Universities in South Africa are currently undergoing mergers. Intended for commercial gain, mergers rarely accommodate the psychological milieu of staff. Similarly, the majority of studies conducted with respect to university mergers adopt a quantitative approach. This study adopts a qualitative approach and locates the researcher within the epicentre of the research, using a case study, with the researcher as unit of analysis. The lack of merger studies that focus on the experiences of minority groups, including women, prompted me, as researcher, to adopt a feminist approach to conduct this study in the context of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University merger. A Jungian gendered view, which endorses the personal experiences of minority groups, explored the connection between organisational change and concomitant opportunities for psychic growth. The primary purpose of this study was to explore the presence of the Wild Woman archetype during a university merger. The data that made up this study were contained in my field notes, research journal and a wall montage. An analysis of the qualitative data and a comparison of Jung’s archetypal theory and Pinkola Estés’ theory of the Wild Woman archetype, enabled the researcher to find evidence of the presence of the Wild Woman archetype during the university merger. The secondary purpose of the study was to document the findings which could act as a spoor which other women could follow on their journey towards connecting with their own Wild Woman archetype. The limitations of this study, and recommendations for future research are also offered.

This dissertation addresses the notable lack of the comic mode in contemporary ecofiction and aims to integrate humor and ecological inflection through the female narrative voice. Comedy and ecology rarely intersect in literary fiction. Ecofiction tends to be unfunny because the category grows out of the nonfiction tradition of nature writing, a genre that yields solemn, reverent, meditative essays that lack humor. Also, works of ecofiction can seem didactic, lacking the complexity, richness, and ambiguity that characterize literary fiction. Furthermore, literary critics often view comedic stories as lacking in literary quality. However, comedy has an intensifying effect on narrative, imbuing tragic moments with greater darkness and eliciting conflicted emotions in the reader. Literary fiction is characterized by this kind of ambiguity, evidenced by some of the finest works of contemporary literary short fiction that integrate comedy and tragedy. Accordingly, I aim to write comic stories that are imbued with loss, darkness or loneliness. Ecofiction provides a ripe context for my work, as does the young female voice. Ecofiction stems from the modern predicament of rootlessness, alienation, transience, isolation—of our detachment from place. Stories that feature characters afflicted by this malaise are “eco” in the sense that they make us more aware of our contemporary relationship (or lack thereof) to the natural world. Most significantly, these stories are ripe for the intersection of comic and tragic. In my own stories, I strive to create comic female first person narrators whose actions reveal lives deeply afflicted by loneliness, placelessness, and disconnection, and whose inner wildness provides the primary source of comic dramatic tension. These protagonists are motivated by a desperate need to forge meaningful connections in a world that is precariously poised on a foundation of contingencies and whose stories are simultaneously hilarious and heart-wrenching.