Browsing Philosophiae Doctor - PhD (English) by Title
Now showing items 1-20 of 20
-
‘Ag sjeim, siestog, sorry’: Tracing shame’s affect through performance in post-apartheid South Africa
(University of Western Cape, 2021)In this study I investigate what performance as a medium can contribute to our understanding of shame's affect. Given the difficulty of defining and concretising affect according to set parameters and outcomes, critical ... -
Alex la Guma: a literary and political biography of the South African years
(University of the Western Cape, 2001)The South African years (1925-1966) of Alex la Guma is examined in this thesis. While La Guma's father was an important role model, most critics have overlooked his mother's contribution to his literary and political ... -
Bientang’s cave: A trans-disciplinary study of marginality in the epic in Afrikaans
(University of the Western Cape, 2023)This reflexive essay has a creative and an in-depth research component. I sought to write an Epic poem about a marginalised woman known as Bientang. Bientang was a Khoisan, or ‘strandloper’ as Khoisan people were known, ... -
Bildungsroman writing by women in Africa and in the African diaspora
(University of the Western Cape, 2023)The Bildungsroman has from inception traditionally been a male-dominated genre, but a number of significant women-authored novels written in the 20th century disrupt these established patterns. The thesis demonstrates how ... -
The buried chameleon: A novel and critical reflective essay
(University of the Western Cape, 2022)The critical-reflective component of the novel The Buried Chameleon explores the background to the writing of the novel, how I conducted my research, the challenges of writing a historical and contemporary dual narrative, ... -
Childhoods dis-ordered: Non-realist narrative modes in selected post-2000 West African war novels
(University of the Western Cape, 2017)This study explores how selected West African war novels employ non-realist narrative modes to portray disruptions in the child’s development into adulthood. The novels considered are Chris Abani’s Song for Night (2007), ... -
Cinematic and photographic aesthetics in the novels of J.M. Coetzee
(The University of the Western Cape, 2017)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, ... -
Eros and politics: Love and its discontents in the fiction of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
(University of the Western Cape, 2020)In this study I focus on how Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s fiction portrays his socio-political vision through the prevalence of the intimate relationships it displays. The study critically analyses the significant role romantic ... -
Haunting temporalities: Creolisation and black women's subjectivities in the diasporic science fiction of Nalo Hopkinson
(University of the Western Cape, 2016)This study examines temporal entanglement in three novels by Jamaican-born author Nalo Hopkinson. The novels are: Brown Girl in the Ring (1998), Midnight Robber (2000), and The Salt Roads (2004). The study pays particular ... -
Imagining and imaging the city – Ivan Vladislavić and the postcolonial metropolis
(University of Western Cape, 2011)This thesis undertakes an analysis of how six published works by the South African writer Ivan Vladislavić form the perspective of writing the city – Johannesburg – into being. Beginning from the basis that Vladislavić’s ... -
The jewelled net: Towards a Southern African theory/ practice of environmental literacy
(University of the Western Cape, 1999)This thesis suggests that there is an urgent need for academic work in literary and cultural studies to become more responsive to the contemporary eco-social crisis of environment and development. Questioning the ... -
Out of place: a re-evaluation of the poetry of Dennis Brutus
(University of the Western Cape, 2014)The main aim of my dissertation is to re-evaluate the poetry of the South African writer Dennis Brutus (1924-2009). Even though he produced a substantial number of poems over more than half a century, his work continues ... -
Place, space and patriarchal femininities in selected contemporary novels by African women writers
(University of the Western Cape, 2019)In much feminist literature, women’s spaces are analysed as constructive and supportive sites that may offer respite from patriarchy. However, women’s spaces are not inherently emancipatory. Through the socio-spatial ... -
The post-genocidal condition: Ghosts of genocide, genocidal violence, and representation
(University of the Western Cape, 2018)As a literary intervention, The Post-Genocidal Condition: Ghosts of Genocide, Genocidal Violence, and Representation is situated at the intersection of genocide studies, psychoanalysis, and literature so as to enable a ... -
Representations of fatherhood and paternal narrative power in South African English literature
(University of the Western Cape, 2016)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 ... -
Shadows, faces and echoes of an African war: The Rhodesian bush war through the eyes of Chas Lotter – soldier poet
(University of the Western Cape, 2016)Poetry that is rooted in that most extreme of human experiences, war, continues to grip the public imagination. When the poetry under scrutiny comes from the "losing side" in a colonial war of liberation, important moral ... -
Signal to noise: sonic reflections on the South African transition period (1984-1998)
(University of the Western Cape, 2023)This dissertation is set against the backdrop of my involvement with Shifty Studios, a small independent mobile recording studio based in Johannesburg, between 1983 and 1997. Most of this content is drawn from a wide range ... -
A study of Roy Campbell as a South African modernist poet
(University of the Western Cape, 2013)Roy Campbell was once a key figure in the South African literary canon. In recent years, his poetry has faded from view and only intermittent studies of his work have appeared. However, as the canon of South African ... -
What lies beneath tutors' feedback? Examining the role of feedback in developing 'knowers' in English studies
(The University of the Western Cape, 2017)Feedback plays an important role in student learning and development in higher education. However, for various reasons, it is often not as effective as it should be. Many studies have attempted to ‘solve’ the feedback ... -
Zimbabwe/Rhodesia writing home: Space, place, mobility and diasporic identity in selected novels
(University of Western Cape, 2021)This thesis examines how “unhomeliness” in a Zimbabwean context enjoins mobility and the diasporic particularities that manifest as subjects move back and forth in a homemaking journey between the country-side and the ...
