This study probes selected stories from Bessie Head's The Collector of Treasures (1977) in order to elicit instances of contiguity and disjuncture between orality and literacy, to establish Head's complex identity configurations which are often manifested in the interactions between aesthetic form and content, authorial consciousness, character delineation, and narrative voice. At the same time, the dissertation explores her portrayal of the proscribed condition of women, the subversive consciousness that undercuts women's subjugation by patriarchy, and her vision for the liberatory possibilities for women from the exigencies of patriarchal domination. I also examine Head's (re-)vision of culture within the framework of hybridity and creolity and determine how some of these perspectives are crystallized in discourses such as When Rain Clouds Gather (1968), Maru (1971) and A Question of Power (1973). I juxtapose my reading of Head with other African writers such as Bâ, Emecheta and Nwapa to draw references in instances where the context permits. The dominant critical approach adopted in this thesis is a contextual approach. I consider this approach useful for my purposes because of its flexibility, the attention it pays to the formal properties of literary texts and, its cognizance of the socio-historical genesis of texts and its demonstration of literature's timeless value. / English Studies / M.A. (English)

This study probes selected stories from Bessie Head's The Collector of Treasures (1977) in order to elicit instances of contiguity and disjuncture between orality and literacy, to establish Head's complex identity configurations which are often manifested in the interactions between aesthetic form and content, authorial consciousness, character delineation, and narrative voice. At the same time, the dissertation explores her portrayal of the proscribed condition of women, the subversive consciousness that undercuts women's subjugation by patriarchy, and her vision for the liberatory possibilities for women from the exigencies of patriarchal domination. I also examine Head's (re-)vision of culture within the framework of hybridity and creolity and determine how some of these perspectives are crystallized in discourses such as When Rain Clouds Gather (1968), Maru (1971) and A Question of Power (1973). I juxtapose my reading of Head with other African writers such as Bâ, Emecheta and Nwapa to draw references in instances where the context permits. The dominant critical approach adopted in this thesis is a contextual approach. I consider this approach useful for my purposes because of its flexibility, the attention it pays to the formal properties of literary texts and, its cognizance of the socio-historical genesis of texts and its demonstration of literature's timeless value. / English Studies / M.A. (English)

Thesis (M.A.)--University of South Africa, 2001.

My concern in this thesis is to assess if one can justifiably say that there is a unique black South African feminist perspective. I have chosen to focus on the feminist perspectives of two renowned black female African writers: Bessie Head (1937-1988) and Ellen Kuzwayo (1914-). I have several reasons for selecting these two writers for my investigation. Head and Kuzwayo, though obviously not exact contemporaries chronologically speaking, were contemporaries in the sense that they lived through, and wrote during, the time of apartheid rule in South Africa. Both can be considered as revolutionaries in their own right. Both used the traditional story telling literary device and the autobiographical genre differently but strikingly. They could both be called social feminists because they were both concerned with social justice, equality, racism, personal identity and upliftment of the community. I argue that the works of these writers have shown defmable feminist perspectives that suggest that, indeed, there is a South African Black Women's feminist perspective. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Durban-Westville, 2003.

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, June, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 85-92)

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, June, 2005. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 85-92)

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. Johannesburg, 1993. / This dissertation examines the work of Bessie Head with a view to sophisticating prevailing understandings of her texts which tend to concentrate on Head's place in a tradition of African women writers. Current critical works emphasise selected aspects, of Head's biography and assume her presentation of the 'tradition' and 'orality' of Serowe to be accurate. We argue in this dissertation that Head has constructed and manipulated concepts of 'tradition' and 'orality' in her texts to suit both her intellectual concerns and her fictional intentions. Broadly these are to present her works as the recorded history of an 'oral African' society. Head's six novels as well as aspects of her letters and interviews are examined in order to demonstrate this assertion. / AC2017

This project examines how fiction writers of the U.S. South and South Africa have grappled with the negotiation of the after-effects of national and individual trauma and how their texts implicate the reader in the suffering being represented. Chapter I seeks to make a connection between the theories of Freud, Cathy Caruth, and Dominick LaCapra as they relate to narrative representation of trauma and the position of the reader. Chapter II discusses Robert Penn Warren’s Flood through the lens of melancholia and trauma theory, showing how Warren depicts the elusive force of historical trauma through a protagonist charged with narrativizing an experience that resists articulation. Chapter III examines the notion of madness and the inward turning of suffering as discussed in scholarship on Head’s A Question of Power, arguing that through a punctum-like element, Head shows the transmission of intergenerational trauma in spite of an inward turning of suffering.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1999. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 216-232). Also available on the Internet.

This mini-thesis is located in historical discursive practices, choreographing history, biography as a source for making dance in South Africa and choreographic transformations in South African choreography since the 1994 democratic elections. Derridian concepts of deconstruction will be referenced in an attempt to focus the argument of this research, which comments on choreographic transformations since 1994, by subverting the influence of the 'violent hierarchies' enforced by the apartheid regime on South African cultural life and choreographic identity. The researcher draws on these considerations in order to explore the hybrid nature of South African choreography that has emerged since 1994. Chapter one examines the fallacious nature of historical discourse through a consideration and application of Derrida's notions of deconstruction and fabrication. Chapter two explores the notion of choreographing history in theatre through a focus on the objective/subjective fallacy and the history of the body as a textual medium. Chapter three focuses the study specifically in biography as a discourse within the idea of theatre. This approach to biography can be encapsulated by the phrase 'telling lives'. This chapter also explores the relationship between the traditional binaries of writing as a purely cerebral act and choreography as a purely visceral experience. Chapter four brings the focus to the specific post-apartheid South African context. This chapter considers the hybrid forms of dance emerging in South Africa as well as the notion of protest in relation to theatre and dance. The final chapter is an investigation and analysis of two choreographic works created by South African choreographers since 1994 in relation to biography and concepts of deconstruction. These works are Gary Gordon's Bessie's Head (2000) and Gregory Maqoma's Miss Thandi (2002). The focus of the analysis also reveals the inherent difficulty in objective interpretation, and considers the problematics of collaboration and autobiography when choreographing within a biographical context.