UWCScholar :: Browsing by Author "Wittenberg, Hermann"

Browsing by Author "Wittenberg, Hermann"

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African traditional culture and modernity in Zakes Mda’s the heart of redness
(2005) Birama, Prosper Ndayi; Wittenberg, Hermann
In my thesis entitled ‘African Tradition and Modernity in Zakes Mda’s The Heart of Redness’, I analyze the way Western modernity and African traditions interact in Mda’s novel. I suggest that both modernity and tradition interact to produce a hybrid culture. This will become apparent in my analysis of the way Mda depicts the cattlekilling episode and the effects of Nongqawuse’s prophecy, and also in the novel’s contemporary characters. Mda shows the development of an African modernity through the semi-autobiographical figure of Camagu who is not slavishly indebted to Western ideas of progress, but is a hybrid of African values and a modern identity. In my thesis I will look at the way Mda also addresses the issue of the oppression of the Xhosa in colonial history, and the way he demonstrates that the divisions of the past deeply influence post-apartheid South Africa. In this regard, I will show how The Heart of Redness is a critique not only of colonial oppression, but also of the newer injustices plaguing the post-apartheid South African society. The focus of Mda’s critique in this regard is the proposed casino that stands as a model of environmentally destructive, unsustainable and capitalist development. Instead, Mda’s novel shows an alternative modernization of rural South African society, one which is based on community upliftment and environmentally friendly development. Through an exploration of the above aspects of the novel, my thesis shows that Mda’s writing exemplifies a hybrid African modernity, one that incorporates Western ideas as well as African values.
Alan Paton�s sublime: race, landscape and the transcendence of the liberal imagination
(University of KwaZulu Natal, 2005) Wittenberg, Hermann
This article develops a postcolonial reading of the sublime by suggesting that aesthetic theories of the sublime were, in their classical philosophical formulations by Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant, founded on problematic assumptions of racial difference. In the colonial sphere, it is argued, the sublime could discursively manage and contain the contradictions inherent in the aesthetic appreciation and appropriation of contested landscapes. This is particularly evident in the Alan Paton's writing. This article looks at the origins and the influence of rhetoric of the sublime in Paton's work, particularly in his novel Cry, the Beloved Country, and argues that the sublime is a key discursive structure in the shaping of Paton's complex and ambivalent representation of South Africa's politicised and racialised landscape.
Alan Paton�s writing for the stage: towards a non-racial South African theatre
(Taylor & Francis (Routledge), 2007) Wittenberg, Hermann
Introduction: It would not be an exaggeration to assert that no South African playwright in the 1950s and 1960s received as much international attention and recognition as Alan Paton, until eclipsed by Athol Fugard�s emerging career. Paton�s own plays and musicals, and the stage adaptations of his novels, had some extensive and successful runs on Broadway in New York, and also played to packed houses in South Africa. Some highly acclaimed artists, ranging from the German avant-garde composer Kurt Weill to South Africa�s jazz musician Todd Matshikiza, helped to bring his work to the stage. Yet Paton�s theatrical work has received surprisingly scant attention from critics, which is all the more remarkable, given the author�s prominence as one of South Africa�s most well-known writers. Like his novels, Paton�s plays are not simply light human dramas or romantic comedies as much colonial theatre at the time, but serious works that were deeply concerned with the socio-political issues facing South Africa under apartheid. As Paton once put it, he was never interested in �writing a �jolly good fellow� sort of play.� Three of his major plays were written and performed in a crucial period of South African history: the Sharpeville massacre, the implementation of the Group Areas and other cornerstone apartheid acts, the treason trials, and the declaration of the republic.
Between text and stage: the theatrical adaptations of J.M. Coetzee's Foe
(University of the Western Cape, 2016) Naidoo, Kareesha; Wittenberg, Hermann
This thesis will critically analyse two theatrical adaptations of J. M. Coetzee's Foe (1986). Primarily, this thesis will be seeking to understand the complex relationship of the primary text to its adaptations more closely, regarding them not only as second-order versions or interpretations of the novel, but also to consider the way they may retrospectively construct new readings and understandings of the source text. This thesis will not only consider the way in which Foe is used in the adaptations but also how Robinson Crusoe (1719) influenced the adaptors and adaptive process. Theories of adaptation will be discussed, drawing extensively on work by Linda Hutcheon (2006) and Robert Stam (2005). One of the key ideas in adaptation theory is that adaptive fidelity to the source text is neither possible nor desirable, but that adaptation is a more complex, multi-layered intertextual and intermedial interplay of fictional material. One of the aims of this thesis is to ask whether or not Foe can be successfully transposed to the stage. This thesis will serve as a close analysis of the two theatrical adaptations, focusing on the beginning and endings of the respective adaptations. This research will contribute a new approach to Coetzee studies and to Foe in particular by exploring how these texts can lead to a broader understanding of Coetzee's work and the way it crosses into different media.
Between text and stage: the theatrical adaptations of J.M. Coetzee�s Foe
(Taylor & Francis, 2017) Naidoo, Kareesha; Wittenberg, Hermann
Several of J.M. Coetzee�s novels have been adapted successfully for the stage, both as theatrical and operatic versions, but these adaptations have not received much critical attention. This article examines the ways in which Peter Glazer and Mark Wheatley have adapted Coetzee�s novel Foe (1986), resulting in two different and distinct stage productions, performed in the US and the UK respectively. In order to explore the complex relationship between the published text and the play versions, the article will ground itself in theories of adaptation, drawing extensively on work by Linda Hutcheon and Robert Stam and Alessandra Raengo. One of the key ideas in adaptation theory is that adaptive fidelity to the source text is neither possible nor desirable, but that adaptation is a more complex, multi-layered intertextual and intermedial interplay of fictional material. The article discusses the two play scripts and analyses the adaptive choices which underpin them and how these structure their meaning-making. Finally, the article also suggests that these scripts can be used to throw more light on Coetzee�s enigmatic novel.
The Boer and the jackal: Satire and resistance in Khoi orature
(University of the Western Cape, 2014) Wittenberg, Hermann
Bushman narratives have been the subject of a large volume of scholarly and popular studies, particularly publications that have engaged with the Bleek and Lloyd archive. Khoi story-telling has attracted much less attention. This paper looks a number of lesser known Khoi narratives, collected by Thomas Baines and Leonhard Schultze. Despite commonalities in the respective oral traditions, Khoi folklore appears more open to discursive modes of satire, mockery and ridicule, features which are not readily found in Bushman story telling. A number of Khoi narratives that feature the trickster figure of the jackal are presented and analysed as discursive engagements with historical realities and political forces that impinged on indigenous societies. It is argued that Khoi orature was able to mock and subvert settler dominance by making imaginative use of animal proxies such as the jackal. This capacity for satire in Khoi oral culture allowed it to resist colonial violence on a discursive level, a strategy that was much less pronounced in Bushman narration.
Cinematic and photographic aesthetics in the novels of J.M. Coetzee
(The University of the Western Cape, 2017) Gilburt, Iona; Wittenberg, Hermann
This thesis will examine the extensive cinematic and photographic visuality inscribed in the fictions of J. M. Coetzee. Coetzee's prose is inflected by a complex intermediality that references media aesthetics, practices, and genres, as well as creating linkages to specific film texts. This study will examine a range of Coetzee's writings but will pay particular attention to his second novel In the Heart of the Country (1977), which will be used as a lens to explore the visuality of Coetzee's earlier and later fictions. In the Heart of the Country, it will be shown, employs innovative film techniques that reflect the influence of 1960s avant-garde cinema, with strong ties to two films in particular: Andrzej Munk's Pasaerka (1963), and Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville (1965). A comparative analysis of the novel with Coetzee's unrealised screenplay adaptation will be used to show that these cinematic influences extend to narrative experimentation and theoretical engagements with time. This will be followed by an intensive exploration of the cinematographic aesthetic in Life & Times of Michael K (1983). Coetzee's two Karoo novels, it will be shown, employ film effects to a degree that sets them apart from his other fictions, rendering these texts as cinematographic counterparts. The study of photography will then examine how Coetzee's theoretical understanding of the image enables him to utilise and extend the narrative power of the photographic medium in three ways: by inscribing important narratives within individual images, by employing the photograph as a method of characterisation, and by simulating the photographic processes of capture and development during key narrative events. Although this exploration of photography will reference several of Coetzee's fictions, analysis will focus predominantly on Dusklands (1974), In the Heart of the Country, and Slow Man (2005).
Female identity and landscape in Ann Radcliffe's Gothic Novels
(University of the Western Cape, 2008) Davids, Courtney Laurey; Wittenberg, Hermann; Dept. of English
The purpose of this dissertation is to chart the development of an ambivalent female identity in the Gothic genre, as exemplified by Ann Radcliffe's late eighteenth century fictions. The thesis examines the social and literary context of the emergence of the Gothic in English literature and argues that it is intimately tied up with changes in social, political and gender relations in the period.
Framing and visuality in two postcolonial novels: J.M. Coetzee’s disgrace and Juan gabriel vasquez’s reputations
(University of the Western Cape, 2023) Daffue, Samantha Leigh; Wittenberg, Hermann
The aim of this study is to examine the concept and effect of framing in two postcolonial novels, Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee and Reputations by Juan Gabriel Vasquez. A frame can be defined as “[t]hat in which something, esp. a picture, pane of glass, etc., is set or let in, as in a border or case” (Oxford English Dictionary). It thus encloses, limits but also structures a particular point of view or way of seeing. The thesis will examine such conceptions of framing as devices that serve to isolate and foreground particular moments or scenes within the larger narrative. Specific instances of framing will be analysed in the two chosen novels. Disgrace is set in post-Apartheid South Africa, against a backdrop of the political transition. The story grapples with a literature professor’s challenges concerning his lack of insight and empathy, and at the centre is the question of gender-based violence. The analysis will focus on several moments of framing which allow insight into his limited point of view and his lack of empathetic engagement with others. Similarly, Reputations focuses on the life of an accomplished, middle-aged political cartoonist whose life comes to a standstill when past, private events intersect with his prosperous present in Bogota, Colombia. As these are both novels from the Global South, there are various degrees of comparison; however, this thesis will focus on framing, and how this literary technique brings pivotal moments to the forefront.
Intermediality in the novels of Lauren Beukes
(University of the Western Cape, 2021) Vellai, Micayla Tamsyn; Wittenberg, Hermann
There is the growing recognition that literary works are not independent, but have often been impacted on by various other media. Complex intersections arise between printed text and other media such as photography, film, music and visual arts. The central theoretical concept underpinning this thesis is a study of intermediality, which interrogates the various ways non-literary media are used as a resource or reference. This analysis will be explored in the novels of Lauren Beukes, and will focus on the intermedial meaning-making and influences of both analogue photography and digital visuality in the dystopian society of Moxyland (2008). Furthermore, it will examine visual art in Broken Monsters (2014) and delineate visuality in terms of “bodies”, as is evident in the depiction of ruin porn and contemporary art.
Late style in J.M. Coetzee's Diary of a Bad Year
(Taylor & Francis (Routledge), 2010) Wittenberg, Hermann
J.M. Coetzee�s post-millennial writing has been marked by new forms of inventiveness, formal risk-taking and narrative experimentation that have blurred the boundaries between fiction, autobiography and social commentary. Using the example of the novel Diary of a Bad Year (2007), it is argued that this latter fiction is exemplary of Edward Said�s idea of �late style�, accounting not only for Coetzee�s surprising venture into explicit political commentary, but also his narrative minimalism. The paper looks carefully at the content and style of Coetzee�s novel, contrasting its descriptive technique with earlier fictions.
Notes towards a history of Khoi literature
(Taylor & Francis, 2011) Wittenberg, Hermann
This article puts forward a revisionist history of Khoi literature, and also presents a number of translated Khoi narratives that have not been available in English before. Compared to the large volume of Bushman literature and scholarship, there has been very little Khoi literature and engagement with it, and an argument is presented to account for this gap in South African cultural history. Until now, the major source of Khoi literature was Wilhelm Bleek�s Reynard the Fox in South Africa (1864), and this text is critically interrogated as a limiting version of Khoi orature. An alternative corpus of Khoi narratives is presented that was originally published in Leonard Schultze�s Aus Namaland und Kalahari (1907).
The pregnant man: race, difference and subjectivity in Alan Paton�s Kalahari writing
(Taylor & Francis, co-published with Unisa Press, 2010) Wittenberg, Hermann
In South African imaginative writing and scholarly research, there is currently an extensive and wide-ranging interest in the �Bushman�, either as a tragic figure of colonial history, as a contested site of misrepresentation, or even as an exemplary model of environmental consciousness. Writing and research about �Bushmen� has not only become pervasive in the academy, but also a site of controversy and theoretical contestation. It is in this context that this paper investigates the meaning and significance of �Bushmen� for Alan Paton, one of South Africa�s most well-known writers. Paton�s writing is not usually associated with �Bushman� studies, yet this article shows that the �Bushman� became a highly charged and ambivalent figure in his imagination. Paton�s problematic ideas are contextualised more carefully by looking at the broader context of South African letters. The article initially analyses Paton�s representation of �Bushmen� in his Lost City of the Kalahari travel narrative (1956, published in 2005. Pietermaritzburg: KZN Press), and also discusses unpublished archival photographs. A study of the figure of the �Bushman� throughout the entire corpus of his writing, ranging from early journalism to late autobiography, allows us to trace the shift of his views, enabling us to reflect not only on Paton�s thinking about racial otherness, but also gauge the extent to which his encounter with the Kalahari Bushmen destabilised his sense of self, finally also preventing the publication of the travelogue
Race, resistance and translation: the case of John Buchan�s UPrester John
(Taylor & Francis (Routledge), 2011) Wittenberg, Hermann
In postcolonial translation studies, increasing attention is being given to the asymmetrical relationships between dominant and indigenous languages. This paper argues that John Francis Cele�s UPrester John (1958), is not simply a subordinated and obeisant translation of John Buchan�s adventure thriller Prester John (1910), but a more complex form of textuality that is both oppositional and complicit with the workings of apartheid. Although Cele�s translation reproduces Buchan�s story of a daring young Scotsman who single-handedly quells a black nationalist uprising, it also ameliorates the novel�s racist language and assumption. Cele�s translation practice is examined in the context of apartheid publishing and Bantu education.
Reading representations of the African Child in select contemporary films
(University of the Western Cape, 2014) Van Der Rede, Lauren; Wittenberg, Hermann
Framed by theories of childhood, psychoanalysis, postcolonial theory, trauma theory, film theory, and literary theory, this thesis investigates representations of the African child in three contemporary films about Africa. This thesis puts forward the argument that in E. Zwick‘s Blood Diamond Dia, the film‘s primary child character, is split into Dia Vandy (his subjectivity) and See-me-no-more (his performed identity within the Revolutionary United Front). Furthermore it will be shown that this split is paralleled by the boy‘s transition from filiation to re-filiation. With regard to K. MacDonald‘s The Last King of Scotland, this thesis will demonstrate how, via the effects of cinematic doubling, the narrative antagonist Ugandan dictator Idi Amin Dada is represented as a child. It will also be illustrated that the narrative, consequently, perpetuates not only the myths surrounding Amin but the colonial myth that the savage is a child. Finally, this thesis will show that, of the tree texts, N. Blomkamp‘s District 9 boasts the most authentic representation of the African child and childhood in postcolonial Africa, albeit via a child figure that is literally alien. In each case study the child will be shown to be a liminal personae (Turner 1969), who is an ambiguous and often paradoxical figure who allows us to see more clearly the ethical tensions within the narrative. This thesis will also show that these texts may be considered socially aware trauma narratives, which are relatively critical of western involvement in the traumatic histories of African locales and peoples. Ironically though, these texts, and others similar to them, have been criticised for being Afropessimistic (Evans & Glenn 2010). The tension created by this paradox will be investigated during this thesis, which will attempt to establish to which extent these texts may be considered postcolonial, and whether or not they should be labelled Afropessimistic.
Representations of fatherhood and paternal narrative power in South African English literature
(University of the Western Cape, 2016) Andrews, Grant; Wittenberg, Hermann
This study explores the different ways that South African novels have represented fatherhood across historical periods, from the dawn of apartheid to the post-transitional moment. It is argued that there is a link between narrative power and the father, especially in the way that the father figure is given authority and is central to dominant narratives which support pervasive ideologies. The study introduces the concept of paternal narratives, which are narratives that support the power of the father within patriarchal systems and societies, and which the father is usually given control of. This lens will be applied to prominent South African literature in English, including early texts such as Alan Paton�s Cry, the Beloved Country, Nadine Gordimer�s Burger�s Daughter and J. M. Coetzee�s In the Heart of the Country, where the father�s authority is strongly emphasised, and where resisting the paternal narratives often leads to identity struggles for sons and daughters. Later texts, published during the transition from apartheid, often deconstruct the narrative power of fathers more overtly, namely Mark Behr�s The Smell of Apples, Zakes Mda�s Ways of Dying and K. Sello Duiker�s The Quiet Violence of Dreams. More recent novels, published in �post-transitional� South Africa, are radical in their approach to father figures: fathers are often shown to be spectral and dying, and their control of narratives is almost completely lost, such as in Lisa Fugard�s Skinner�s Drift, Mark Behr�s Kings of the Water, Zo� Wicomb�s Playing in the Light and Zukiswa Wanner�s Men of the South. Exploring these shifting representations is a useful way to unearth how ideological and social shifts in South Africa affect the types of representations produced, and how fatherhoods are being reimagined.
Shaping the boys’ South African identity: Suppressed queer space in spud and Inxeba
(University of the Western Cape, 2020) Willows, Joshua Peter; Wittenberg, Hermann
The purpose of this study is to explore how “queerness” is both represented and suppressed in select South African fiction. The study will investigate to what extent a post-colonial form of education reinforces the colonial and apartheid traditions of South African normative masculinities in same-sex, educational environments. These aspects will be explored and investigated in John Van de Ruit‟s Spud: A wickedly funny novel (2005), Spud: The madness continues… (2007), Spud: Learning to Fly (2010), and will be complemented with an investigation of the recent South African film, Inxeba (2017). The series of novels and films demonstrate how the contestation between queerness and traditional masculinity threatens heteronormativity and how various forms of violence try to enforce a dominant South African masculinity.
The sublime, imperialism and the African landscape
(University of the Western Cape, 2004) Wittenberg, Hermann; Parr, A.N
In this dissertation the author argued for a postcolonial reading of the sublime that takes into account the racial and gendered underpinnings of Immanuel Kant's and Edmund Burke's classic theories. The thesis used the understanding of the sublime as a lens for an analysis of the cultural politics of landscape in a range of late imperial and early modern texts about Africa. A re-reading of Henry Morton Stanley's central African exploration narratives, John Buchan's African fiction and political writing, and later texts such as Alan Paton's fiction, autobiographies and travel writing, together with an analysis of colonial mountaineering discourse, suggest that non-metropolitan discourses of the sublime, far from being an outmoded rhetoric, could manage and contain the contradictions inherent in the aesthetic appreciation and appropriation of contested colonial landscapes.
The taint of the censor: J.M. Coetzee and the making of In the Heart of the Country
(Institute for the Study of English in Africa, Rhodes University, 2008) Wittenberg, Hermann
With the publication of In the Heart of the Country by the London publisher Secker & Warburg in 1977, J. M. Coetzee had achieved international recognition for his second novel, transcending the narrow national literary culture of South Africa. Although In the Heart of the Country, with its overtly South African subject matter and setting certainly strengthened his credentials as a significant new South African writer, a careful look at the publication history of this novel shows a degree of ambivalence in the way Coetzee's authorship emerged in the force-field of tension between the local and the global. On the one hand, In the Heart of the Country's British publication was a further step in Coetzee's transnational authorship, a process that I have argued took place already with the writing and local South African publication of Dusklands (1974) ; on the other hand, Coetzee was also addressing himself for the first (and possibly last) time in a very particular and focused manner to a local readership. This complex doubled form of authorship was reflected in the dual publication history of In the Heart of the Country, both as an international version for the metropolitan Anglophone market (with a parallel United States edition), and as an edition published by Ravan Press in the following year, licensed for distribution only in South Africa. The South African edition distinguished itself not only by a different imprint and jacket design, but was decidedly local, with much of the novel's extensive dialogue in Afrikaans.
Towards an archaeology of Dusklands
(Institute for the Study of English in Africa, 2011) Wittenberg, Hermann
This essay seeks to explore the question of origins: the beginnings of the literary career of arguably South Africa's most significant author, and the development of a form of authorship that was, at its inception, situated both locally and globally. An archaeology of the publication history of the debut novel Dusklands (1974) can shed light on the emergence of a particularly complex form of transnational authorship that J. M. Coetzee came to assume, a form locating itself within the South African literary landscape while simultaneously connecting itself to broader international literary currents.

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