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Magister Artium - MA / This dissertation concerns itself primarily with deconstruction theory and a number of readings of this novel within the ambit of deconstruction. According to Derrida there is not a single deconstruction and in response to this remark this study undertakes more than one deconstructive reading of the same novel. These different readings are introduced by a preliminary reading of the paratext and a cryptic reading which acknowledges the fragmentary nature of this novel. Hereafter a deconstruction of the novel follows in two phases, of which the first phase focuses on the process of its production. The non-fictitious documents on which the novel is based are revealed and exposed as building blocks during this reading. The second phase of the deconstructive reading is divided into two parts. The first part is based on Derrida’s dredging machine metaphor which introduces and illustrates the concept of random reading. During this phase the novel is acknowledged and read as an intertextual reconstruction. The non-fictitious documents are acknowledged as an archive within the context of recent as well as less recent South African history which serves as intertexts along with other texts. The second part of the second phase involves a reading of this novel as an anti- Hegelian text. Hegel’s concepts of the state and law are brought into the reading process. The reading focuses on the Apartheid State, the police force as an instrument of the state, and offers a critique on the discriminatory laws and the Constitution of the time period within which the novel is contextualised. / South Africa

Textiles are an important part of social history and often neglected in museum collections. Lace objects are textiles with an unambiguous European heritage. Examples of this kind of tangible heritage object are found in many private and national museum collections in South Africa. This research considers needle lace crafted by students of the Koppies Lace School established in the early 1900s in the (then) Orange River Colony. The research draws on theories of representation (Hall, 2013), whiteness (de Kock, 2006), and craftwork (Risatti, 2007) to interrogate the unique context of this lace. The analysis includes examples of needle lace from Iziko Museums in Cape Town, as well as the War Museum of the Boer Republics and the Emily Hobhouse Old Age Home in the Free State. The discussion repositions lace as ethnographic object and argues for its value to South African museum collections. Koppies lace is identified as a unique collection when placed within its larger socio-historical context, and appreciated in terms of what was achieved while the lace school was in operation. This research argues that the value of Koppies lace objects to South African heritage lies within this larger intangible context and knowing and sharing this knowledge. / Dissertation (MSocSci (Heritage and Museum Studies)) University of Pretoria, 2021. / Historical and Heritage Studies / MSocSci (Heritage and Museum Studies) / Unrestricted

The South African economy experienced slowing economic growth in the late 1970s, as a result of the international economic recession and the oil crisis of the early 1970s, and the system of apartheid was declared a crime against humanity in 1973. The 1970s saw the country experiencing renewed industrial and collective mass action, most notably the Durban strikes of 1973 and the student uprisings of 1976. The Wiehahn Commission was established in 1977 to respond to African labour militancy through a reconstruction of the then dual labour relations framework. The Commission’s stated goals were the stabilisation of labour relations and the facilitation of economic growth. This reform process led to the liberalisation of labour legislation in South Africa and additionally to the inclusion of African trade unions into the state collective bargaining system, provided these unions registered. By positioning itself within the ‘School of Continuity’, the paper disputes the notion of the discontinuation of colonialism as a result of the ‘Democratic transition’ of 1994, by proposing that this transition was but a logical progression of colonial social engineering achieved through the co‐optation of African labour in the 1970s. The research proposes that the Wiehahn Commission succeeded in creating a Black middle class that continues to act as a buffer from the rest of the African population. In addition, the long‐term objectives of the apartheid state were fulfilled with the institutionalisation of the Growth, Employment and Redistribution macroeconomic policy of 1996. / Mini Dissertation (MSocSci (History))--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Andrew W. Mellon Foundation / Historical and Heritage Studies / MsocSci (History) / Unrestricted

This dissertation examines the transmission of the past and how it is affected by context, source materials, and the individual with regards to opinion and inherent bias. The subject of this analysis is Jan Christiaan Smuts and how he has been portrayed over the last century. Various authors are analysed with W. K. Hancock forming a kind of watershed given the access to primary material. The dissertation includes a brief discussion of South African historiography as well as a brief biographical outline of Smuts's life. The main concern is however a literature analysis of selected material which will set out to illustrate how information is often "lost in transmission." / Dissertation (MHCS)--University of Pretoria, 2016. / Historical and Heritage Studies / MHCS / Unrestricted

A vigorous oral tradition has existed throughout South African history, and in many ways represents our truly original contribution to world literature. Despite this, oral literature is largely absent from accounts of literary history in this country. While the particular oppressions of South African political life have contributed to the exclusion of oral forms, the suppression of the oral in favour of the printed text is a feature of literary studies worldwide, and appears to be related to the critical practices that have been dominant in universities and schools for most of this century. In this study I consider ways of recovering oral forms for literary debate, and offer what I consider to be more appropriate strategies of 'reading'. My aim is to re-establish a line of continuity in South African poetry and performance from the songs and stories of the Bushmen, through the praise poems of the African chiefdoms, to the development of Christianised oral forms, the adaptation of the oral tradition in 'Soweto' poetry of the 1970s, and the performance of poems on political platforms in the 1980s. Recovering oral poetry and performance genres for literary debate requires the development of an appropriate critical methodology. Through a consideration of advances in the study of orality, I aim to suggest ways of reading which grant credence to the specific strategies and performative energies of oral texts while locating the texts in the spaces and constrictions of their societies. A great many oral texts from the past survive only in printed, translated forms, however, and a key aspect of such a critical project is how - while acknowledging the particular difficulties involved - one 'uses' highly mediated and artificially stabilised print versions to suggest something of the dynamic nature of oral performance in South African historical and social life. This thesis also considers how texts address us across historical distances. I argue for maintaining a dialectic between the 'past significance' and 'present meaning' of the poems, songs and stories: for allowing the past to shape our reading while we remain aware that our recuperation of history is inevitably directed by present needs and ideologies. These ideas are explored through five chapters which consider, respectively, the songs and stories of the nineteenth-century /Xam Bushmen, the izibongo of Shaka, the hymns of the Messianic Zulu evangelist Isaiah Shembe, Ingoapele Madingoane's epic 'Soweto' poem "black trial", and the performance poetry of Mzwakhe Mbuli and Alfred Qabula in the 1980s. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1995.

Adverse criticism regarding the quantity and quality of children's books in South Africa appear in such respected sources as The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature and The Companion to South African English Literature, the authors of which are of the opinion that South African children are dependent solely upon Eurocentric literature for their reading material. In recent years however, local publishers have attempted to redress this imbalance by offering prizes for unpublished works. These prizes have acted as incentives for aspiring writers, many of whom have had novels published specifically for children in the post-developmental reading stage. This study critically examines some of these prizewinning works of fantasy and contemporary realism, in an effort to gauge their literary worth within the context of accepted criteria for judging children's literature. Accolades from adults are not however a guarantee that the prizewinning books will be received with equal acclaim by the children for whom they are written. For this reason, five children in the post-developmental reading stage were asked to pass their opinions and non-literary judgments on the books. Although the critical evaluation of the indigenous works proves them to be eminently worthy of the prizes which they received on publication, the children did not rate them as highly as certain imported works. The works of fantasy by Marguerite Poland rated poorly in terms of their popularity despite the fact that the children said that in a non-circumscribed context, they choose fantasy in preference to contemporary realism. Within the context of the indigenous literature which they read for this study though, they preferred the works of contemporary realism as they were able to identify with particular aspects of the novels. Indigenous literature for children in the post-developmental reading stage is a comparatively new phenomenon which needs to be nurtured if it is to attain any lasting status. The onus rests upon the teachers of literature and librarians to introduce the literature and make the books more accessible to young readers. Publishers need perhaps to engage the views and opinions of the audience for whom the books are written in an effort to publish books which, without in any way detracting from their literary worth, will deal with subjects favoured by young readers.

S.J.P. Kruger, four times president of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (ZAR), played a central role in the Afrikaners' struggle for independence both in the 19th and 20th centuries. His significance as a leader also becomes apparent when considering the plethora of literature written on him both during his lifetime and after. Not only is his own life story intertwined with the history and development of the ZAR and rise of Afrikanerdom, but as a leading figure he was also subject to much criticism. This was particularly evident in the years leading up to and during the South African War (1899-1902) when the ZAR forces clashed with Britain. Against this dualistic background a stereotypical and binary portrayal of Kruger emerged. Some of these have been perpetuated into the literature of the 21st century. However, despite the array of works published on Kruger, it remains remarkable why his involvement in the South African War has not received extensive scrutiny, principally his "behind-the-scenes" contribution. It is to this prominent event in the life of Kruger that this study turns with particular reference to the year 1900 which has been identified as a so-called "crisis period". Using the War telegrams dispatched by Kruger during the said period, this study endeavours to not only investigate Kruger's War-time contribution and motives, but also to reassess his character in the context hereof. Although much of the evidence suggests that the Kruger persona is somewhat entrenched, the War telegrams however point to additional representations of Kruger and call thus for further reappraisal. / Dissertation (MHCS)--University of Pretoria, 2016. / Historical and Heritage Studies / MHCS / Unrestricted

This thesis presents a case study of letters written by black South Africans to the Aborigines' Protection Society (APS) between 1879-1888. Recognizing that previous histories of the APS have been based primarily on British correspondence, this thesis contends that including these marginalized black letters is crucial if historians are to develop a nuanced understanding of the APS in particular, and of British imperialism in general. By placing these letters within a framework of imperial knowledge networks, this thesis traces how the messages and voices of black South African correspondents traveled in letter form to England and then were disseminated in published form by the APS. This thesis demonstrates how correspondents used writing to the APS as a tool of anti-colonial resistance, as well as how the APS used their positionality to censor and control the voices of its correspondents. Emphasizing the entanglement of correspondents' resistance and adaptation with the APS's imperialist mission, this thesis presents its case study as a window into the negotiated and unstable natures of British imperialism. / Graduate / 2021-04-06

Most current studies on 'African' and/or 'Black' literature in South Africa appear to ignore the contradictions underlying the valuative concepts 'African' and 'Black'. This (Jamesonian) unconsciousness has led, primarily, to a situation where writers and critics assume generally that the concepts 'African' and 'Black' are synonymous and interchangeable. This study argues that such an attitude either unconsciously represses an awareness of the distinctive aspects of the worldview connotations of these concepts or deliberately suppresses them. The theoretical and pragmatic approach which this study adopts to explore the distinctive aspects of the worldview connotations of these concepts takes the form, initially, of a critique of such assumptions and their connotations. It is argued that any misconceptions about the relations between the concepts 'African' and 'Black' can only be elucidated through a rigorous and distinct definition of each of these concepts and the respective world views embodied in them. Each of the variables of these definitions is also examined thoroughly through an application of, inter alia, Frederick Jameson's 'dialectical' theory of textual criticism, Pierre Macherey's 'theory of literary production' and also through the post-colonial notions of 'hybridity' and 'syncreticity' propounded by Bill Ashcroft et.al (eds). In this way the study examines the dialectical interplay between, for instance, such oppositional notions as 'African' and 'Western' (place-conscious), 'Black' and 'White' (race-conscious), and other forms of ideological 'dominance' and 'marginality' reflected in the 'African' and/or 'Black' writers' motivations for the acquisition, appropriation and uses of the language of the 'other' (i.e. English) and its literary discourse in South Africa, Africa and elsewhere in the world. A close textual reading of the stories in Mothobi Mutloatse's (ed) Forced Landing, Mbulelo Mzamane's (ed) Hungry Flames underlies an examination of the processes of anthologisation and their implications of aesthetic collectivism, reconstruction and world view monolithicism which repress the distinctive world outlooks of the stories in these anthologies. The notions of aesthetic monolithicism implicit in each of these anthologies are interrogated via the editors' truistic assumptions about the organic nature of the relations between the concepts 'African' and 'Black'. The notion of a monolithic 'African' and 'Black' aesthetic is further decentred through a close textual reading of the uses of the 'African' and 'Black' valuative concepts in the short story collections The Living and the Dead and In Corner B by Es'kia (formerly Ezekiel) Mphahlele. The humanistic pronouncements in Mphahlele' s critical and short story texts suggest various ways of resolving the racial demarcations in both the 'Black' and 'White' South African literary formations. According to Mphahlele, a predominant racial consciousness inherent in the racial capitalist mode of economic production has deprived South African literature and culture an opportunity of creating a national humanistic and 'Afrocentric' form of aesthetic consciousness. The logical consequence of such a deprivation has been that the racial impediments toward the formation of a single national literature will have to be dismantled before the vision of a humanistic and 'Afrocentric' aesthetic can be realised in South Africa. The dismantling of both the 'Black' and 'White' monolithic forms of consciousness may pave the way toward the attainment of a synthetic and place-centred humanistic aesthetic. Such a dismantling of racial monolithicism will, hopefully, stimulate a debate on the question of an equally humanistic economic mode of production.