Magister Artium - MA (English)

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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.
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 F�lix 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.
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.
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.
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, Tom�s 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

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