Magister Artium - MA (Creative writing)

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Chrononormativity: An Exploration of Queerness, Time and Aestheticism in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray and Virginia Woolf’s Orlando
(University of the Western Cape, 2024) Conway, Jamie; Davids, Courtney; Clarkson, Carrol-Ann Pauline
This thesis will explore the extent to which Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) addresses chrononormative issues in the Victorian period, using literary scholar Josh Mcloughlin’s “Queer Time in Woolf and Wilde” as a point of departure. By definition, chrononormative issues are linked to the organization of human lives towards maximum productivity following the “major milestones” of life, including but not limited to coming of age, academic graduation, marriage and children. Mcloughlin examines the connection between queerness, aestheticism, gender practices and what Elizabeth Freeman’s Time Binds: Queer Temporalities, Queer Histories (2010) refers to as chrononormativity. Mcloughlin argues that in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) and Virginia Woolf’s Orlando (1933), both protagonists, as queer characters, resist and reject chrononormativity. Mcloughlin goes on to compare the use of aestheticism in both novels as useless and digressive. In order to expand on his claims, I apply the theoretical framework of Freeman’s chrononormativity and queer temporality, with reference to Swikriti Sanyal’s focus on gender and sexuality in “Breaking through the Limits of Flesh: Gender Fluidity and (Un)natural Sexuality in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando”.
Harreخ at: A novella and reflective essay
(University of the Western Cape, 2023) Ajouhaar, Quanita; Moolla, Fatima Fiona
Background: On the 9th of August 1961, an especially cold, rainy day, the five girls were standing outside of their mother, Rhoda’s, bedroom door, waiting patiently for their first brother to arrive, since Rhoda’s belly was unusually large this time around. It looked different from the way it did the five times before. The girls sat against the door in the hallway that was filled with rakams that their mother recently got as a gift from their neighbour. They all thought that it was a miracle to finally have a brother. It had to have been a blessing from Allah, a Makkah baby. “Aaaah,” they heard Rhoda scream from the other side of the door, where the mid-wife stood in front of her open legs repeatedly saying, “Merrem is amper daar.” It was Rhoda’s sixth baby. She thought it would come out easily. “Dit is darem my sesde kind. Ek poep hom sommer uit,” she would say every time one of them spoke about her birth. And she eventually did, “poep the baby out,” and a healthy cry reached the hallway piercing the ears of the girls. They beamed smiles, pushing against the door to come in. Luckily, it was still locked. When the midwife pulled the child out, and Rhoda’s husband, Boebie, got the first peek of the baby, he smiled.
A cow’s meat: an original collection of poems and photographs that explores the influence of imagery in narrative
(University of the Western Cape, 2023) Deane, Kirsten; Moolman, Jacobus
This MACW mini-thesis will examine how photography can inspire narrative in a poem and enhance the impact of its imagery. As I embarked on my journey of writing, I came to the point of needing to augment its effect. So I decided to experiment with photography as the prompt for my writing; exploring how photography can inspire a writer’s creativity, and help them to take their work further and deeper. One of the most important and impactful parts of poetry is its use of evocative imagery. A poet employs imagery in her work to add sensory detail and lyrical effect in order to heighten the reader’s understanding and experience of the topic at hand. Poets such as Angifi Dladla, Chika Sagawa, Max Ritvo and Dawn Garisch use powerful, sometimes strange, images in their work to provide a literary experience that would have an impact upon the reader. With this in mind, I decided to explore using another form of art, specifically photography, to help me expand my use and understanding of the way imagery functions in poetry.
In-between: a collection of poems of loss and memory
(University of the Western Cape, 2022) Williams, Justin; Moolman, Kobus
My mini-thesis in Creative Writing aims to explore memory and childhood through the lens of spatial and temporal consciousness. The vehicle for navigating these memories, whether individual or collective, real or surreal, is a collection of original poems based in and around the Cape Flats. Childhood specifically is the central theme of these poems, as it provides the basis for all the related memories in the collection. To me memory is like a map, dotted by landmarks in time. I will explore these landmarks in the poems to discover if there are patterns in the way that memories are made and stored. I will also explore changes in the physical environment – be these ecological or to do with human development – and how these changes intersect with memory. My aim in the collection is to channel the voice of a central character – a young boy – who is trying to find his place against the backdrop of the Cape Flats setting, while contending with all its challenges. My creative writing mini-thesis will also be accompanied by a reflexive essay that discusses the concepts of memory and spatial and temporal awareness and how these are manifest within my collection of poems.
When the village sleeps
(University of the Western Cape, 2022) Magona, Sindiwe; Van Der Merwe, Meg
This thesis consists of a creative and in-depth research component: a speculative novel, When the Village Sleeps, and a reflective long essay. It is about a young woman, Mandlakazi, who was born severely malformed, the result of deliberate invitro chemical exposure by her teen mother, Busisiwe. Busisiwe watched her own mother raise three children with the help of the child grant and decided that she would be better off financially were she to take advantage of the grant system by having a disabled baby.
The Sound of the Unseen
(University of the Western Cape, 2021) Horwitz, Samantha H.; Moolman, Kobus
This work of fiction explores the themes of relational dynamics, oppression, intergenerational trauma, and the healing and self-actualisation that can be obtained by helping others. It incorporates numerous historical references that tie in to the characters’ stories or otherwise enhance the narrative. The main thread running throughout the entire work is music. Music as cultural signifier, cultural anchor and identifier, and particularly, musical terminology as chapter titles because of how perfectly such terms capture mood, direction, or intent for each chapter. It is crucial to note that while all the characters in the stories that follow are fictitious, the historical events and places are represented as accurately as possible according to extensive research. One historical figure, Tomás de Torquemada, is fictionalized herein, but his role is accurately representative of the role he played historically. Other historical figures, Johann Sebastian Bach and Joseph Beer, have been fictionalized in relation to characters in the story, yet their depictions as musicians are accurate. And Anna is based on an historical figure from the Polish Jewish Resistance; however, her relational story is fictionalised.
Native: An album of modern South African blues songs
(University of the Western Cape, 2021) Ellis, John; Brown, Duncan
This Creative Writing project is an album of South African songs written specifically in the context of American blues music. Although blues is an intrinsically American genre of Western popular music, it has its roots (along with other African-American forms of musical expression such as ragtime and jazz) in African culture, and as a South African musician and writer, I am intrigued by the possibilities of exploring African-American blues in the context of South Africa. This project therefore attempts some hybridity between these two cultural expressions, and to ascertain what kinds of lyric might be possible in modern South Africa in terms of the formation and perpetuation of a South African identity. Blues songs traditionally have a rather narrow focus as far as lyrics are concerned, but the genre’s melodic structure, its instrumentation and its very specific vocal qualities have over the last century formed the bedrock of the whole of modern Western popular music.
Dance on the red-brown earth
(University of the Western Cape, 2020) Conradie, Ina; Vandermerwe, Meg
Nandi, Java and Uuka are students at a Cape Town university, where they are enrolled in a film making course. Adela, their lecturer, will supervise their screenplay and film on a story which depicts the experience of the loss of land in South Africa. They are however also deeply involved in student protests for free university education for all. When the #feesmustfall protests reach a deadlock at their university and the university is temporarily closed, they decide to leave for the Eastern Cape to look for a story. There they stay with Uuka’s grandparents and spend their time trying to understand the family history and the family’s ownership of land, as well as the broader history of land dispossession. They do not only discover more about Uuka’s ancestors and about distant history, but also about themselves. As the characters delve more deeply into the past in their search for a story for a screenplay, the margins between their own stories and the screenplay shift and merge, as do the forms of novel and screenplay
The secret life of doors
(University of the Western Cape, 2021) Meyer, M; Moolman, K
This mini-thesis explores the poetic journey toward the subconscious images of an individual’s memory. It comprises a collection of 35 authentic poems and a reflective essay that examines the uncovering during the creative process. The project explores opposites and dualities of the mindroom and examines the concept of a hypothetical door as a mechanism to reveal archetypal patterns through memory.
The treatment of Historical space in selected works by Thomas Pynchon
(University of the Western Cape, 2004) Kapp, W.; de Lange, A.M
The focus on space and spatiality is relatively new in literary studies and also not unproblematic. Problems arise from the way in which these concepts are constructed, described, defined and interpret~. It is possible to derive numerous kinds of space, such as historical space, physical space, metaphysical space and religious space, to name a few, from the structure or thematics of a novel. This in itself presents a problem, since the literary scholar must differentiate between these spaces in order to determine which will be most useful for study of a particular aspect. There does not seem to be a coherent theoretical position in literary scholar regarding space, and thus various views of theorists will be considered. Gullon (1975:21), in a seminal article on space entitled On Space in the Novel provides a possible definition of space, with reference to another seminal article, this time by Joseph Frank when he states that "Frank calls 'spatial' the form of those works that at a given instant in time concentrate actions that can be perceived, but not related, simultaneously". This definition denotes a further complication engendered by space, namely the notion that different spaces intersect and interrelate with each other, and consequently that it is very difficult - if not impossible - to separate the various kinds of literary spaces in order to analyse the occurrence of a single space in a text. It also seems bound to time, but in a sense bridges the temporal gaps in a novel since it brings together parts that are not necessarily adjacent to each other temporally. Time becomes spatialized by treating events in the novel as separate chunks which can be rearranged and linked to each other. 1bis creates a more coherent and comprehensive picture of events in a text. namely the notion that different spaces intersect and interrelate with each other, and consequently that it is very difficult - if not impossible - to separate the various kinds of literary spaces in order to analyse the occurrence of a single space in a text. The main point in this regard seems to be creating patterns. This brings together more elements for the reader to be viewed at once, allowing him or her to attain a broader perspective on the text.
Unsettled: A Collection of Sort Stories
(University of the Western Cape, 2013) Hill, Sandra; Vandermerwe, Meg
Harriott is asleep under a jacaranda tree in her daughter's lush Escombe garden. Escombe is no longer part of the Natal Colony, the Natal Colony exists only in the minds of people like Harriott. Escombe, though still in the same place it's always been, is now part of the Union of South Africa. It is the 20th of January 1923. Harriott has lived in the Natal Colony for thirty years exactly. She has been married for only one day less. Dorothy's garden Is wonderful, but according to Harriott, not as wonderful as it could be with a little more effort. Dorothy's bougainvillea are a riot of cerise, peach and white. Her dipladenias climbing the pillars of the front veranda - a profusion of pink. The creamy day Iillies are in full bloom. The lavender is a field of purple and the plumbago hedge, where dragon-like Harriott is asleep under a jacaranda tree in her daughter's lush Escombe garden. The barometer has dropped. Harriott does not notice the thickening of the air, nor the band of dampness spreading along her back. Her chair is covered with blankets and a white sheep fleece. It Is the day-bed of a woman whose own padding has melted away, whose bones are dissolving, whose joints have swollen over. 'It won't be long,' whispers Herbert to his bride as they lie side by side sweltering in the room next to Harriott's, the door ajar so Dorothy can hear her if she calls out. 'I'm afraid, it won't be for very much longer, my dear.' chameleons lurk, is thick with blue ... a cool blue ud at t he bottom of the garden, Dorothy thinks. Boy is hard pressed to kee~~~~~~~~~i_~~~~ go, paw-paw and avocado trees. Harriott pays little heed to t ~ e for her lawns, beds, shrubs, Harriott's book is lying on the grass. It is a very slim volume, the slimmest she owns and the latest addition to her collection, thanks to dear Rose who tracked it down somewhere in London and sent it over. Harriott cannot hold anything heavier than the slimmest of books, nor can she make.
Reflexive Essay
(University of the Western Cape, 2011) Cornelius, Jerome; Vandermerwe, Meg
His brown hands, tanned darker than they already were from hours of supervising men shoveling sand and mixing concrete on building sites, gripped the steering wheel. Hendrick Vermeulen drove down Voortrekker Road after a long day's work. He had dropped off the last of the guys with his bakkie and was looking forward to resting. He was enjoying the cool night air blowing up his arm. And there it was, that mountain. There was nothing more to think about it. It meant nothing to him; a big rock, a marker to remind where he was. The rich people were there by the mountain; he was not. He drove on. The sun had gone down and he was making his way home. He looked at his eyes in the rear view mirror, the lines on his forehead more visible than they had ever been. He lived close to the university that he dropped out of thirty years ago. He drove past it often - a reminder of a life he could have had. He was supposed to be a teacher and help his mother move out of the coloured townships and into a nice house, nessie wit mense, like the white people, she would say. She always said that and she laughed, with a cough at the end as she slapped her knee. That was a long time ago. He often thought of the past, but he always made sure he snapped out of it soon enough. No time for that, he thought. And then he saw her, the young· lady walking down the street. He slowed the car. What do you think you are doing, he thought to himself as he idled down the main road. She had a plastic shopping bag and was probably on her way home from the Pick 'n Pay. Student life, he thought. He hardly had a taste of it before the riots and state of emergency and all that. Now he was a contractor. Men like him are not supposed to look at girls walking down the streets going home to their flats. Jissus she was beautiful though, he thought as he stopped at the intersection and she crossed the road. She ran across and as she walked under a street light, he got a better view. A thick, brown coat and black pantyhose and not much else. Heshook his head and laughed. These kids of today. But that's how Chalita used to dress. When they were young themselves and fell in love. They were free. When they had dreams and hopes and she thought that things were still decent and they were going to have a double story and everything will be ...
Post–exilic an old South African returns to the new South Africa
(University of Western Cape, 2020) Devereux, Stephen; Moolman, Kobus
This portfolio of poems, prose poems and short fiction pieces is quasi-autobiographical and tracks the trajectory of my life, from childhood in Cape Town (‘pre-exilic’) to emigration abroad (‘exilic’) and return to Cape Town in late middle age (‘post-exilic’). Themes explored include the deceptive nature of memory and the risk of imbuing a childhood recollected in later life with affective or narrative nostalgia; the psychologically dislocating nature of exile on personal identity and notions of home; and Cape Town as both an imaginary construct and a multi-layered reality: specifically, ‘my’ Cape Town – now as well as half a century ago – and ‘other’ Cape Towns, reflecting a diversity of highly unequal experiences within this city. The dominant mode of expression chosen to explore these largely personal themes is confessional.
'n Maatskaplikewerk-profiel van persoonsontbering in die Swartland met spesifieke verwysing na die groter Chatsworth-gebied
(University of Western Cape, 2002) Blankenberg, Jurine Henry; Small, Adam
Hierdie skripsie wil die mens en sy ervarings, of dit wat hy binne 'n bepaalde gebied beleef, blootlê. Daarmee saam kom 'n duidelike teoretiese beskouing na vore om die persoon in sy gedepriveerde gemeenskap uit te beeld. Die karakter van die gebied weerspiël die volgende kenmerke: Dit is landelik van aard, 'n beduidende afstand vanaf stedelike ontwikkeling geleë, en dit word as 'n "slaapdorp" ervaar. Histories word die gebied bykans 'n honderd jaar deur die inwoners en hul voorgeslagte bewoon, maar as gevolg van poli tieke rompslomp het ontwikkeling nooi t werklik plaasgevind nie. Die probleme wat in die gebied tydens navorsing aanwesig was, is die volgende: Onvoldoende infrastrutuur, watervoorsiening is gebrekkig, riolering kom nie voor nie, gesondheidsdienste word periodiek gelewer, en werksgeleenthede moet buite die gebied bekom word. Die haglike woonomstandighede het die inwoners se lewensverwagting geaffekteer en ongelukkigheid meegebring. Die doel van die navorsing is om 'n geheelbeeld te verkry van die gebied se probleme en behoeftes, hoe die inwoners daaroor voel en wat die mense dink gedoen kan word om, ten spyte van die heersende probleme, hul lewensomstandighede te verbeter. Dit wil sê die ondersoek poog om te bepaal wat die werklike lewensomstandighede van die mense in die Groter Chatsworthgebied (Chatsworth en Riverlands gekombineerd) is.
Around a Fire: Poems of Memory and Ritual
(University of the Western Cape, 2019) Mpuma, Nondwe; Moolman, Jacobus
This Creative Writing mini-thesis offers a deep meditation on what it means to speak to ritual and memory. The thesis is compiled from a collection of original creative work as well as a short reflective essay that present a critical analysis of the creative pieces in relation to the ideas I present. The first of these ideas being, memory as an encapsulation of the past, present and future as explored by writers such as W.G. Sebald and Toni Morrison. This collection examines an understanding of memory and ritual as being uncontained, as constant providers of stimulation for a range of literary responses. Ritual will be regarded primarily in the South African context where there is the intersection of the urban and rural landscapes both physically and metaphorically. In this regard I am thinking alongside writers such as Louise Glúck and Vangile Gantsho. The understanding of ritual is extended to the realm of spirituality where Christianity and African spirituality exist both harmoniously and in conflict. In short, the collection of poems and the reflective essay will explore the ways that memory and ritual interact in time and they will collectively contribute to the production of literature in South Africa.
This Family of Things: Reflecting on the significance of objects in poetry
(University of the Western Cape, 2019) Julie, Lisa; Moolman, Mark
The creative project is a mini-thesis. It is made up of a collection of poems, titled This Family of Things. The collection consists mainly of narrative and descriptive poems which explore the relationship between people and objects and objects and space. The poems explore the day-today experiences of a mother and her young son. The poems exhibit certain elements of the narrative poem. The poems tell a story, and there are two distinct characters and instances of dialogue. This mini-thesis also includes a reflective essay in which I discuss the functionality of objects in poetry. In the essay, I discuss the potentially of objects in creative work. I discuss to what extent objects illuminate space and how objects can potentially disrupt space. I also discuss the separation of objects and things. I discuss creative influences and the various processes involved in the formulation of the creative project.
Learning to Exhale
(University of the Western Cape, 2019) Mojapelo, Lebohang; Moolman, Jacobus
My MA mini-thesis in Creative Writing is a collection of 33 poems titled Learning to Exhale. The poems are centred around a character – a black African woman who is sharing her experiences of mental illness. The poems revolve around memory, forgetting and remembering; going back to the moment when the woman realises that she is ill, understanding it from the present while working to find ways to express what bipolar disorder is and how she experiences it. The collection also highlights her search for words and meaning to describe these experiences that are highly traumatic. This is to create a language of expressing the indescribable. This means that the form and structure is experimental, combining differing styles and form to show different voices, different states of mind that swing from depression, mania to suicidal thoughts.
The price of liberty: A collection of poems and prose that explore the interplay between freedom and sacrifice
(University of Western cape, 2020) Schmidt, David; Moolman, Kobus
The Price of Liberty: A collection of poems and prose that explores the interplay between freedom and sacrifice. David Schmidt This mini-thesis explores the interplay between concepts of freedom and sacrifice. It comprises a collection of 28 original poems as well as a reflective essay that explores some of the themes that emerge through the creative work. The premise of the collection is the notion that freedom is necessarily ambiguous and inevitably involves some countervailing sacrifice or loss. The act of exercising freedom in an oppressive context by transgressing prescribed norms, for example, has its countervailing consequences of shame, humiliation or punishment. Struggles for political freedom similarly involve many forms of sacrifice. The attainment of political or social freedom conversely comes with its own losses – loss of meaning, certainty, innocence, solidarity or even integrity. Relationship itself always involve a tension between obligation and agency – freedom is constrained by values.
Bab’aba - Ugly short stories
(University of the Western Cape, 2018) Nxadi, Julie Ruth Sikelwa; Moolman, Kobus
Bab’aba - Ugly Short Stories is a collection of vignettes whose function is to colour and collage three portraits of Black women characters; namely, a rural woman (Nozikhali), a township teenager (Zola), and a child/baby (Loli). Each of these stories serve as details in each other’s portraits whilst remaining stories on their own. My intention with this collection was to restore some form of abstract equality and right to mystery by functioning within a lexicon of opacity. In the scholarship of decoloniality this is my argument for the legitimacy of vernacular/customised definitions for problems that preoccupy communities/individuals rather than having to always pin ourselves to already existing theory in order to be legible. In the scholarship of opacity, this is a contribution to the argument against the necessity for legibility/transparency (in the first place) in exchange for dignity. I chose ugliness as my thematic district of departure because of its connoted potential to provide richer explorations into notions of marginality and an emancipatory praxis that cannot afford to have in its makeup the potential to seek to eliminate. And though such a liberatory ambition is hard to fantasize about against the backdrop of popular chauvinism in the contemporary landscape of - particularly - South Africa, and the visceral effects thereof and the swift justice needed to attend thereto, I do think that there is merit in hallucinating some sort of doctrine of humanity that ends in dignity for all.
Townships, shacks and suburbs: An original collection of poems
(University of the Western Cape, 2018) Khanyile, Musawenkosi Christopher; Moolman, Kobus
My creative writing full master’s thesis, entitled Townships, Shacks and Suburbs, is a collection of poems that explores the role played by place in shaping identity. Poems in this collection seek to examine the interplay between identity and place, particularly the influence that environmental settings or contexts have in shaping how individuals define who they are. The theme of place is divided into three environmental contexts, namely the township, the rural context and the urban context. The poet navigates between these three environmental contexts, observing how each influences the way people define who they are and also how they identify with that particular environmental context. This definition of self, which forms part of identity, encompasses the day-to-day life, emotions, struggles, memories and a variety of other aspects that are linked to place and are inherent in identity-formation. The observation of how identity is shaped by place includes the poet and extends to people around him. This collection of poems can be viewed as a man’s attempt at finding out who he is, by exploring the history of his life, as well as reflecting on the intricacies of growing up or being exposed to a variety of environmental settings. It can also be viewed as an attempt at learning who people around him are and how their identities are shaped by the place(s) they live in.

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