Magister Artium - MA (English)

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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.
The white saviour complex in three contemporary American novels
(University of the Western Cape, 2024) Carolissen, Calsey Marie; Naicker, Kamil
The term ‘White Savior Industrial Complex’ became popular when Nigerian-American Teju Cole criticised a polarising documentary, Kony 2012, in a series of social media posts. Cole argues that the complex allows white saviours to be lauded for showing support to poor Africans while ignoring the structural, systemic and often severe causes of African poverty, including American imperialism. The white saviour industrial complex is a mentality which aims to achieve maximum personal emotional satisfaction for the “saviour” through charitable acts, while expending minimal effort on understanding generations of structural imbalances put in place by colonialism and American imperialism. This project considers the figure of the white saviour as it relates to African American culture and politics in three contemporary novels: Kathryn Stockett’s historical fiction The Help (2009), the young adult novel The Hate U Give (2017) by Angie Thomas, and Kiley Reid’s satire, Such a Fun Age (2020). The former novel focuses on a white saviour figure’s attempts to capitalise on the mistreatment of African-American women in order to further her writing career. The latter two novels address the African-American perspective of how the saviour figure negatively impacts black livelihood, and the relationship between two black protagonists and the respective ‘white saviour’ figures in their lives.
Contemporary South African speculative fiction: A study of Mohale Mashigo’s short story collection intruders (2018)
(University of the Western Cape, 2022) Ruiter, Marvyn John; Volschenk, Jacolien
Speculative fiction, South Africa, entanglement, social commentary, post-Apartheid, folktales, tropes, Africanfuturism, Africanjujuism, Mohale Mashigo Abstract Globally, speculative fiction is a popular genre, but it has not gained much traction in the contemporary South African literary sphere. In this thesis, I argue that speculative fiction allows for the exploration of social configurations of South African society because of its speculative and experimental nature. I will do so through an analysis of Mohale Mashigo's collection of short stories, Intruders (2018), using Sarah Nuttall’s concept of entanglement as a rubric.
Gender and landscape in the works of Olive Schreiner
(University of the Western Cape, 2022) Jacobs, Nicolette; Birch, Alannah
My research will focus on the relationship between gender and landscape as portrayed in Olive Schreiner’s first published novel, The Story of an African Farm, and her much later novel, Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland, with reference to her letters and the non-fictional text, Woman and Labour. In The Story of an African Farm, Schreiner explores a young person’s viewpoints on religion, feminism and the social and physical environment of the Cape Colony. Published in 1883 under the pseudonym Ralph Irons and widely recognised as among the first South African novels, the novel shows Schreiner’s interest in the emergence of female subjectivity revealed through the protagonist, Lyndall, in a landscape shaped by social hierarchies.
Changing rains, changing voices: Representations of black women over five decades of South African theatre (1950 - 1996)
(University of the Western Cape, 1997) Mazibuko, Nokuthula; Flockemann, Miki
Changing rains, changing voices: Representations of black women over five decades of South African theatre (1950 - 1996) The general aim of this research paper is to investigate/interrogate, tough analyses of four popular musicals, images of ideal womanhood put forward by South African popular theatre at various historical moments. I argue that these images have shifted from decade to decade (1950 - 1996), revealing the constructed and therefore changeable nature of unequal gender roles within society. My research will consist of textual and contextual analyses of the representation of women in the following popular musicals: King Kong ( 1959), Too Late ( 1975), Sarafina! ( 1987), and Marabi (1981/1995). The ideas of womanhood posited by the play texts will be examined vis-d-vis their "struggle narratives" (whose goal is liberation from racial and economic oppression).
“A kind of symphony”: new nature in Jeff VanderMeer’s southern reach trilogy
(University of the Western Cape, 2022) Reiners, Rustin; Carstens, Delphi
The Anthropocene is the proposed name for a new geological epoch that has come about due to significant human changes to climate and environment. In response to the Anthropocene crisis, this thesis proposes a re-evaluation of the agency of non-human interlocuters – ultimately questioning the place of humans in the natural world. This viewpoint is explored through an examination of the New Weird, a literary genre that blends elements of transgressive horror and speculative fiction, often with an environmental lens. A close reading of Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy reveals an attempt to challenge the conventional boundaries between human and non-human, which is predominantly achieved through an invocation of the ecological uncanny – a blurring of ontological, epistemological, and ethical boundary lines between humans and the environment. The Southern Reach novels present an environment where the fixed laws of nature proposed by reductive science begin to unravel. Therefore, VanderMeer – through elements of the genre of contemporary fantasy and science fiction known as the New Weird – casts doubt on the separation of humans and nature. The critique of the human/nature binary is something that is explored extensively by continental philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, as well as feminist scholars like Stacy Alaimo, Rosi Braidotti, Donna J. Haraway, and Elizabeth A. Povinelli, who can all broadly be termed as ‘new materialist’ thinkers – owing to their insistence on cultivating new modes of thinking about human and non-human relations. It is through the combination of various new materialist theories and New Weird fiction that I am able to formulate an argument for a less anthropocentric reading of the Anthropocene; an interpretation that draws no distinction between nature and the human, and which allows for different forms of existence that exceed the human.
A connotative turn for pictorial semiotics: The cultural semiotics of Goran Sonesson
(University of the Western Cape, 2000) Paulsen, Amanda; Hunter, Eva
Goran Sonesson provides a departure point from the work of Roland Barthes in the pictorial semiotic studies. He questions the theoretical and methodological assumptions underlying the Barthesian model. We compare Sonesson's model to results gathered from the iconic analysis of a selected photograph taken from a women's magazine (see Figure 1 above), and conclude that there is little to suggest an analysis of a pictures iconic content will convey its intended message. However, there is some indication that when the conventions or codes operating within a culture are known, the mechanisms responsible for the production of meaning in the visual medium become more transparent.
A Connotative Turn for Pictorial Semiotics: The Cultural Semiotics of Goran Sonesson
(University of the Western Cape, 2000) Paulsen, Amanda; Hunter, Eva
Goran Sonesson provides a departure point from the work of Roland Barthes in the pictorial semiotic studies. He questions the theoretical and methodological assumptions underlying the Barthesian model. We compare Sonesson's model to results gathered from the iconic analysis of a selected photograph taken from a women's magazine (see Figure 1 above), and conclude that there is little to suggest an analysis of a pictures iconic content will convey its intended message. However, there is some indication that when the conventions or codes operating within a culture are known, the mechanisms responsible for the production of meaning in the visual medium become more The art historian Erwin Panofsky (1892-1968) was a pioneer and leading exponent of iconographical studies. According to Panofsky, iconography is "that branch of the history of art which concerns itself with the subject matter or meaning of works of art, as opposed to their form" (Panofsky 1978: 51). An important distinction made by Panofsky is that between iconography as the study of subject matter and iconology as the study of meaning. Using the example of "doffing one's hat", Panofsky shows that two meanings can be appended to this common gesture. While the act of raising one's hat indicates a polite gesture, it originated from the practice of medieval knights where the removal of one's helmet indicated peaceful intent. Panofsky goes on to say: "To understand (the significance) of the gentleman's actions I must not only be familiar with the practical world of object and events, but also with the more-than-practical world of customs and cultural traditions peculiar to a certain civilisation." (ibid.: 51-3).transparent.
Boycotting of academics: The case of UWC
(UWC, 1980) Miche, Ana; JJ, Rr
An abstract is a brief summary of a research article, thesis, review, conference proceeding, or any in-depth analysis of a particular subject and is often used to help the reader quickly ascertain the paper's purpose.
Science fiction and magical realism: African environmentalism in the organic fantasy of Nnedi Okorafor
(University of the Western Cape, 2022) Malgas, Lester; Moolla, Fatima
This is a work of ecocriticism—the interdisciplinary study of literature and environment— which takes as its point of departure the environmental and literary insights of Amitav Ghosh in The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (2016). According to Ghosh the conventions of literary realism, and the context within which those conventions gained ascendancy, present a range of shortcomings in respect of the depiction of climate change in literature.
The rooms we build: poems of place and memory
(University of the Western Cape, 2022) Dyer, Caitlin; Moolman, Kobus
The rooms we build is my Master’s thesis in creative writing. My thesis consists of two parts. The first part is a semi-autobiographical collection of poems, prose poems and short fiction pieces entitled “Letters to ourselves”. The second part is a reflexive essay entitled “The rooms we build”, that briefly examines mental health, memory and place as forms of connection and disconnection, with specific reference to my creative component. In my creative component, “Letters to ourselves”, I use an epistolary form to express the breakdown of human relationships as a result of a lack of communication. The idea and process of letter writing, seen through the form of this collection, is intended to analyse the effects of catharsis on grief, loss of communication and mental health. A deconstruction of relationships through memory and loss becomes the main focal point. Overall, this collection seeks to understand the human condition and how catharsis found in letter writing can be a way of expressing memory.
Figuring the heroine in the ankara romance series against the archetype of Flora Nwapa’s efuru: marriage, procreation, love, sex, and work, master’s
(University of the Western Cape, 2021) Mundembe, Enet; Moola, Fiona
Romantic love has been neglected in the study of African literature and culture. It has been misconstrued and overlooked in canonical African literature, and the scholarship of that literature. Only recently has some attention been directed to African popular romance writing. The main focus of African literature and its scholarship fell on questions of history, colonial resistance, and, later, in the work of women writers, on gender oppression. This neglect is gradually being addressed. Romantic love is slowly getting more recognition than before in the study of African literature, and as evidenced in popular culture by recent African imprints like the South African-based Sapphire imprint, and Nollybooks and Okada Books in Nigeria, among others. The Ankara popular romances under study in this thesis focus on the concerns of contemporary African women and suggest resolutions to their problems. Although they are in some ways similar to Anglo-American romance fiction like Mills and Boon and Harlequin, they present some concerns specific to their context. Among these are questions of childbearing, locally relevant questions related to work and career, and contextually shaped issues around desire and the erotic. The contemporary Ankara novellas have been read against the backdrop of Flora Nwapa’s novel Efuru, a first-generation African novel written by the first published African woman writer. We see that the dilemmas encountered by the Ankara heroines represent the concerns of Efuru, Nwapa’s heroine, with some variation in some cases. Of the Ankara novellas published to date, the following titles will be studied, namely, A Tailor-Made Romance by Oyindamola Affinih, Love Me Unconditionally by Ola Awonubi, A Taste of Love by Sifa Asani Gowon, The Elevator Kiss by Amina Thula, Finding Love Again by Chioma Iwunze-Ibiam and Love’s Persuasion also by Ola Awonubi. The thesis establishes that the resolution of the Ankara novellas is different from the ending of Efuru. Nwapa leaves Efuru’s dilemmas unresolved, whereas the Ankara novellas, because they are romances, present idealised resolutions in which model heroes, who manifest transformations coming to being in society more generally, constitute the wished-for happy-ever-after ending.
Developing first year part-time students' academic competencies in an academic literacy module
(University of Western Cape, 2010) Chu, Fidelis Ewe; Goodman, Kenneth
The transition from high school to university for many students all over the world has never been very easy and this is also true in the South African context. At the University of the Western Cape the majority of students, particularly part-time students, come from previously disadvantaged institutions of learning. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that most tertiary institutions in South Africa, including The University of the Western Cape, use English as the official language of instruction even though more than three quarters of students entering into institutions of higher learning in South Africa are second or even third language English speakers who do not have the language competence level required in the medium of instruction to successfully negotiate academic curricula.
Blood, race and the construction of 'the Coloured' in Sarah Gertrude Millin's God's stepchildren
(University of the Western Cape, 2011) Coetzee, Mervyn A.; Kohler, Peter
In this paper I attempt to look critically at the literary construction of one particular 'race', namely the 'Coloureds'. In Sarah Gertrude Millin's God's Stepchildren. To this end, the paper draws on the hlstorlcal background of Millin, and investigates the way in which Millin has consciously and strateglcally forrned, as it were, a 'unique' Coloured Identity. Furthermore, the paper explores the proximity or tension between author and narrator in the novel. This tension, i suggest, emerges In response to various pressures In the novel which in tum are based upon the author's social, . political and economic background. Evidence to this effect is derived from Millin's biography and other sources. What emerges from the paper Is that the concepts 'race' and 'Coloured', as they are employed In this novel, are equally elusive. In attempting to piece together a 'race', the novel communicates Millin's aversion to miscegenation, and discloses characteristics of her 'self. Ironically, I conclude, she falls prey to the same kinds of prejudices that she projects onto her literary subjects
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.
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.
The postcolonial aesthetics of beauty, nature and form: Reading the glass palace, the hungry tide and the shadow lines by Amitav Ghosh
(University of Western Cape, 2020) Singh, Nehna Daya; Moolla, F. Fiona
One can think of an aesthetic as one’s artistic mode and purpose. The aesthetic is differently foregrounded in each of Ghosh’s three selected novels: in the first novel studied, aesthetic concerns are linked with beauty. Female beauty in particular, is the primary aesthetic focus in The Glass Palace since it is beauty that inspires love and appreciation. In the second novel, The Hungry Tide, the aesthetic explores techniques of writing that encompass environmental questions. This novel shows nature as its primary aesthetic since it is through the encounter with nature that its aesthetic is realised and an appreciation for all life forms are established.
Spectres of Sycorax:Sycorax: Spectral Orality and Black Female Presence in the Figurings of Winnie Mandela and Sindiwe Magona
(University of Western Cape, 2019) Bizela, Sinethemba; Moolla, Fiona
The demands of modernity and globalisation present print culture as dominant in such a way that oral tradition is forced in to a shadowy position, because the latter tradition cannot be exploited entirely for profit. Dominant scholarship on oral studies therefore positions orality in the background of writing, so as to suggest that it is a past tradition of, and serves as a reservoir for, written literature. However, such approaches reveal theoretical gaps, highlighted, as will be shown in the thesis, by the effaced position of the black woman as storyteller. Orality, in this, becomes the spectre which haunts the writing of most African writers in the same way that the black woman haunts man -centred nationalism. Such spectrality is precisely one which is embodied if not by the black woman in nationalist discourse and in society in general. I begin in by examining the representation of an archetypal black woman namely Sycorax, in William Shakespeare’ s The Tempest. Even though Shakespeare is quite ambiguous about her racial identity, I interpret Sycorax– whose story is told by male characters– as a black black woman.
"The enemy of the absolute": Women in the early poetry of T.S.ELIOT
(University of Western Cape, 2002) Birch, Alannah; Birch, Alannah
Mathew Arnold's 1867 poem presents romantic love as a condition of permanence that can offer refuge from a changeable world. Sixty years later, however, Virginia Woolf observes that romance has become rare as a subject of modern poetry. Her suggestion that there is an historical explanation for this change in literary subject matter is the starting point for this study of the representation of women in the early poetry of T.S. Eliot. Whereas Woolf tentatively dates the "death" of romance to the First World War I will suggest that this change in poetic sentiment is evident in Eliot's early work, some of which predates the war. In the poems under discussion, written between the years 1910 ("Portrait of a Lady" and "The Love Song of J.
The representations of Sojourner Truth in The Narrative of Sojourner Truth
(University of the Western Cape, 2020) Salie, Shazia; Michael, Cheryl-Ann
I read representations of Sojourner Truth in her Spiritual Narrative, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth with a focus on the portrayal of her unconventional character, through a close analysis of language, structure, photographs and narrative voice. Truth’s editor Olive Gilbert’s raises questions about whether the daguerreotype offers a more accurate form of representation than text. I explore the similarities and differences between visual and written portraits in representations of Truth as a unique figure. I question critical readings of Sojourner Truth’s dress in photographs as conservative, reading instead for a combination of conservative and subversive elements. I suggest that her interest in aesthetic forms such as dress and décor is symbolic of her yearning for home, her heritage, her agency, and unique taste. Her many references to her family indicate that she was more than just an empowered figure, but also one who still grieved. I read Truth’s description of domestic space as representing ambivalently, both her sense of loss, and her attempts to acquire agency. I consider how Truth attempts to recreate a sense of family and belonging through fragments of memory. In my reading of how she questions and extends conventional notions of family and community, I explore how she adapts and includes song, and quotations from the Bible in her sermons, by drawing on elements of African folktale and music. Most critics focus on Truth’s strong voice as an activist, there is little attention to the significance of spiritual solitude for her reimagining of community. I suggest that Truth offers alternative ideas of community as fluid rather than as fixed in one place. I explore how her ideas challenge the notion of nation as exclusive. I consider the genre of The Narrative by analyzing Olive Gilbert’s role as editor and writer. I propose that her role in The Narrative is a more complex one than suggested by critics, as it challenges conventional concepts of autobiography creating a conversation between two voices and lives.

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