Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Another Time, Another Place: The Truth Of Silence In J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace, Sara T. Murphy

Theses and Dissertations

Through Lucy’s rejection of the criminal justice system, Coetzee's Disgrace operates as an allegory for the failure of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to provide individual justice and reparations to victims of Apartheid.

Kofifi/Covfefe: How The Costumes Of "Sophiatown" Bring 1950s South Africa To Western Massachusetts In 2020, Emma Hollows

Masters Theses

This thesis paper reflects upon the costume design process taken by Emma Hollows to produce a realist production of the Junction Avenue Theatre Company’s musical Sophiatown at the Augusta Savage Gallery at the University of Massachusetts in May 2020. Sophiatown follows a household forcibly removed from their homes by the Native Resettlement Act of 1954 amid apartheid in South Africa. The paper discusses her attempts as a costume designer to strike a balance between replicating history and making artistic changes for theatre, while always striving to create believable characters.

Power Struggles: Sovereignty And The Nonhuman In South Africa, Taelin Wilford

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis uses the theoretical backbone of Jacques Derrida’s The Beast and the Sovereign to look at the theme of the nonhuman in connection with sovereignty in three novels representing three major time periods in South Africa. Zakes Mda’s The Heart of Redness uses the nonhuman in the form of the supernatural to reveal the limits of sovereignty in Colonial South Africa. J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace makes use of the nonhuman in the form of animals to talk about the transient nature of sovereignty in post-Apartheid South Africa. Lauren Beukes’ Zoo City is set in an alternate future South Africa and …

A Social Change-Maker And A Dreamer: Olive Schreiner’S Figures For An Ideal Future, Jessica Ampel

Periclean Honors Forum Scholar Award Winners

Social activist, theorist, and author Olive Schreiner dreamed and demanded that others dream as well. Living in the Victorian era, a time of extreme change but also rigid cultural values, she dreamed about an ideal future characterized by gender equality, sexual equality, and racial equality not just in her own “homes” of England and South Africa, but globally. However, for Schreiner, dreaming was not enough; we must act on our dreams in order to make the necessary social change to reach an ideal future. Schreiner acted on her own dreams for social change throughout her life by theorizing, joining important …

A Social Change-Maker And A Dreamer: Olive Schreiner’S Figures For An Ideal Future, Jessica Ampel

English Honors Theses

Social activist, theorist, and author Olive Schreiner dreamed and demanded that others dream as well. Living in the Victorian era, a time of extreme change but also rigid cultural values, she dreamed about an ideal future characterized by gender equality, sexual equality, and racial equality not just in her own “homes” of England and South Africa, but globally. However, for Schreiner, dreaming was not enough; we must act on our dreams in order to make the necessary social change to reach an ideal future. Schreiner acted on her own dreams for social change throughout her life by theorizing, joining important …

"Mute Flesh": Women's Death-Worlds In David's Story And Waiting For The Barbarians, Kate Finley

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis expands upon Achille Mbembe's theory on necropower and death-worlds to incorporate the consideration of gender. This is done using the lens of violence against women during South African apartheid and through an examination of two novels: Zoë Wicomb's David's Story and J.M. Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians.

Depictions Of The Western Artist In Colonial South Africa: Turbott Wolfe, Chloe Bazlen

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis explores what the role of the artist provides to the colonial novel. Using William Plomer's novel Turbott Wolfe, the role of the Western artist in colonial South Africa is examined and critiqued, putting it in conversation with the art theory of Roger Fry and the Primitivism movement. In doing so, it explores themes such as desire, miscegenation, complexity, and carnival, showing that while artists partake in society, they also remain critical of it, responding to it in their artwork.

About Telling: Ghosts And Hauntings In Contemporary Drama And Poetry, Leif Erik Schenstead-Harris

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

It is difficult to think of something as formally resistant to definition as a ghost. What is more ambiguous than something described as “haunting”? Few currents in literature have been as prominent – and as comparatively unremarked – as the current critical and literary dependence on the language of spectrality. While ghost stories in prose have gained substantial attention, in drama and poetry ghosts and hauntings have found less critical purchase.

In response, this dissertation takes up a selection of drama and poetry from Ireland, South Africa, and the Caribbean to illustrate the theoretical and critical potential of ghosts and …

The Hegemony Of English In South African Education, Kelsey E. Figone

Scripps Senior Theses

The South African Constitution recognizes 11 official languages and protects an individual’s right to use their mother-tongue freely. Despite this recognition, the majority of South African schools use English as the language of learning and teaching (LOLT). Learning in English is a struggle for many students who speak indigenous African languages, rather than English, as a mother-tongue, and the educational system is failing its students. This perpetuates inequality between different South African communities in a way that has roots in the divisions of South Africa’s past. An examination of the power of language and South Africa’s experience with colonialism and …

Laying Bare The Sins Of The Father: Exploring White Fathers In Post-Apartheid Literature, Casey M. Reck

CMC Senior Theses

This Thesis is an exploration of white fathers in three post-apartheid novels: Mark Behr's The Smell of Apples, Nadine Gordimer's The House Gun, and J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace. By examining the link between private white hegemonic masculinity and the apartheid government, the Thesis analyzes the transitional process as these men try to adopt less authoritative identities.