In this dissertation I focus on the life and works of Marguerite Poland and argue that landscapes in her fiction act as sites for identity construction. In my analysis I examine the central characters’ engagement with the land, taking cognisance of Poland’s historical context and that of her fiction as represented in her four adult novels and eleven children’s books. I also focus on her doctoral thesis and non-fiction work, The Abundant Herds: A Celebration of the Nguni Cattle of the Zulu People (2003). Poland’s latest work The Boy In You (2008) appeared as this thesis was being completed, thus I only briefly refer to this work in the Conclusion. My primary aim puts into perspective personal, social and cultural identities that are constructed through an analysis of the landscapes evident in her work. Post-colonial theories of space and place provide the theoretical framework. In summary, this thesis argues that landscape is central to Poland’s oeuvre, that her construction of landscape takes particular forms depending on the type of writing she undertakes; and that her characters’ construction of identity is closely linked to the landscapes in which they are placed by their author, herself a product of her physical and cultural environment. “Landscape is dynamic; it serves to create and naturalise the histories and identities inscribed upon it, and so simultaneously hides and makes evident social and historical formations” (Carter et al 1993: xii). The implication of this statement is that the landscape is continuously constructed and deconstructed; that there is a constant evolution of meaning between individuals and the landscape; and that socio-historical conditions are largely responsible for forming ideology and consciousness. This, I argue, is also true for Poland’s fiction. Poland’s own position, as a writer who draws inspiration from the land and its inhabitants, is also discussed. In this thesis I examine the different phases of Poland’s work looking at different kinds of identity construction through different kinds of landscape portrayal. As a prolific South African female contemporary writer, Poland has made inroads into the world of fiction writing once dominated by men. Consequently, feminist issues abound in her writings and I deconstruct characters’ engagement with the land in order to uncover their gendered identities. Primarily, I explore the themes of belonging, identity formation, displacement and dispossession in a particular space and place. My thesis opens with an introduction outlining reasons for my choice of writer, her works to be discussed and the theoretical approaches to landscape and identity construction pertinent to the thesis. I focus on what Poland’s writing yields in terms of gendered identities, racial attitudes and cultural practices in her fictional landscape construction. These sections are grounded in the theories proposed by writers such as, inter alia, Paul Carter, Edward Relph, Chris Fitter and Dennis Cosgrove. In Chapter 2 my discussion focuses on the life and works of Poland placing her in a historical and cultural context. In Chapter 3, I explore how Poland constructs what I call a ‘mythological landscape’. My aim here, as in the following chapters, is to analyse place as a text upon which histories and cultures are inscribed and interpreted and which, in turn, inscribes them too. I also show the extent to which Poland relies on oral folklore to create space and place in her fiction. The literary focus is on her children’s literature and her writings on cattle description and folklore. Chapter 4 focuses on a literary analysis of Train To Doringbult (1987), Shades (1993), and Iron Love (1999) respectively. These novels demonstrate how Poland shows identity shaped within a ‘colonial landscape’. I examine how these novels reiterate that socio-historical conditions are responsible for forming ideology and consciousness. I also analyse how this particular genre puts into perspective personal, social and cultural identities that emerge from particular periods in South African history. Chapter 5 focuses on what I call the ‘indigenous landscape’, on how the South African landscape and the indigenous cattle of the region become characters in their own right. A literary analysis of Recessional for Grace (2003), The Abundant Herds: A Celebration of the Nguni Cattle of the Zulu People (2003) and Poland’s thesis, Uchibidolo: The Abundant Herds: A descriptive study of the Sanga-Nguni cattle of the Zulu people with special reference to colour-pattern terminology and naming practice (1996), form the basis of my discussion in this chapter. I conclude my thesis by further confirming the significance of landscape in Poland’s work as a site for the construction of identity. I focus on Poland’s impact on South African literature to date. I also focus on Poland’s preoccupation with identity in a transforming landscape, showing that there is a constant evolution of meaning between individuals and the landscape within which they find themselves. In this regard I show that identity linked to place has to be seen in terms of context. I mention Poland’s most recent commissioned project – a historical biography of the St. Andrew’s College in Grahamstown, an institution that is now a hundred and fifty years old. Poland’s association with this college, its social and historical context and other discursive issues pertaining to landscape, transformation and construction of identities are fore-grounded, to lend impetus to my thesis. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2008.

There has, in the last quarter of a century, been an increased interest in the /Xam narratives that form the major part of the nineteenth century archive of materials collected by Lucy Lloyd and Wilhelm Bleek in Cape Town from /Xam informants. This has resulted in a proliferation of writing about the Bleek and Lloyd collection and its contents. The critical examination of some of this body of writing forms part of the project of this thesis. The other aim of the thesis is to provide a close reading of certain of the /Xam texts themselves. This thesis is based on the view that the first of these projects has only been attempted in a cursory and indirect fashion and that the second, namely the close reading of/Xam texts, has not yet been undertaken on a scale that parallels the range and complexity of the materials or which exhausts the interpretative possibilities they offer. This thesis aims to fill some of these gaps in the literature without claiming that a comprehensive or definitive study is possible in so wide and rich a field. Postmodern and postcolonial theory has emphasised the discursive and ideological nature of the language of both hermeneutics and literature. In my consideration of the /Xam texts and the writing that has been produced in relation to them, I attempt to consistently foreground the historicity and textuality of my own practice and the practices of the materials with which I am working. In this regard I question, especially, two assumptions about the /Xam narratives: that they are primarily aetiological and that their chief character, /Kaggen, the Mantis, is a trickster. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2006.

Introduction: Alice in Wonderland is perhaps the most renowned fantasy book for children. Over and above this though, it has relevance for adults. People too often dismiss it as purely escapist reading, a means to escape from the monotony of everyday realism by delving into the realms of fantasy. Many critics propose that it operates on more than one level and I would have to agree - it is a pioneer of children's literature as well as a product and critique of the Victorian age. It is a story that has captured the world's imagination, with vivid characters and exciting adventures. The sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, although not as well known, equally offers an insight into the late nineteenth-century. I intend to explore the many layers found in these stories, and hope to expose them as being more than mere narratives, but as pieces of literature that thrive because they are so cleverly constructed Perhaps also their success lies in that they deal with the universal theme (for children and adults alike) of making sense of the seemingly nonsensical aspects of life and society. The stories, as well as the strange characters and happenings, are reminiscent of the Absurdist genre in drama, in which the objective is to turn the world upside down, so to speak, in order to understand people and society. My dissertation will begin by exploring the literary trends of children's books prior to 1865, in other words, before Alice in Wonderland was published. I intend to present an overview of Victorian and pre-Victorian children's fiction, tracing the development of the story for teaching and religious instruction, up until the time when the story was liberated to be simply the vehicle for pleasurable recreational purposes. Thus my opening chapter is an exploration of the didactic children's literature that dominated the early nineteenth century, examining the educationalists that helped expand the genre of children's literature. Next, I will include a brief biography of Lewis Carroll. It is important to my overall theme in that a biography sums up, in one human centre, the forces at play in Victorian sensibility. As a modern audience, we seem to seize upon the idea of his 'character', desperately attempting to understand what motivated him to write such tour de force stories. The interest for me at this point is to examine how academics have portrayed Carroll's 'character'. The motive behind this section is to beg the question of whether his complex personality affects our reading of the texts, or whether they can be seen as entirely separate from a life to which some scandal has been attributed. In the remainder of my dissertation, I shall focus on how the texts are a reflection of a typical Victorian child's experiences, and discuss how Alice 'grows' as a character, and what she reveals about her society in the process of discovering how she should define herself. Alice is the vehicle for Carroll's subversive commentary about his society, and her experiences in Wonderland and Looking-Glass land are often rooted in the undermining of conventional behaviour and traditions. Lastly, I will examine Carroll's stylistic organization of the narratives, paying particular attention to his treatment of time, dreams and language in the texts. I will discuss what his intentions are in creating 'nonsense that makes sense', as well as what this 'nonsense' discloses about the society he lived in and the values he seems to object to. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2004.

This dissertation is an examination of public culture and memory sites in post-apartheid South Africa, in relation to their narrativisation in the fiction of the South African writer Ivan Vladislavić, who evinces a creolized, ludic style. The carnivalesque elements at play in his writing and his use of “minoritised” English constitute a radical aesthetic. With reference to poststructuralist theories of language, representation and history, I examine short stories and a novel by Vladislavić. I then turn a grammar developed from this aesthetic to an examination of one of post-apartheid South Africa’s most symbolically rich memory sites: Constitution Hill in Johannesburg. Official spaces in this country and in this era have tended to be built and curated in the interests of establishing a national imaginary based on a teleological understanding of apartheid history. This can be problematic, as I show in a brief discussion of the Apartheid Museum, a site that offers an instructive comparison with Constitution Hill. I argue that Vladislavić’s radical aesthetic provides a way to interrogate the more totalizing discourses of nationhood and citizenship of the post-Rainbow Nation. Vladislavić’s refusal to allow an authentic history and his radical aesthetics of representation constitute an iconoclasm that can be brought to bear on the more totalizing aspects of Constitution Hill’s design. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2010.

This thesis examines certain social and institutional forces that have shaped the outlooks and procedures of English departments in South Africa. The approach taken is based on the researches of Michel Foucault, notably his genealogical approach to history, and his view of the university as an institution within a broader "disciplinary society" that controls discourse in the interests of existi~g power relations in that society and not out of a concern with disinterested truth. It is argued that English departments are contingent, historically constituted products whose genealogies continue to have serious consequences for struggles around contemporary issues, notably the reception of indigenous South African writing. The first chapter examines the beginnings of the institutionalised study of English literature in England. This inquiry reveals that English literature became the subject of academic.study as a result of conflict between opposing interests in the university and the social world of nineteenth century J England. It also points to the existence of a "discursive space", an inherently unstable area, which the emergent subject of English was forced to occupy as a result of the ezisting arrang~ment of disciplines in the university. Chapter Two analyses the decisive contribution made by I. A Richards a9d the importance of practical criticism for the humanist enterprise of English studies. F. R. Leavis's adaptation of practical criticism is also examined with a view to understanding its consequences for English studies in South Africa. Chapter Three examines the early history of English studies in South Africa and assesses the impact of metropolitan developments on the manner in which the discipline was constituted in this country. Chapter Four focuses on the effect of metropolitan developments on the conceptualisation and study of a South African literature. Chapter Five examines descriptions of sub traditions of South African literature that were offered during the 1960s and '70s and concludes by offering an analysis of the radical critique of English studies that appeared at the end of the decade. The thesis concludes that the radical critique was largely unsuccessful for a number of reasons, one being the lack of a genealogical analysis. It is suggested that the manner in which English studies was historically constituted, and its mode of institutional existence, pose a perhaps intrinsic obstacle to the study and teaching of indigenous writing. / Thesis (M.A. - English) - University of Natal, 1989

No description available.

This thesis examines the concept of liberalism as it informs, and is expressed in, the work of two of the most prominent South African writers during the apartheid era of 1948-1990: Alan Paton and Athol Fugard. The aim of this study is to come to a precise and objective understanding of liberalism during this time, and to demonstrate how the nature and worth of the literary achievements of these writers can be properly ascertained only through a thorough grasp of their liberal outlook. A dual focus is thus pursued. From one perspective, a fuller understanding is facilitated of the work of two major South African writers in the light of a lucid and coherent comprehension of their liberalism. Obversely, an accurate understanding of their work - as perceptive, sensitive and informed writers, addressing problems of their social and political milieu - in turn serves to illuminate some of the most important dilemmas and responses of liberals in recent South African history. The rationale for this study arises from the fact that much confusion, imprecision and misunderstanding continues to surround the notion of liberalism in South African literary critical, political and historiographical thinking. Such imprecision, moreover, is not limited to the opponents of liberalism, but also characterises the thinking of many liberal-minded scholars in this country. In consequence, the liberal basis of a good deal of South African literature remains either unacknowledged or misconceived, and, accordingly, the actual meaning and significance of a large proportion of literary work in this country, including that of Paton and Fugard, has not been adequately apprehended or appreciated. Given this critical imprecision, it is necessary as a preliminary measure to provide an introduction to the notion of liberalism in general theoretical terms before proceeding to a specific exploration of how the values, principles and beliefs which constitute liberal political philosophy present themselves in the literary work under consideration. The opening chapter explicates such fundamental liberal concepts as individualism, autonomy, liberty and equality, as well as some of the differences in emphasis between the leading liberal political theorists. This chapter also considers the nature of the contemporary liberal democratic state, the development of liberalism within the South African context, and some of the key linkages between liberal political philosophy and liberal literary critical practice. Following this theoretical introduction, the greater part of the thesis involves a detailed critical scrutiny of the creative writing, in turn, of Alan Paton and Athol Fugard. These writers have been chosen, firstly, because they stand out as indisputably the most eminent liberal authors in recent South African literature, indeed, as two of the most acclaimed writers in the contemporary English-speaking world. But their selection also derives from the fact that their writing, taken together effectively spans the entire period of apartheid. Alan Paton's famous first novel, Cry, the Beloved Country, was written immediately prior to the Nationalist Party election victory in 1948, and his writing extends into the 1980s. Athol Fugard's career commences in the 1950s and has continued up to and beyond the ending of apartheid in 1990. In fact, his most recent work to be considered in this study, Playland, is set on the last day of 1989, on the very brink of apartheid's demise. As the critical study of each writer's primary literary texts follows a chronological sequence, their work collectively provides a comprehensive view of the developing conflicts and challenges which confronted liberals throughout the time of apartheid. This is not to suggest that Paton and Fugard were the only liberal writers active against apartheid, and attention is paid to the achievements of other liberal authors during this time. Concomitantly, cognizance is taken of the range of differences between Paton and Fugard, including age, temperament, background, religious convictions, and involvement in formal politics. An advantage of a study dealing with both men is the ability not only to suggest the essential characteristics of liberalism which underlie individual distinctions, but also to reveal how a general liberal orientation manifests itself in particular instances. A study of both Paton and Fugard has benefits also in a generic sense, in that it allows a perspective on the expression of liberal ideas in both a fictive and a dramaturgical mode. For the most part, this thesis concentrates on each writer's favoured genre (Paton's fiction and Fugard's drama), though consideration is given to their other creative work, such as Paton's poetry and drama, and Fugard's fiction and film work. Moreover, both men's non-creative writing (autobiographical, biographical, notebooks, speeches, articles) is taken into account as a potentially valuable source of insight into the evolution of their liberal understanding. The most provocative factor motivating the selection of Paton and Fugard for study remains, however, the fact that neither writer's liberal standpoint has to date received full or proper appraisal. It is the contention of this thesis that each writer's liberalism, far from being a subordinate feature of his work, forms the very core of his political morality and aesthetic and demands a precise understanding. The chief objective of this study, then, is to conduct a reassessment of the work of Paton and Fugard through the filter of a rigorous account of their understanding and expression of the fundamental values and principles of liberalism. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1996.

This thesis examines how the First World War and the Holocaust fit into Western history and literary history by. It takes as its point of departure two arguments that currently enjoy, the favor of many specialists. First, it critiques the idea that the literature of the First World War is firmly embedded in the Western literary heritage while that of the Holocaust lies outside the realm of expression, a position that Jay Winter has taken a leading role in developing. Second, it challenges the notion that the Holocaust is an occurrence in history to which no other event offers parallels. The study argues that these points of view obscure our understanding of each disaster. In reality, personal narratives demonstrate that many survivors responded to the First World War and the Holocaust in similar ways. If this is true, then the Great War cannot be firmly embedded in the European cultural tradition while the Holocaust destroys it. A more accurate representation is that the first episode of industrial mass slaughter, the Great War, initiated a rupture in the Western historical and literary heritage that the Holocaust completed. / Department of History

This project begins by examining current trends in the study of medieval literature, particularly in the area of medieval literature dealing with religious conflict. Literary review demonstrates that since the late 20th century, critical examination of medieval literature has been dominated by postcolonial analyses. A dedication to postcolonial analyses, in effect, has stagnated the field of medieval literary analysis, particularly in regard to those texts representing religious differences. By focusing examination on two seminal medieval texts, "The Prioress's Tale" from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales and the anonymous Song of Roland, this dissertation argues that traditional, postcolonially-inspired analyses are ineffective and inconsequential for modern, post-9/11 audiences, particularly high school students. More substantial and authentic readings are revealed through an application of Jeffrey Jerome Cohen's monster theory, a hypothesis articulated in his essay "Monster Culture (Seven Theses)" (1996) which, when coupled with conventionally psychoanalytic concepts of psychical reality and jouissance, reveals that the cultural creation of monsters is unchanging across time and culture. By illustrating this phenomenon through the Christian creation of Jewish and Muslim monsters, through literary examinations of "The Prioress's Tale" and Song of Roland respectively, this project hints that the same cultural forces feeding monster creation in the Middle Ages are alive in our modern age in the creation of terrorist monsters. The project culminates by arguing that the most effective way to teach literature of the Middle Ages to post-9/11 students is to focus on literature ripe with religious conflict in order to tap into affective connections to be found between modern students and the people of the Middle Ages. This is a bond best forged through a discussion-driven approach to literary instruction. / A future for medieval studies -- Monster Jews in the creation of the Christian psychical reality -- The necessity of Saracen monsters in the formation of the Christian self -- The future of medieval studies : teaching The prioress's tale and Song of Roland in contemporary high school classrooms. / Department of English

The dissertation examines the close but overlooked relationship between male poetry societies and the sharp rise of literary courtesans in the late Ming. I attempt to identify a particular group of men who devoted exclusive efforts to the promotion of courtesan culture, that is, urban dwellers of prosperous Jiangnan, who fashioned themselves as retired literati, devoting themselves to art, recreation, and self-invention, instead of government office. I also offer a new interpretation for the decline of courtesan culture after the Ming-Qing transition. / Chapter 1 provides an overview of the social-cultural context in which late Ming courtesans flourished. I emphasize office-holding as losing its appeal for late Ming nonconformists who sought other alternative means of self-realization. Chapter 2 examines the importance of poetry by courtesans in literati culture as demonstrated by their visible inclusion in late Ming and early Qing anthologies of women's writings. Chapter 3 examines the life and poetry of individual courtesans through three case studies. Together, these three chapters illustrate the strong identification between nonconformist literati and the courtesans they extolled at both collective and individual levels. / In Chapter 4, by focusing on the context and texts of the poetry collection of the courtesan Chen Susu and on writings about her, I illustrate the efforts by both male and female literati in the early Qing to reproduce the cultural glory of late Ming courtesans. However, despite their cooperative efforts, courtesans became inevitably marginalized in literati culture as talented women of the gentry flourished. / This dissertation as a whole explores how male literati and courtesans responded to the social and literary milieu of late Ming Jiangnan to shed light on aspects of the intersection of self and society in this floating world. This courtesan culture was a counterculture in that: (1) it was deep-rooted in male poetry societies, a cultural space that was formed in opposition to government office; (2) in valuing romantic relationship and friendship, the promoters of this culture deliberately deemphasized the most primary human relations as defined in the Confucian tradition; (3) this culture conditioned, motivated, and promoted serious relationships between literati and courtesans, which fundamentally undermined orthodox values.