This study focuses on the way in which Willem Boshoff aesthetically con-cretized the historical memories of Afrikaners and their influence on their notion of power and identity formation. For this purpose a selection was made of Boshoff’s language-based conceptual installations. During the colonial and apartheid eras South Africa had a long history, which was characterized by people in power who encountered other population groups from a vantage point of superiority implying subjection. This implied that the particular in-terests of the people in power were generalized across the whole of society and imposed on all population groups as generalized interests. Where the in-dividual interests did not correspond to the general interests of society in its totality, the interests of the individual were negated and ignored. It can there-fore be stated that the utopia of those in power became the proverbial hell of the other. The study emanates from Ricoeur’s plea for a critical and imaginative en-counter with history so that other perspectives on traumatic events can be developed. Such an approach creates the possibility of opening up the unreal-ized promises of the past for the present and leading to the future. It further proceeds from the assumption that if we are faithful to the past, we will also be faithful to “the more” of the past or that which transcends the past. My ap-proach is in line with that of Verbeeck, who – tying in with Ricoeur – ad-vocated an anachronistic encounter with and interpretation of history. What is meant by aesthetic concretization in this study is that Willem Boshoff conceptually expresses his artistic interpretation and visual manifestation of philosophical ideas on Afrikaners’ memories of power and identity. He makes real (real-ises) and gives shape to these philosophical ideas. For this purpose three dates in the historical narratives of Afrikaners were selected, which had an important impact on Afrikaners’ notions of power and identity formation: 31 May 1902 –The end of the Anglo-Boer War and the demise of the Boer Republics and the freedom of Afrikaners; 31 May 1961 – The formation of the Republic of South Africa under the leadership of the National Party, and 27 April 1994 – The first democratic elections in South Africa, and the Afrikaners’ total loss of power. The reading and interpretation of Boshoff’s installations were undertaken with-in the framework of Adorno’s dialectical distinction in his aesthetic theory be-tween the Inhalt and the Gehalt of works of art. Adorno regards everything that appears in the work of art, viz. everything that the artist gives form to, as Inhalt [content]. Gehalt, on the other hand, refers to the truth content of works of art, which according to him resides in the specific negation [German: bestimmte Negation] of the untruth of an inhuman society. For Adorno bestimmte Negation signifies a break both with that which exists [in other words a negation of the predominance of a false reality] and with the continuity between the present and the future [the salvation of the moment or element which holds promise of something, which goes beyond that which exists, and refers to something better]. In Adorno’s view works of art are tho-roughly historically determined. According to Adorno the history of society is sedimented in the material, the constellations and the form elements of works of art. What is meant by this is that the artistic material which an artist [in this study Boshoff] utilizes, is not only words, pigments, or rock, but is everything that is pre-formed by history that the artist uses. Because history sediments in the material and because the material of a work of art is taken from reality, but in a fragmented fashion, the work of art becomes a monad – that is auto-nomous and windowless, because the work of art, apparantly, has no links to or relationships with recognizable reality or with other works of art. I argue that the exposé of the memories of Afrikaners of cultural and political domination, with historical narratives as a source, and the influence of these on their visions of power and identity, offers a framework for the reading and interpretation of selected installations. In these selected installations, Boshoff offers immanent criticism of the above unequal power relations and con-comitant views of identity. Through striving for the harmonious and the good as ethical and aesthetic principles in his installations focused on social inter-action, he makes a contribution to the creation of a more humanitarian society. / Thesis (PhD (Art History))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012

Thesis. / Includes bibliographical references.

Proefschrift--Amsterdam. / "Stellingen": 3 p. inserted.

Proefschrift--Amsterdam. / "Stellingen": 3 p. inserted.

Proefschrift Universiteit van Amsterdam. / Met bibliografie en samenvattingen in het Engels en Frans.

Proefschrift Universiteit Maastricht. / Met lit. opg. - Met samenvatting in het Engels.

From Introduction: Willem Boshoff was born in Vereeniging, South Africa, in 1951. The son of a carpenter, Boshoff developed an early interest in art. Although never taught formally by his father, he nevertheless acquired a knowledge of the craft of carpentry, a skill which he continues to utilize in much of his art-making today. Boshoff studied at the Johannesburg College of Art, and obtained a Master's Diploma in Technology in Fine Art in 1984. He taught at that institution for twelve years, becoming a full-time art practitioner in 1996. He produced some significant works prior to and during the time of his teaching tenure, including his KykAfrikaans visual poetry in 1979-1980, Bangboek between 1977-1986, and the researching and writing of the Dictionary of Perplexing English in 1986 (ending in 1999). In this study I will discuss Willem Boshoff's careful employment of language and materials, througb which he propagates his "study of ignorance" (Williamson and Jamal 1996:148). I will investigate two major works by Boshoff, namely The Writing in the Sand and The Blind Alphabet in Chapters 1 and 2 respectively. Both of these installations are concerned fundamentally with the subversion of power relationships and elitism. As I will show, both works offer an opportunity to investigate their objectives in relation to discourses surrounding language and hermeneutics. My study includes a third chapter, in which I discuss my own work entitled The Bread of the Presence in relation to Boshoff's own methodologies. As will be demonstrated with particular reference to The Blind Alphabet and my own work, a discussion of memory proves to be of some relevance within this dialogue.

'n Studie is op die vlakhaas in die Willern Pretorius-wildtuin vanaf Januarie 1975 tot September 1977 uitgevoer. Tydens die studie is aspekte soos reproduksie, enkele morfologiese en fisiologiese aspekte, habitatsvoorkeure, aktiwiteite, loopgebiede en territoria onder soek. Uit 'n monster van vlakhase wat maandeliks versamel is, is gevind dat die vlakhaas die hele jaar teel maar 'n duidelike hoof-teelseisoen kom tussen Julie en Desember voor waartydens 76,72 persent van die jaarlikse dragtigheid voorkom. Die hoof-teelseisoen van die mannetjie, gebaseer op testisvolume, strek van Junie tot Januarie. Die verandering in dagliglengte is die vernaamste omgewingsfaktor wat 'n invloed op die teelseisoen het. Hormoonkonsentrasies van LH, FSH, ISH, estrogeen en testosteroon in die bloedstroom is ook bepaal. Tydens ovulasie word 'n maksimum van drie ova afgeskei maar die meeste werpsels (76,5 persent) het slegs een embrio gehad. 'n Volwasse wyfie produseer gemiddeld 4,13 werpsels en 4,69 kleintjies per jaar. Die volwasse wyfie is gerniddeld 225 g swaarder as die volwasse rnannetjie. Beide geslagte toon 'n toenarne in die niervetindeks voor die hoof-teelseisoen. Volgens die bynierindeks is die vlakhaasbevolking aan spanning onderhewig gedurende die maande Mei, Junie en Julie. Weens groot variasie binne en tussen die maande kon geen tendense in die miltindeks verkry word nie. Die vlakhaas kom slegs in agt van die sewentien veldtipes in die Willem Pretorius-wildtuin voor. Hierdie veldtipes kom hoofsaaklik op die vlaktes en lae rante voor. Die kolhaas daarenteen kom hoofsaaklik op die vlaktes en lae rante voor en gee hoofsaaklik vir veldtipes in bebosde dele en rante voorkeur. Binne 'n veldtipe gee die vlakhaas voorkeur aan 'n lae plantdigtheid en planthoogte. Uit 'n uurlikse aktiwiteitsopname is gevind dat die vlakhaas geen voorkeur aan 'n bepaalde gedeelte van die nag gee nie. 'n Hoër intensiteit in aktiwiteite asook relatief meer pare is egter gedurende die hoof-teelseisoen gevind. Die gemiddelde loopgebiede van 'n vlakhaaswyfie is 8,25 ha teenoor die 6,49 ha vir 'n vlakhaasmannetjie. Die loopgebiede het slegs op die grense oorvleuel. Die afstande tussen die middelpunte van die loopgebiede was groter tussen die mannetjies as tussen die wyfies of tussen mannetjies en wyfies. / Dissertation / gm2013 / Zoology and Entomology

The Dutch born organist, conductor, music pedagogue, church musician and composer, Willem Mathlener left a rich inheritance in the field of organ music in South Africa. He was born in 1909 in Delft in the Netherlands and distinguished himself as an organist and conductor in the thirties and forties of the previous century. He answered the calling of the Nederduitsch Reformed Church in South Africa to improve the standard of church music by immigrating to South Africa in 1948 at the age of 39. He settled in Vereeniging as a music teacher and organist from where he started to introduce his ideas about church music to the Nederduitsch Reformed Church and others. This led to the establishment of the Council for Church Music in 1951. Three years later the Church Music School in Krugersdorp was founded. This institution developed to such an extent that the Conservatoire for Music, Pretoria was established in 1960, the institution that Mathlener was mostly associated with. He implemented his beliefs about musical training which was the result of his own training at a European Conservatoire at both these institutions. As the secretary of the Council for Church Music he had a profound influence on the development and promotion of church music in South Africa. He assisted in the compilation of the Psalm and Hymn book of 1978 by supplying a large number of harmonisations for Hymns in this volume. As an organ advisor he designed about 200 organs. Mathlener’s talent as a composer developed naturally through his capacity as church musician and pedagogue. He composed organ music that can be used supplementary to the organist’s task as accompanist. His piano music fills the need for short study pieces for piano tuition. Since the majority of Mathlener’s compositions do not exceed 30 bars he can be considered to be a miniaturist. His choral arrangements show for the most part a diatonic tonality and a contrapuntal texture which blends in with the style of music for liturgical use. A Psalm or Hymn melody forms mainly the basis for his organ music. Mathlener’s large compositional output which comprises 223 choral harmonisations, 175 works for organ, 53 works for piano and 12 vocal works created the need for a system to arrange his compositions in an orderly fashion. Some of his compositions were published in volumes and others are single unpublished works. The catalogue attempts to arrange Mathlener’s compositions in a logical way thus forming a comprehensive picture of the oeuvre of this composer as well as providing a useful reference tool for organists and other interested people. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2015. / tm2015 / Music / MA / Unrestricted

In this thesis, we investigate the thermodynamics of the de Sitter static patch in order to extract information which can constrain microscopic models of de Sitter quantum gravity. We begin by reviewing previous works which demonstrate how to make sense of the seemingly ill-defined static patch density of states through the introduction of Harish-Chandra group characters, or equivalently through renormalization with respect to a reference problem in Rindler space. A thermal partition function can then be constructed and expressed in terms of a sum over quasinormal mode frequencies. We recap how, in the scalar case, this partition function is equivalent to a 1-loop sphere path integral, as expected from the Gibbons-Hawking proposal, and provides macroscopic data which microscopic models must be consistent with. We next present novel results dealing with scalar Green functions in de Sitter. After constructing various static patch correlators and showing how they can be obtained from their sphere counterparts, we relate the spectral Green function to the Harish-Chandra characters that we came across before, tying them to observables directly accessible within the static patch. We comment on how this result will allow us to generalize thermodynamic considerations to interacting theoriesand therefore place stronger consistency constraints on microscopic models. We finally generalize our analysis to spinning fields, for which thermal partition functions differ from Euclidean path integrals by edge corrections. We reveal new findings which trace the source of these discrepancies to those quasinormal modes which do not correspond to regular Euclidean solutions, explicitly demonstrating this through several examples. Our results highlight the differences between Lorentzian and Euclidean approaches to de Sitter thermodynamics, and hint at new avenues to pursue in the hopes of providing more consistency constraints.