Tesi sul tema "Jewish authors – biography – history and criticism"

The present literary production in France indicates the return of the subject, which has been proclaimed dead since the New Novel. With the proliferation of autobiographical texts in the nineteen-eighties, a generalized movement towards an aesthetic genre valuing this particularity was noticed. This proliferation renders the scope of this literary form immense. It covers a range from strictly historical texts, including autobiographies, memoirs and intimate journals to semi-referential texts, qualified as autobiographical fictions, "autofictions" or again "factual fictions". Midway between the autobiography and the novel, autofiction, this little studied literary practice, inaugurates a new writing form which we believe constitutes one of the boldest modern incarnations of the writing of the self. This thesis considers the possibility of a correlation existing in the problematics of autofiction and those of Jewishness in writing. Already off-centered, the Jewish writer, can be seen as the emblematic figure of the writer himself. Drawing on a corpus of four writers (Serge Doubrovsky, Marcel Benabou, Regine Robin and Patrick Modiano), we examine the structure, as well as its functionning rules, woven through texts sharing Jewish authorship. These writers pose, each from his own specific perspective, the problem of Jewishness in writing. This correlation brings to light the exemplary nature of these texts with regards to the more generalized and thus far unprecedented strategy that is autofiction. The intersection of these historically marked problems, autofiction and Jewishness in writing, leads us inevitably to further reflection upon the tragedy of modernity, the Shoah and its omnipresent shadow in the works of our corpus.

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2014.<br>ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Jack-Alain Léger committed suicide on 17 July 2013 at the age of 66, leaving behind him a large amount of work that has not formed the object of any academic study, not even partially. Many articles have been written about the author but none about his novels. Léger was especially known for his multitude of pseudonyms, his manic-depressive tendencies, his conflicts with all his editors, his homosexuality, the controversy linked to the alias Paul Smaïl or for his Islamophobia, his hatred towards his biological father and towards an alleged brother who died before his birth but also for his literary talent, his wide erudition and his brilliant and provocative mind. Underneath these characteristics hides an author whose work, that appears incoherent at first sight, reflects a profound reflection on the aesthetic, the essence and the ultimate purpose of art. Although Léger’s art involves the domain of aestheticism, it is also intended to subvert and oppose a society that limits imagination and individual potential by imposing a uniform identity. In this way, Léger illustrates in all his works the separation and alienation of the self through the dead child motive, emphasizing his refusal to acknowledge having been born as an alienated self. Lost in the ambiguity of an image that had not been received by society, Léger wanders in the infinite game of mirrors like Narcissus searching for an ideal self and an ideal beauty in the lake’s waters where he gazes upon his reflection. In this multidisciplinary research, I will study the entirety of Léger’s work in the light of the notion of narcissism and the multiple reflections that it includes. The narcissistic force that serves as a fermenting agent for the creation of Léger’s work is developed through a literary, sociological, psychoanalytical and philosophical interpretation. The final chapter discusses the elements these different perspectives have in common and they are drawn together in the concept of tertiary narcissism, as a mechanism of self-protection and self-recreation which is, however, not without danger as revealed in the tale of Narcissus.<br>AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Jack-Alain Léger het op 17 Julie 2013 in die ouderdom van 66 selfmoord gepleeg. Hy laat ‘n talryke oeuvre agter wat nog nie die onderwerp gevorm het van ‘n akademiese ondersoek nie, selfs nie gedeeltelik nie. Die skrywer word wel dikwels genoem in artikels en tekste maar nie sy werk nie. Léger was veral bekend vir sy verskeidenheid pseudonieme, sy bipolêre tendense, gedurige konflik met sy uitgewers, sy homoseksualiteit, die polemiek rondom die gebruik van die pseudoniem Paul Smaïl of sy Islamofobie, die haat vir sy pa en vir ‘n putatiewe broer wat voor geboorte dood is – maar ook vir sy literêre talent, sy uitgebreide kennis en sy briljante uitdagende gees. Onder al hierdie eienskappe is daar egter ook ‘n skrywer waarvan die oeuvre met die eerste oogopslag onsamehangend mag voorkom maar in werklikheid ‘n diep besinning inhou oor estetika, die essensie en die einddoel van kuns. Alhoewel Léger se kuns raak aan die veld van estetika, is die bedoeling daarvan ook subversief en gemik teen ‘n samelewing wat die verbeelding probeer hok slaan en die individu se potensiaal beperk deur die oplegging van ‘n eenvormige identiteit. Só illustreer Léger in sy werk die afsondering en die vervreemding van die self deur die motief van die dooie kind ; die versinnebeelding van sy weiering om gebore te word as ‘n vervreemde self. Verlore in die dubbelsinnigheid van ‘n beeld wat nie deur die samelewing ontvang kon word nie, dwaal Léger tussen die oneindige spel van spieëls soos Narcissus wat ‘n ideaal soek van homself en van skoonheid in die water van die meer waarin hy staar na sy beeld. Hierdie multidissiplinêre studie ondersoek Léger se oeuvre in sy geheel in die lig van die begrip van narcissisme en die veelvoudige weerspieëlings daarvan. Die narcissistiese krag as gis vir Léger se kreatiewe werk word ingeknie in ‘n literêre, sosiologiese, psigoanalitiese en filosofiese ontleding. In die laaste hoofstuk, bespreek ek dit wat hierdie verskillende perspektiewe in gemeen het en verwerk dit deur die konsep van ‘n tersiêre narcissisme, ‘n meganisme van beskerming en selfherskepping want nietemin ook sy eie gevaar inhou, soos dit onthul word in die verhaal van Narcissus.<br>RESUME: Jack-Alain Léger qui s’est donné la mort le 17 juillet 2013 à l’âge de 66 ans laisse derrière lui une oeuvre considérable qui n’a pas - même partiellement - fait l’objet d’études. Bien des articles ont été écrits sur l’auteur même mais aucun sur ses romans. Léger était surtout connu pour sa multitude de pseudonymes, sa tendance maniaco-dépressive, ses conflits avec tous ses éditeurs, son homosexualité, les controverses liées au pseudonyme de Paul Smaïl ou à son islamophobie, sa haine de son géniteur et d’un frère putatif mort avant sa naissance mais aussi pour son talent littéraire, son érudition, son esprit brillant et provocateur. Au-delà de ces attributs se dissimule un écrivain dont l’oeuvre qui paraît au premier abord incohérente reflète une réflexion profonde sur l’esthétique, sur l’essence et les finalités de l’art. Si l’art de Léger touche au domaine de l’esthétisme, il se veut aussi subversif et s’oppose à une société qui restreint l’imagination et les potentialités de chacun en imposant une uniformisation de l’identité. Léger illustre ainsi dans toute son oeuvre la séparation et l’aliénation du moi par le motif de l’enfant mort soulignant son refus de naître à un moi aliéné. Perdu dans l’ambiguïté d’une image qui n’a pas été capturée par le social, Léger erre dans le jeu infini des miroirs tel Narcisse qui cherche un idéal de soi et de beauté dans l’eau du lac où il se mire. Cette recherche multidisciplinaire explore l’intégralité de l’oeuvre de cet auteur à la lumière de la notion du narcissisme et des multiples reflets que celui-ci englobe. La force narcissique en tant que ferment du travail de création de Léger sera mise en valeur par l’interprétation littéraire, sociologique, psychanalytique et philosophique. Au chapitre final, je relèverai ce que ces différentes perspectives analytiques ont soulevé de commun et synthétiserai cela par le concept du narcissisme tertiaire, un mécanisme de protection et de recréation de soi qui n’est cependant pas sans danger comme nous le révèle le conte de Narcisse.

This thesis is organised into two chapters and an appendix. The first chapter explores the significant American expatriate movement in France in the early part of the twentieth century, in an effort to answer the question ―Why France?‖ The second chapter examines the life and work of Natalie Clifford Barney, an American expatriate writer in Paris, who wrote predominantly in French and ran an important weekly salon for over sixty years. Specifically, her aesthetic and subject matter, her life, and her fraught publishing history are considered. The appendix is a translation of Barney's 1910 book of aphorisms entitled Éparpillements.<br>v, 110 leaves ; 29 cm

The aim of this thesis is to provide an introduction to the work of writer and journalist Harriet Ward, resident in the Eastern Cape from 1842 to 1848. She was a prolific correspondent to various periodicals published both in South Africa and in London. It would be true to say, to judge from the evidence, that she fulfilled a need felt by the British public for information on life and events in South Africa, and that she became the trusted guide of the middle-class reader. Her range covers reports from the frontiers of war, journalistic articles, memoirs, short stories, novels, autobiography, and editions of other writers' work. After the publication of her articles on the Seventh Frontier War (1846-7), she was recognised and respected as a commentator on the situation at the Eastern Cape, an unusual role for a woman at this time. She was also amongst the foremost victorian women writers published from the early eighteen forties until the end of the eighteen-fifties. Harriet Ward has left a vivid historical and sociological account of the Cape frontier, and her observations and judgements provide a hitherto virtually unknown perspective on an important part of South African history and letters. What makes her even more interesting, as this study seeks to show, is that she was far from conventional in her response to her new environment, both as as a woman and as a representative of a colonialist power. The record she has left of her thoughts on the people, landscape and situations of the time has the capacity to surprise the post-colonial literary critic and historian. Her struggle to find a discursive mode in which to express her consciousness of the oppression, patriarchal and colonial, of the marginalised, whether woman, indigene, Afrikaner, or creole, reveals a significantly transgressive or subversive response to the issues of the day. In re-discovering Harriet Ward, we are forced to reassess our assumptions regarding the period of colonial history to which she was a witness.

This thesis examines Janet Flanner, an expatriate writer whose fiction and journalism have been essential to the development of American literary modernism in that her work, taken together, comprises a remarkable autobiographical document which records her own unique experience of the period while simultaneously contributing to its particular aesthetic mission. Although recent discussions have opened debate as to how a variety of discourses can be read as autobiographical, Flanner’s fifty years worth of cultural, political, and personal observation requires an analysis which incorporates traditional and contemporary theories concerning life-writing. Essentially, autobiographical scholarship must continue to push the boundaries of analysis, focusing on the interactions and reactions between the outer world and the inner self. This thesis, therefore, will situate Janet Flanner as an important writer whose experience among the modernist literary community in Europe informs, and is recorded in, her writing.<br>v, 93 leaves ; 29 cm.

Synopsis :<p><p>La thèse démontre la force du discours de la survivance à travers tant l’essai que le roman, respectivement chez deux auteurs représentatifs et exemplaires. Jean Améry est l’initiateur d’un discours où l’accent est mis sur l’expérience de la privation totale de liberté et sur le suicide comme paroxysme de l’acte libre voulu par le survivant des camps de concentration. Imre Kertész fonde, lui, une écriture synonyme de stratégie de survie. Le suicide y constitue le moyen fictionnel, pour l’être survivant, de regagner sa liberté et son propre « destin ».<p><p><p><p>Résumé :<p><p>La thèse se propose d´analyser l´articulation littéraire du thème de la survivance, thème étudié à travers un corpus déterminé. « Articulation littéraire » est à entendre ici au sens de vecteur d’écriture dans l’acception la plus riche, à savoir depuis la représentation, les procédés littéraires jusqu’au processus lui-même. Le titre original du texte s’articule autour du vocable « Weiterüberleben », lequel opère une synthèse entre les deux facettes « survivre » et « continuer à vivre ».<p><p>A cet égard, le choix du terme « survivance » en français semblait très approprié. Celui-ci s’oppose dans un premier temps au mot usuel de « survie » par l’accent qu’il met sur l’action, la durée, la continuité ainsi que l’irréversibilité de cette expérience. <p>Dans un deuxième temps, dire « survivance » signifie introduire d’emblée un impact philosophique intentionnel qui place le phénomène étudié dans le sillage conceptuel de Derrida – différance, restance, absence, démeurance. A ce titre, la survivance peut être considérée comme trace et hantise au même moment.<p><p>Dès lors, le mouvement exprimé dans le titre sert de matrice ;dans le « discours sur la survivance », la survie n’est plus la condition d’écriture mais le véritable objet et, si l’on veut, l’objectif de cette écriture. Ce discours articule a) une reconquête de la dignité et liberté qui contient la possibilité du suicide, b) le vœu de continuer à faire vivre la mémoire à la Shoah et aux survivants et c) l’écriture comme stratégie de survie et résistance contre l’oubli.<p>Le centre de gravité de ce travail est l’étude du rapport entre l´expérience des survivants des camps de concentration et l’écriture de celle-ci. Il s´agit dès lors de se pencher sur les formes d´écriture qui traitent de cette problématique. Le témoignage, d´abord :quel est son rôle en tant que mise en parole d’une expérience ?A côté du témoignage, on observe l´émergence du traitement fictionnel de la thématique.<p><p>Une interrogation sur les modes d´émergence littéraire de ce sujet nécessite le passage par une historiographie parcourant les principales tentatives antérieures de représentation. Le témoignage a d´ores et déjà offert des possibilités intéressantes en tant que vecteur de représentation mais a également révélé ses limites. La fiction a montré quelle portée elle peut avoir ;si elle permet entre autres une ouverture du discours, elle se heurte aussi à des obstacles tels que les problèmes de la factualité, de la vérité, de l´authenticité. <p><p>Tout en puisant chez bon nombre d´autres écrivains, la thèse se base sur un corpus de deux auteurs emblématiques pour ce qu´ils ont apporté dans le domaine concerné :Jean Améry et Imre Kertész.<p><p>Le choix de Jean Améry se justifie notamment par le fait qu’il est l’initiateur d´un discours de la survivance où l´accent est mis sur l´expérience de la privation totale de liberté et sur le suicide comme paroxysme de l´acte libre voulu par le survivant. Kertesz, prix Nobel 2002, apparaît comme l’héritier d´Améry mais, dans une sorte de retournement, transforme le discours négatif de celui-ci en un discours positif par une analyse en termes de dialogicité et d´intertextualité. <p><p>Notre point de départ dans l’œuvre d’Améry est son essai sur la torture (« Par-delà le crime et le châtiment », 1966). C’est là qu’il insiste sur l’irréversibilité du moment subjectif qu’est la torture (« Celui qui a été torturé reste torturé ») ;Améry construit à cet endroit le fondement de la « perspective de la victime » et pose, dans le voisinage immédiat, la question de savoir comment surmonter l’insurmontable. <p><p>Avec le concept de « contre-violence », Améry explore le paradoxe de la libération – ou la « réversibilité de l’irréversible » – à travers les crises existentielles de son protagoniste (et alter ego) Lefeu (artiste-survivant); son roman-essai « Lefeu ou la démolition » donne lieu à l’analyse de ce phénomène paradoxal, cher à l’auteur.<p><p>L´exposé des quatre concepts fondamentaux d´Améry, également fondateurs de tout discours sur l´Holocauste – la perte de la confiance existentielle, le ressentiment, l´exil et la judéité – prépare la voie à une analyse détaillée du discours sur le suicide déployé dans « Porter la main sur soi ». En franchissant les frontières de la psychologie et les limites de la langue, Améry procède à une phénoménologie du suicide qui souligne la liberté individuelle mais qui écarte en même temps l´individu de la société.<p><p>Imre Kertész, dont l´œuvre marque le passage vers la fiction par sa trilogie « Etre sans destin », « Le refus », « Kaddish pour l´enfant qui ne naîtra pas », place l´individu dans toute sa fragilité face à l´Histoire nazie et communiste en faisant de celui-ci un survivant « sans destin », c´est-à-dire sans existence personnelle. Regagner son propre destin devient la modalité de la survivance. <p>Une analyse détaillée de son essai « L’Holocauste comme culture » inscrit d’emblée Imre Kertész dans la filiation de Jean Améry. Cet essai peut être lu comme un manifeste éthico-esthétique ;il insiste sur la nécessité de transposer l’expérience vécue dans l’espace littéraire. A cette condition seulement, le survivant réussit à survivre grâce et à travers les œuvres qu’il crée. Il y réussit en effet à figurer la « catharsis » ou à transfigurer la matière brute du vécu pour pouvoir continuer à survivre. <p><p>Tout en refusant catégoriquement le suicide pour des raisons éthiques, Kertész met paradoxalement en scène au cœur de Liquidation le suicide d´un écrivain né à Auschwitz. Il pose ainsi la question de « ce qui reste » de l’expérience de la survie après la disparition des survivants et, donc, au-delà de la possibilité d’en témoigner.<p><p>L’analyse monographique de ces deux auteurs permet, d’une part, de démontrer la relation référentielle qui lie Kertész à Améry, d’autre part, d’étudier la problématique à travers deux générations, deux appartenances historiques et deux univers culturels différents. Elle débouche ainsi sur une histoire interculturelle et transgénérationelle de la survivance à l’époque des totalitarismes.<p><br>Doctorat en Langues et lettres<br>info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

In dieser Dissertation wird Jean Amérys Ethik der Erinnerung auf ihre philosophischen, politischen und literarischen Implikationen hin untersucht. Dabei wird sie als ein moegliches philosophisches Fundament fuer den westdeutschen Auschwitz-Diskurs und die westdeutsche Nachkriegsliteratur vorgestellt. Ihre Besonderheiten gewinnen auf der Grundlage eines Vergleichs von Amérys erinnerungspolitischen Positionen mit jenen Theodor W. Adornos Kontur, der allgemein als der philosophische Begruender der deutschen Literatur nach 1945 gilt. Beide Intellektuelle denken ausgehend von ihrer Verfolgungserfahrung als Juden deutscher (Adorno) bzw. oesterreichischer (Améry) Herkunft. Doch anders als Adorno, dem 1938 die Emigration nach Amerika gelang, wurde Améry als politischer Widerstandskaempfer gefoltert und nach Auschwitz deportiert. Vor diesem Hintergrund geht es um die Frage nach der erkenntnistheoretischen Bedeutung der koerperlichen Erfahrung der Vernichtung beim Versuch, ein der Zaesur Auschwitz angemessenes Denken zu begruenden. Hierzu werden erstmals Amérys Anleihen bei dem Phaenomenologen Maurice Merleau-Ponty systematisch analysiert. Wie er geht auch Améry davon aus, dass die koerperliche Wahrnehmung eines Menschen in entscheidender Form ueber sein Engagement in Kultur und Gesellschaft mitbestimmt.<p>Im Rahmen der Forschungsarbeit werden saemtliche Werke Amérys beruecksichtigt, inklusive seiner zum Teil noch unveroeffentlichten Nachlass-Arbeiten. Sie ist in drei Teile aufgegliedert, in denen jeweils eine der Werkepochen, die Améry auf seinem Werdegang als politischer Schriftsteller durchlaeuft, zentral steht: sein politisches Erwachen 1934/35 in Wien, seine ersten Schreibversuche nach der Befreiung aus dem Konzentrationslager Bergen-Belsen zwischen 1945 und 1949, und zuletzt die Ethik der Erinnerung des kanonischen Améry, die er in zwei Werkepochen erarbeitet hat, in denen er sich jeweils unterschiedlichen Fragestellungen widmet.(1966-1974 und 1974-1978). <p>Aus der Literaturzeitschrift "Die Bruecke", die der 22jaehrige 1934 gemeinsam mit einem Freund herausgab, und Amérys Jugendroman "Die Schiffbruechigen" werden in den ersten beiden Kapiteln die fruehen philosophischen und aestetischen Urspruenge von Amérys Ethik eroertert. Im folgenden Kapitel rueckt die Vernichtungserfahrung des Autors in den Brennpunkt. Die Parameter ihrer ersten literarischen Verarbeitung in seinen Schriften aus der unmittelbaren Nachkriegszeit werden herausgestellt, die Améry in seinem Spaetwerk weitergedacht hat. Auf den vorangehenden Forschungsergebnissen aufbauend wird im letzten Kapitel Amérys Ethik der Erinnerung im Vergleich zu jener Theodor W. Adornos erarbeitet. Ihr phaenomenologisches Fundament wird dem geschichtsphilosophischen Fundament des Adornoschen Denkens gegenuebergestellt. Dabei wird gezeigt, dass nicht nur Amérys Denken, sondern auch seine Aesthetik phaenomenologisch ausgerichtet ist. Durch die Analysen in diesem Hauptteil der Dissertation, in dem erstmals alle Essay-Baende auf ihren erinnerungspolitischen Gehalt im Zusammenspiel untersucht wurden, wird Amérys Beitrag zur Begruendung einer postmodernen Ethik und der Gattung der Shoah-Literatur einsehbar.<p><br>Doctorat en Langues et lettres<br>info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

In the aftermath of the Shoah (Holocaust)—the mass murder of 6,000,000 Jews—Jean-Paul Sartre wrote Reflexions sur la Question Juive (1946), in which he concluded that the fate of the Jews, the fate of the individual non-Jew, and the fate of the entire world are inextricably and reciprocally intertwined. Building on Sartre's perception, Portrait of a Jew (1962) and The Liberation of the Jew (1966) describe what the author, Albert Memmi, terms "the universal Jewish fate": that of being the paradigmatic "colonized" Other—insofar as the Jews are a particularly oppressed minority, that is, their marginalization epitomizes the fate of all humanity. Further, Memmi argues both that "to be a Jewish writer is ... to express the Jewish fate" and that a "true Jewish literature" is necessarily one which revolts against the imposition and acceptance of this fate. Sartre's and Memmi's insights posit that Jewish consciousness acts upon both national and world consciousness. Memmi suggests that one means of expressing the Jewish consciousness is through literature. In their imaginative interpretations of the post-Shoah interconnections between the Jew, the nation, and the world, modern Jewish fiction writers of the Diaspora (dispersion) —at least those whose work foregrounds tropes of Jewish sensibility, incorporating Jewish characters and themes—often delineate a world which, in the aftermath of Auschwitz, is socially and existentially even more precarious than it was before the war. This study examines post-Shoah Jewish consciousness and its relation to national/world consciousness,as represented in the English-language Jewish fiction of Australia, South Africa, and Canada, Commonwealth countries whose diverse Jewish literatures have been overshadowed by the predominant English-language Jewish literary culture of the U.S.A. The structure of this study is bipartite. Part B is an indexed Bibliography enumerating primary works by Jewish prose fiction writers of Australia, Canada, and South Africa. Part A is a critical commentary on Part B. The Introduction (Chapter 1) outlines the theoretical bases for the study. The three following chapters scrutinize Jewish Australian (Chapter 2), Jewish South African (Chapter 3), and Jewish Canadian (Chapter 4) fiction. Among the writers considered are Australians B.N. Jubal, Judah Waten, David Martin, Morris Lurie, Serge Liberman, and Lily Brett; South Africans Nadine Gordimer, Dan Jacobson, Jillian Becker, Antony Sher, and Rose Zwi; and Canadians Henry Kreisel, A.M. Klein, Adele Wiseman, Mordecai Richler, and Robert Majzels. Each of these three chapters follows a similar format: a description of the origin, history, and demography of the Jewish community; an outline of the important pre-World War II Jewish fiction writers and their work; an examination of representative post-Shoah works; and concluding remarks about the ways in which the works under consideration here contest and revise both the canons of nation and national literature and the very concepts of nation, canon, and canon-making. An Epilogue (Chapter 5) contextualizes the thematic patterns common to the Jewish fiction of the three countries and suggests ways in which this fiction can be located within the larger framework of Jewish Literature.

During the course of my dissertation I demonstrate the way in which Anglo-Indian women writers of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century diverge from the genre of the "feminine picturesque" as explained by Sara Suleri in her book, The Rhetoric of English India. I look too, at what Indo-English women use as a genre, instead of the "feminine picturesque". I also apply Spivakean ideas on representation to their writing in order to see the similarities and differences between my primary texts and the theory. I begin my dissertation by explaining what Sara Suleri means by the "feminine picturesque" and how I intend using it to better understand the primary texts I look at. I also explain Spivak's ideas on representation and how I intend using them to further my appreciation of Anglo-Indian and Indo-English writing of this period. I conclude my thesis by discussing my findings with regard to the theorists looked at, and how their ideas have been reflected in the four principal texts I examined.<br>Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2001.

This thesis examines the writings of six mainland Chinese women writers - Ru Zhijuan, Shen Rong, Zhang Jie, Zhang Kangkang, Zhang Xinxin and Wang Anyi - belonging to three different generations as a reflection of the changing attitudes of Chinese urban intellectual women to literature and society in the period 1978-1989. Underlying the various generational differences that emerge from a thematic analysis of their writing are two related trends: a trend away from collective orientation in the older writers' works towards literature centred on the individual and the self in the younger writers' works; and that of the younger writers away from the Chinese socialist and Confucian traditions that guided socialist literature in mainland China prior to 1978. The trend away from socialist literary traditions is most palpable in the writers' treatment of history and contemporary society. Whereas veteran writer Ru Zhijuan's presentation of pre-1949 history perpetuated state myths of the Party's glorious past, the younger writers challenged both the model of the heroic communist soldier and the use of class stereotypes to depict wider society that had been established in earlier Chinese socialist literature. Whereas social and political issues were central to the older writers' fiction about the period from 1949, the younger women's writing tended to focus on characters and their psychological development. The writers' treatment of love, sex and marriage showed a strong trend away from Confucian moral values in the younger writers' fiction that intensified over the 1978-1989 period. Although all the writers presented a pessimistic view of actual marriages, and promoted marriage based on love as the ideal, the younger writers showed a much greater acceptance of blameless divorce and pre- and extra-marital sexual relationships than their older counterparts.

This thesis discovers the spiritual and aesthetic vision of poet-journalist Robert Grendon (c. 1867–1949), a man of Irish-Herero parentage. It situates him in the wider Swedenborgian discourse regarding African ‘regeneration’. While preserving the overall diachronic continuity of a literary biography, it treats his principal thematic preoccupations synchronically. The objective has been to show the imaginative ways in which he employs his rich and diverse religio-philosophical background to account for South Africa’s social problems, to pass judgement upon the principal players, and to point out an alternative path to a brighter future. Chapter 1 looks at Emanuel Swedenborg’s mystical revelations on the heightened spiritual proclivity of the ‘celestial’ African, and the consequences of New Jerusalem’s descent over the heart of Africa, which Swedenborg believed to be taking place, undetected by Europeans, around 1770. It also examines how those pronouncements were received in Europe, America, and—most particularly—in Africa. Chapter 2 examines the circumstances surrounding Grendon’s birth and childhood in what is today Namibia. It takes note of a family tradition that Joseph Grendon married a daughter of Maharero, a prominent Herero chief, and it looks at Robert Grendon’s views on ‘miscegenation’. Chapter 3 deals with Grendon’s schooling at Zonnebloem College, Cape Town. Chapter 4 describes his cultural, sporting, and political activities in Kimberley and Uitenhage in the 1890s, bringing to light his editorship of Coloured South African in 1899. It also considers his conception of ‘progress’. Chapter 5 looks at some early poems, including the domestic verse-drama, ‘Melia and Pietro’ (1897–98). It also contextualizes a single, surviving editorial from Coloured South African. Chapter 6 treats Grendon’s tour de force, the epic poem, Paul Kruger’s Dream (1902), as well as his personal involvement in the South African War, and his spiritualized account of the ‘Struggle for Supremacy’ in South Africa. Chapter 7 relates to Grendon’s fruitful Natal period, 1900–05: his headmastership of the Edendale Training Institute and of Ohlange College, and his editorship of Ilanga’s English columns during the foreign absence of the editor-in-chief, John L. Dube, from February 1904 to May 1905. Chapter 8 analyzes some of the shorter and medium-length poems written in Natal, 1901–04. Chapter 9 is a close examination of the poem, ‘Pro Aliis Damnati’, showing its Swedenborgian basis, and how it dramatizes Swedenborg’s concept of ‘scortatory’ love. Chapter 10 describes Grendon’s early years in Swaziland from 1905. Chapter 11 deals with his period as editor of Abantu-Batho in Johannesburg, 1915–16. Chapter 12 describes his last years in Swaziland, and his relationship with the Swazi royal family.<br>Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2007.

In this thesis, I examine a critical procedure appropriate to Black South African autobiography of the 1950s and early 1960s. In particular, I examine these autobiographies as examples of counterhegemonic writing in which the self counters the hegemonic apartheid notion of identity, based on racial and cultural purity, and I propose that the hybrid selves encoded in these narratives have the capacity to inform a new South African nationhood. Chapter One necessitates an autocritique, in which I locate my own discourse within the intersecting discursive strands of Western and local theory, an effort that is guided by the imperatives that emerge from the autobiographies themselves. In Chapter Two, I suggest that the postcolonial autos displaces Humanist, and appropriates postmodernist, conceptions of the "I". Rewriting the terms of the autobiographical pact, the authority of grapos is re-instated in counternarratives that give privileged status to the bios - to lives that claim "I AM!" and selves that reconstruct identity. A related concern is the relationship between autobiographical criticism in South Africa and hegemony. In the chapters that follow, I examine the various ways in which counterhegemonic selves are constructed in Tell freedom, Down Second Avenue, Drawn in colour: African Contrasts and The Ochre People. Peter Abrahams's autobiography is discussed largely in terms of Frantz Fanon's insights on identity construction and the notion of a "hybrid I". Es'kia Mphahlek's (re)writing of the self - whose main feature is ambivalence - forms the focus of Chapter Four. These notions are developed in the final chapter, which focuses on Noni Jabavu's narratives that encode an "in-between" cultural identity and, as in the autobiographies of Abrahams and Mphahlele, a metonymic "I".<br>English Studies<br>D. Litt. et Phil. (English)

This study is, by its intention at any rate, an attempt at assembling the scattered fragments of Can Themba’s life to make a composite being out of the various existing phenomena that shaped the contours of his life in both literary and literal senses. Given the disjunctive manner in which Can Themba and his work have been represented thus far, a combination of Historical and Biographical research methods will underpin the approach of this study. The resultant approach is the Historical-Biographical method of research. According to Guerin et al (2005, 22) the Historical-Biographical approach “sees the work chiefly, if not exclusively, as the reflection of author’s life and times or the life and times of the characters in the work.” This research is premised on the conviction that an individual is a constellation of multiple factors that play a pivotal role in the construction of their persona. These factors will be traced from his family background, early schooling, tertiary education, socio-economic conditions as well as his contribution to various newspapers and journals. While so much has been written about Themba and his work, there is no comprehensive biography of Can Themba as a person. Most importantly, the factors that contributed to his making as well as his breaking, or destruction, have not been interrogated in a form of comprehensive academic research. Rightly or wrongly, Themba’s meteoric rise into the South African literary canon is often traced from the moment he won the inaugural Drum Magazine short story competition. Themba became one of the most popular journalists and rose within the ranks of Drum to become the Assistant Editor. However, my research demonstrates that winning the Drum short story competition was the culmination of a literary talent that was developed and had been simmering for a number of years. Themba studied at the University of Fort Hare between 1945 and 1951 alongside the likes of Dennis Brutus, Ntsu Mokhehle, Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, and many other prominent individuals. He was a regular contributor to The Fortharian, a university publication that published opinion pieces, poems and short stories. This is a vital component of Themba’s intellectual growth and it remains the least explored aspect of his life. As a result, what has been discursively documented by various scholars, writers and journalists, thus far, is a very parochial representation of Can Themba’s oeuvre.<br>English Studies<br>D. Litt. et Phil. (English Literature)

This dissertation is a report on a study about autobiography as genre, focusing on the voice of the white, Afrikaans-speaking woman. The point of departure for this study was a survey of the number of autobiographies written in Afrikaans by these women. With the focus on the limited number of such autobiographies three autobiographies were studied, namely, Met die Boere in die veld (Sarah Raal), My beskeie deel (M.E.R.) and 'n Wonderlike geweld (Elsa Joubert). Within the framework of the complexity systems theory the role of the observer (author/reader) was studied to determine the possibility of demonstrating that when reading/writing an autobiography, some epistemological changes may occur, manifesting as conceptual changes in the mind of the observer. It could be demonstrated that because of women's sensitivity to interpersonal relationships they are capable of acting as unique registers of the complexity of individual existence, while remaining aware of the constant influence, effect and needs of the other.<br>AFRIKAANS & THEORY OF LIT<br>MA (AFRIKAANS)

The dissertation firstly looks at how the Arabic essay and short story developed in Egypt since the beginning of the nineteenth century. Then a discussion follows on the life and contribution of the Egyptian author, Mustafā Lutfī al-Manfalūtī, as representative of this literary evolution. The general influences on Egyptian literature are discussed, and the general development of Arabic prose from 1850 onwards is then detailed, including the efforts to save Arabic literature from stagnation and degeneration. Following this, the focus is on the origins of the essay and short story. This leads to dealing with the growth and advancement of the essay and short story, together with the revival of the Arabic heritage and how the Arabic novel came into being. Then Mustafā Lutfī al-Manfalūtīs biography, environmental circumstances and personalities that influenced his writings are focused on. Afterwards, the core discussion is Al-Manfalūtīs seven literary works, and his ideas and opinions as reflected in his writings. In conclusion, the relevance of his writings and an appraisal of his literary contributions are detailed.<br>Religious Studies & Arabic<br>M.A. (Arabic)