact on their lives, and in what ways may they be regarded as “performative”? Through various speech acts and rituals, as well as their writing, these women confronted patriarchy, sometimes directly and overtly, and at other times subtly and covertly, in their endeavours to create for themselves an alternative to patriarchal oppression. Alternative discourses informed alternative “performances”. In order to demonstrate the universality over time and place of patriarchy and the universal, “performative” response of women to it, the focus then shifts to nineteenth and twentieth century South Africa, where the life-worlds of a diverse group of women are studied. Again, “performativity” as a tool of liberation in the hands of women such as James Barry, Olive Schreiner, Johanna Brandt and Ellen Kuzwayo, is examined. The value of “performativity” is then, emphasised in this study, particularly as a means for those who have for whatever reason – gender, sexual orientation, race, etcetera – been “othered”, to overcome the regime under which they suffer. Regimes which have existed throughout history. This study in a sense serves as a springboard for further research into the why and how of liberation from patriarchal and other oppression. / Prof. H. Viviers

Through a layered account format combining theory, performative autoethnographic vignettes, and dialogical exchanges, the author explores the performances of Supermotherhood as they materialize within her life and potentially within the lives of, and through interactions with, other mothers inside and outside of her immediate peer group. The author analyses the ways the pervasive ideology of perfect mothering manifests itself within motherhood culture, and how it ultimately impacts maternal agency, self worth, and by extension, the family unit, and the culture of motherhood-mothering in general. Guided by a feminist poststructuralist approach, the author argues that the Supermom, or rather, Super Mom meta-identity offers all subjective labels and ideologies of mothering a place to become and celebrate possibility, individuality, transition, and maternal empowerment. Keywords: mothering; feminism; performative identity; autoethnography; poststructuralist feminism; maternal empowerment; layered account

This study is set to explore the theory of speech acts with special reference to Zulu. This is done with the motive of discovering the applicability of this theory to the utterances that are issued by the speakers of this language. Particular attention is given to the performatives as a special kind of speech act. Their examination reveals that in Zulu, there are acts, which could be performed by saying something. We distinguish between explicit and inexplicit performatives. Explicit performatives contain a verb in their main clause which names the act that is performed when a performative is issued. The inexplicit performative on the other hand does not contain this verb. Acts that are restrained as far as the explicit performative is concerned, would rather be expressed by means of the inexplicit performative. Utterances such as those that express commands, customarily make use of the imperative, which is an inexplicit performative. A closer examination of how performatives are realised in Zulu, reveals that in order for the performatives to be understood as intended by the speaker, the illocutionary force, of what the speaker intends or means by the issuance of the utterance in question, comes to the surface. It is the illocutionary force which connote that an utterance is a request, a command, a warning, etc. Performatives can also be double-natured in function. One performative could be a request which is intended as an order. In this case it is the responsibility of the addressee to use contextual information in order to determine that which is the speaker's intention. In this investigation, what has surfaced as well, is that one speech act could be expressed in various different ways. For instance, a request, could be expressed by the use of a performative, an imperative, a question and a statement. Another factor which we came across in this study, and which has a significant bearing on the performative, is that they should comply with the conditions of felicity, if they are to be successful and understood as intended by the addressee. / African Languages / M.A. (African Languages)

Thesis (MA (VA)(Visual Arts))--University of Stellenbosch, 2007. / Thesis received without illustrations at the time of submission to this repository. / This research follows the assumption that the notion of performativity can be applied to the visual construction of identity within art-making discourse in order to explore the contingent and mutable nature of identity in representation. My interest in performativity, defined as the active, repetitive and ritualistic processes responsible for the construction of subjectivities, lies within the process of production. I indicate how this notion, within the context of self-representation, can provide the possibility for performing identity as a process. I investigate the extent to which gender, the gaze, memory and narrative contribute to the performative construction of self-representations and reveal, through the exploration of my practical research, that these concepts are themselves performative. Although agency to construct the self can be regarded as problematic, considering the role of language and discourse in determining subjectivities, this research suggests that it is possible to perform interventions from within language. I suggest that the notion of inscription provides a means through which identity constructions can be performed differently; and that my art-making process of repetitive inscription, erasure and re-inscription of image and text and the layering of paint not only reflect the notion of performativity, but also enable me to expose the multiple and fragmented nature of identities.

Autour d'une question fondamentale comme celle de la présence, nous mobilisons une littérature interdisciplinaire grâce à laquelle les contributions de l'anthropologie et de la géographie sociale, de la théorie du théâtre et du cinéma, des performance studies, de la psychanalyse et de la sociologie, sont articulées dans la perspective de la phénoménologie et des sciences de l'information et de la communication. Notre façon d'habiter le monde a changé : l'être-en-ligne se révèle alors comme étant la nouvelle condition existentielle. La connexion au réseau, le web, les applications, dans leur ensemble, disposent les choses et les personnes selon des relations opérationnelles de proximité spatio-temporelle. Notre espace est un espace performatif, car il se produit à partir de nos actions, nos postures et nos gestes, gestes photo-graphiques, éminemment réflexifs, qui créent la mise en scène numérique. En allant au-delà du modèle de « l'interface », cette mise en scène est devenue la spatialité de raccordement de tous nos espaces d'action. Nous identifions alors la performativité du direct et de l’enregistrement, la performativité de l’être en train de…, de l’attention présentielle et du « suspens gestuel », la performativité des algorithmes et des notifications, la performativité des emoji et de tout ce qui «fait visage»; et encore, la performativité des questions et des messages automatiques derrière lesquels parfois il y quelqu’un et d’autres fois il n’y a personne (comme lorsqu’on sonne à la porte dans une scène de La cantatrice chauve). A la lumière d'une analyse socio-sémiotique de la gestuelle numérique, des écrans, du graphisme propre aux réseaux sociaux et aux applications de messagerie instantanée tout comme des « protocoles de la vie quotidienne », nous décrivons la présence comme étant toujours l'effet d'une médiation. Cette médiation est, à la fois, disjonction et fiction, car elle se manifeste dans l'écart et dans la différence aussi bien que dans la fiction de l'hypermédiatété. Il y a de la présence, en somme, s'il y a du jeu, au sens spatiale de l'expression « il y a du jeu » mais aussi au sens fictionnel et ludique du jouer à.…. Comme le garçon du café décrit par Sartre, nous jouons, fictionnons et de-fictionnons le réel, en faisant « comme si » était vrai ce qui, par ailleurs, l'est vraiment. / Around the fundamental question of presence, I draw on interdisciplinary literature whose contributions from the fields of anthropology and social geography, theatre and cinema theory, performance studies, psychoanalysis and sociology are articulated from the perspective of phenomenology and information and communication sciences. Our way of inhabiting the world has changed: online-being is the new fundamental existential condition. Our space is a performative space, because it is produced through our actions, our gestures, eminently reflexive photographic gestures, which create our digital mise en scène. This space has become the space which links together all of our active and social spaces. Here, I single out live and recorded performativity, the performativity of do-ing, the performativity of algorithms and of questions, of emojis and of all that which “fait visage”. After a socio-semiotic analysis of digital gestures, screens, the graphics of social networks and presence protocols, I describe presence as always being a mediation effect. This mediation is at once disjunction and fiction, beacause it works as a difference and as the fiction of hypermediality. Presence exists where there is play (jeu) as in the french expression “il y a du jeu”, refering to space, and in its fictional sense of play-acting. As with Sartre's café waiter, we play act in order to create reality and consciousness through fiction.

Dazai Osamu (born Tsushima Shûji) was a post-WWII writer who wrote a number of works using a female narrator. This thesis research focused on the reasons as to why Dazai may have written using female narratives, taking into consideration the time period and social milieu in which he was writing, as well as his own personal history with women. In addition, the history of male authors utilizing female narratives was explored, as well as the ideas of gender in the Japanese arts. Dazai works were also compared with Tankizaki Junichirô's to see how the roles of women in their works differ. The four main Dazai works analyzed were "Magic Lanterns" ("Tôrô"), "The Schoolgirl" ("Joseito"), "December 8th" ("Jûnigatsu yôka"), and "Villon's Wife" ("Biyon no tsuma"). The conclusion was that Dazai was using female narrators as a different approach to further critiquing himself, with the female narrator being used to critique a Dazai-like persona in the works.