"To learn how to speak": a study of Jeremy Cronin's poetry
- Authors: Pinnock, William
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Poets, South African , Historical materialism
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:8484 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1021038
- Description: In the chapters that follow, the porous boundary between the public and the private in Jeremy Cronin’s poetry is investigated in his three collections, Inside (1983), Even the Dead: Poems, Parables and a Jeremiad (1996) and More Than a Casual Contact (2006). I argue two particular Marxist theorists are central to reading Cronin’s poetry: Bertolt Brecht, and his notion of the Verfremdungseffekt, and Walter Benjamin and his work on historical materialism, primarily the essay On the Concept of History / Theses on the Philosophy of History (1940). Both theorists focus on the work of art in a historically contextualized manner, which extends the challenge to the boundary between the public and the private. Their work is underpinned by the desire to draw out hidden narratives occluded under the grand narratives of history and capitalist ideas of progress. I argue that these are the major preoccupations in Cronin’s oeuvre as well. As such Cronin’s poetry may be seen to write against a perspective that proposes a linear conceptualisation of history. The poetry therefore challenges the notion that art speaks of ‘universal truths.’ Such ideas of History and Truth, if viewed uncritically, allow for a tendency to conceive of the past as unchanging, which subconsciously promotes the idea that social and political realities are merely logical evolutionary steps. I argue that Cronin’s poetry is thus purposefully interruptive in the way that it confronts the damaging consequences of the linear conceptualisation of history and the universal truth it promotes. His work attempts to find new ways of connection and expression through learning from South Africa’s violent past. The significance of understanding each other and the historical environment as opposed to imposing perspectives that underwrite the symbolic order requires the transformation rather than the simple transferral of power, and is a central focus throughout Cronin’s oeuvre. This position suggests that while the struggle for political freedom may be over, the necessity to rethink how South Africans relate to each other is only beginning. Chapter One will focus on positioning Cronin, the poet and public figure, in South African literature and literary criticism. In this regard, two general trends have operated as critical paradigms in the study of South African poetry, namely Formalism (or ‘prac crit’) and a Marxist inflected materialism, which have in many ways perpetuated the division between the private and the public. This has resulted in poetry being read with an exclusive focus on either one of these two aspects, overlooking the possibilities of dialogue that may take place between them. Cronin’s perspective on these polarised responses will be discussed, which will illustrate the similarity of his position to Ndebele’s notion of the ‘ordinary’ which suggests a way beyond these binaries. This will lead to a discussion of how South African poets responded to the transition phase, suggesting that the elements of the polarisation still remained. Considering the major influences and paradigms when reading Cronin’s oeuvre provides a foundation for the following three chapters. These include Cronin’s use of Romanticism, Bertolt Brecht and the V-Effekt and Walter Benjamin’s perspectives on historical materialism. In addition to these three theoretical paradigms, the relevance of Pablo Neruda’s poetry to Cronin’s work is also foregrounded. In Chapter Two, the focus will be on Cronin’s first collection of poetry, Inside, concentrating on Cronin’s use of language as a way of constructing poetry in the sparseness of the prison experience. This will show an abiding preoccupation of learning to speak in a language that considers the material context out of which it emerges. In this regard, the poems “Poem-Shrike” “Prologue” and “Cave-site” are analysed. In addition, one of the central poems in Cronin’s oeuvre, “To learn how to speak […],” will be examined in order to illustrate how the poet extends this project on a meta-poetic level, asking for South African poets to ‘learn how to speak’ in the voices of South African experience and histories. I will show how this is linked to Cronin’s “Walking on Air” which illustrates how the V-Effeckt recovers the small private histories through re-telling the life story of James Matthews, a fellow prisoner incarcerated for his anti-apartheid activism, revealing how this story is intimately connected to the public sphere. In Chapter Three, Cronin’s second collection: Even the Dead: Poems, Parables and a Jeremiad will be examined. In the poem “Three Reasons for a Mixed, Umrabulo, Round-the-Corner Poetry” Cronin resists inherited Western poetic conventions by incorporating and subverting versions of the Romantic aesthetic, arguing for poetry to be immersed in South African multi-lingual and multi-cultural experiences. “Even the Dead” reveals how Cronin uses Walter Benjamin’s perspectives on historical materialism to confront amnesia. In terms of the themes established in “To learn how to speak […]”, the poem “Moorage” demonstrates how the public and private can never be separated in Cronin’s work. The final section of this chapter will examine how Cronin responds to Pablo Neruda’s poems “I am explaining a few things” and “The Education of a Chieftain,” and how these poems challenge narratives that privilege the ‘great leader’ instead of the so-called smaller individuals’ stories. Chapter Four examines selections from Cronin’s third collection, focusing on Cronin’s use of the automobile, charting an ambiguous trajectory through the ‘new’ South Africa. The examination of the poems “Where to begin?”, “Switchback” and “End of the century - which is why wipers,” all attempt to include individuals left on the margins of the narrative of global freeways and neo-liberal capitalist progress. The poems present an interrogation of how ‘vision’ is constructed. This will show that the poetry responds to the experiences of the marginalised under these grand narratives in a primarily fragmentary and interruptive manner. This in effect constitutes the culmination of Cronin’s poetic journey and the search for new ways of envisaging South Africa’s future and finding a new language with which to speak it.
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- Date Issued: 2014
'n Ondersoek na die uitbeelding van Khoisan-karakters deur wit Afrikaanse prosateurs: 1994-2014
- Authors: December, Peter
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Khoikhoi (African people) -- South Africa -- History Khoikhoi (African people) -- Race identity -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/22070 , vital:29819
- Description: This dissertation offers a literary-thematic investigation based on a postcolonial approach to the representation of the Khoisan and their descendants. I restricted my scope to selected Afrikaans novels at the centre of critical attention between between 1994 and 2014. Earlier novels in this period under discussion are Dolf van Niekerk’s Koms van die hyreën (1994), Willem Kotze’s Tsats van die Kalahari (1994), Die spoorsnyer (1994), Olifantjagters (1997) and Gif (2001) by Piet van Rooyen, plus Karel Schoeman’s Verkenning (1996). Later texts in the focus are Duiwelskloof (1998) and Bidsprinkaan (2005) by André P. Brink, Dalene Matthee’s Pieternella van die Kaap (2000), Eben Venter’s Santa Gamka (2009) and most recently, the Hertzog prize winner of 2015, Buys by Willem Anker (2014). Themes central to South African literature will form the focus of the research, namely intercultural interaction between the first inhabitants of South Africa and missionaries, the question of land ownership, the language motif, and the role of religion (indigenous versus Western belief systems). Attention will also be on more specific issues such as the nature of the relationship between the Khoisan and the colonisers, the characterization of the Khoisan by the selected white authors, as well as other contemporary debates. The secondary objective of the study is to review the historical presence of the Khoisan and their descendants as reflected through the fictional lense of these authors writing over the last two decades, since democratization of the regime in 1994. My focus is particularly on the substantial cultural contribution of the Khoi and the San, as reflected through their representation in fictional works. The question will be posed whether the portrayal of Khoisan characters in novels after 1994 is different from the portrayal in fiction before 1994? My hypothesis is that in the fictional representation one finds a move towards restoration of their human dignity, yet the fact remains that all the authors are white. A different study of fictional works by coloured writers (whose numbers as Afrikaans authors grew substantially after 1994), investigating their representation of the descendants of the Khoi and the San, would in all probability yield radically different results, as the white authors imagine the characters and their consciousness from outside the community and the racial group, whereas the coloured writers belong to the community and the group that they portray.
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- Date Issued: 2017
An investigation into the coverage of diverse forms of tourism in South African travel magazines
- Authors: Kotzé, Louis Jacobus Daniël
- Date: 2004
- Subjects: Tourism -- South Africa , South Africa -- Description and travel Periodicals -- Research
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:10992 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/339 , Tourism -- South Africa , South Africa -- Description and travel Periodicals -- Research
- Description: There have been several changes in tourism in South Africa since 1994. During apartheid, black people were not allowed to become involved in important aspects of tourism, particularly at management level. However, this situation is changing and all cultures are gradually becoming engaged in th e tourism industry. The economic progress of the black community has resulted in the materialization of cultural villages, tourism projects to give rural people jobs, and an increase in township tourist attractions, heritage tours, etc. These initiatives have led to the establishment of certain types of tourism such as cultural tourism, urban tourism and community-based tourism. It could be said without hesitation, at the prescientific level, that the diversity in cultures, for one, is a major attraction of this country. Another change has been the increase in tourism from countries which have been excluded from South Africa in the past. Examples of these are African countries such as Kenya and Nigeria, as well as countries on other continents, including India, Bangladesh and the East-European bloc. Up to 2003/4, South Africa experienced the longest uninterrupted period of economic growth in its history. This resulted in people being able to afford a higher standard of living and therefore having more money to spend on travelling. as the economic growth stimulated the growth of tourism, both local and foreign, in the country. Seen from the perspective of the tourism industry, it is important to keep the public informed and up to date about what a country has to offer in order to maintain the increase in tourism. The media assist in this process. The travelling public is informed by word of mouth, but also through newspapers, magazines, television and radio. Information about the different attractions, whether cultures, wildlife or sport, et cetera, would not always be easy to find, were it not for the media. As tourism grows, more tourist attractions will develop, with a bigger need for tourists to be informed as an immediate result. The role of the media in this information giving is th erefore constantly on the increase.
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- Date Issued: 2004
Crumpled hearts
- Authors: Crain, Patricia Ann
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: South African fiction (English) -- 21st century , Creative writing (Higher education) , English language -- Writing , South African fiction (English) -- Study and teaching (Higher)
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:5984 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1015676
- Description: A middle-aged woman, living in Johannesburg, has an experience which catapults her into changing her life. In the process of confronting her alcoholism, she realizes how patterns of addiction extend to other areas of her life and tries to make sense of the tragic events that have occurred. Her world becomes a different place as she questions everything that she has been taught about relationships, religion, race and her place in society. In the search for answers she uncovers stories about the lives of her parents, grandparents, relatives, friends and acquaintances. Embarking on a journey of discovery and rediscovery through her experiences and those of others, she explores the ways in which the things that she thought she knew defined her behaviour and expression of herself.
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- Date Issued: 2014
Exploring the challenges of income generating projects funded by the Department of Social Development at Kwa-Nobuhle, Uitenhage, in the Eastern Cape
- Authors: Filita, Unathi Samora
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: Public investments -- South Africa -- Port Elizabeth , Economic development projects -- South Africa -- Port Elizabeth , Poverty -- South Africa -- Port Elizabeth -- Economic conditions
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:9191 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1020323
- Description: Income generating projects represent one strategy adopted by the Department of Social Development to alleviate poverty. The purpose of this study is to explore challenges of an income generating project funded by the Department of Social Development in Kwa-Nobuhle, Uitenhage of the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa., A sample of thirty respondents was drawn from ten income generating projects funded by the Department of Social Development. The sampling method of this study was purposive sampling. Data was gathered through semi-structured questionnaires. Related literature has been reviewed that focuses on income generating projects for poverty alleviation. Various recommendations have been made on the findings of the study. The findings of the study indicated the need for regular visits from the officials of the Department, to conduct monitoring and evaluation. Project members also need training on financial management so they cannot mismanage their finances. The research findings indicated clearly that strategies that were used by the Department were not effective enough to achieve desired goals of poverty alleviation.
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- Date Issued: 2013
Exploring the impact of agricultural project and income generation in Uitenhage
- Authors: Kwesaba, Xolelwa
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Agricultural development projects -- South Africa -- Uitenhage , Community development -- South Africa -- Uitenhage , Economic assistance, Domestic -- South Africa -- Uitenhage
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:9234 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1021076
- Description: An income generating project signifies an unemployment strategy and an attempt at upliftment of living standards This study tries to explore the impact of agricultural and income generating projects on poverty alleviation in the Uitenhage area .The research topic tries to establish whether these poverty alleviation projectshave impacted sufficiently and contributed to socio-economic development and eradication of poverty . A sample of 15 respondents involved in an income generating project funded by the Department of Social Development was drawn from 1 Tinarha Agricultural Tourism Initiative. A purposive samplingmethod was used for thisstudy. Data was gathered through semi-structured questionnaires. Related literature that focuses on income generating projects for poverty alleviation has been reviewed. Various recommendations based on the findings of the study have also been made. The findings of the study indicate that the income generation project, has not impacted and contributed significantly to the process of eradicating poverty for the project members. It also indicates that project members were not empowered sufficiently with financial management skills needed to equip them to make substantial profits from their small business enterprises. It also emerged that the members were not able to secure markets for their products. This remains a key challenge for attainingsustainability. The research findings indicated clearly that the strategies that were used by the Departments were not effective enough to achieve the desired goals of poverty alleviation.
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- Date Issued: 2014
Nostalgia in reimagining the past: the subjectivity of memory in the representation of history. A textual analysis of Rehad Desai's documentary films
- Authors: Dlamini, Philani Vincent
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Documentary films -- South Africa , Nostalgia in motion pictures Nostalgia in mass media
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/45183 , vital:38261
- Description: South Africa occupies a unique space in terms of the decolonization of the continent of Africa. While massive projects of decolonization where happening across the continent, South Africa was subjected to a conservative and racialised project of segregation. This arrested development makes for an interesting anachronism in South Africa as disconcerting “Third- World” and “First-World” economies emerged creating an anomalous temporality. I was born just a month before the inimitable Ruth First was unceremoniously assassinated in Mozambique in 1982. While further South, one of the most underreported conflicts of apartheid South Africa was in its nascent stages no further than a kilometer away from my house. I am referring of course to the violent clashes between factions of both the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and the African National Congress (ANC), played in the men’s hostel of the third largest township in the country, Umlazi, South of Durban. These would only come to have meaning to me later, when I was at university. I mention these cultural and perhaps socio-political artefacts in so far as they relate to the kind of environment that lead to this research enquiry. Which is to say that as social beings, we are in fact products of the things that affect the social environment that we exist in. This is not a new idea. What is particularly interesting for this enquiry is the eclecticism of the emblems that survive to shapes one’s own identity and perception of the world around them. Within the above stated mini-biography lies a complex matrix of emotions and extrapolated meanings mediated through a conflicted and negotiated understanding of what the social history of South Africa meant for my own personal history. This paper is an attempt to think through articulations of time as they are constituted by future-orientated subjectivities extending back to varied pasts. It does so by exploring a recent work of black South African self-writing, Jacob Dlamini’s Native Nostalgia (2009). Considering the text’s treatment of time, I argue that porous conceptions of temporality open up possibilities for self-enunciation. What Paul Gilroy has described as “the signs of sameness” (2000, 101). Meaning that these could be quantified and as such researchable and in fact applied across various cultural texts (including but not limited to film). The body of work from South African documentary filmmaker Rehad Desai provides an interesting case study to examine Jacob Dlamini’s thematic pre-occupations with nostalgia. Nostalgia here is used to see if such pre-occupations can be applied to a filmic body of work. Desai’s body of work is interesting to this enquiry because it almost exclusively deals with the temporalities of South Africa as “refracted through the prism of the past”. By this I mean Desai through his work appears to reflect on South Africa’s storied past as it affects current happenings. It is the intention of this paper to argue that Desai deals with his subject (the evolution of the South African political landscape) in similar terms to the way Jacob Dlamini explores the notion of reflective nostalgia.
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- Date Issued: 2019
Social change and shifting paradigms: the choice of healer among black South Africans in psychological counselling
- Authors: Johnson, Alexandra Blythe
- Date: 2000
- Subjects: Healers -- South Africa , Psychotherapy Cross-cultural studies , Xhosa (African people) -- Psychology
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2998 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002507 , Healers -- South Africa , Psychotherapy Cross-cultural studies , Xhosa (African people) -- Psychology
- Description: Social change in South Africa brings to light the multiplicity of world-views operating in our society, which individuals encountering a variety of social contexts are faced with. This raises questions about the choices black South Africans face in response to influences from Western and traditional African culture. This issue was approached through examining helpseeking choices made between different health care sectors that stem from different world-views. This would indicate whether individuals are drawing on a variety of belief systems. The sources of their beliefs are put into context by looking at the communities of practice that influence their local knowledge. Help-seeking is also influenced by the identities the individual may ascribe to, which are derived from the multiple positions held by them in different social contexts. In this research the use of health-care sectors by four black women attending psychotherapy is examined. Their use of these sectors reflects a potential multiplicity of world views. Semistructured interviews were conducted, focusing on participants' prior experience of different help options, and their current perceptions of traditional African healing and psychology. The texts were analysed using a qualitative hermeneutic method, the reading guide. Data was looked at through three main themes, the individual's relationship to the health care sectors, their knowledge of different world views, and the identities they adopted which may be influential in their choice of a healer. It was found that in two participants there was some movement away from traditional beliefs, with one rejecting the traditional healers who did not help her, once she has discovered therapy, and another identifying herself completely with Western medicine. In contrast, one participant illustrated a rediscovery of traditional healing, whilst still attending psychotherapy. This suggests that shifts in knowledge are not necessarily away from traditional beliefs. It was also found that the two participants who had experienced a broader variety of social contexts and identified with multiple belief systems, tended to use a variety of Western and traditional healing sources and selected the healing option they felt was most appropriate to a particular problem. It is argued therefore that having a variety of knowledge and beliefs places individuals in a more powerful position to determine their choice of action than those with a limited range of knowledge.
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- Date Issued: 2000
The role of financial regulators in the Kenyan economy
- Authors: Khakali, Linda Anyoso
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: Financial services industry -- Law and legislation Financial institutions -- Law and legislation Financial services industry -- Law and legislation -- Kenya
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/11114 , vital:26886
- Description: Financial regulation is a subject that is more often than not regarded as distant and yet another level of bureaucracy that has to be endured by both the public and private sectors. The significance of creating and maintaining an efficient and effective system to regulate financial markets, financial institutions and financial service providers is a salient feature in the development of a country’s economic health. The recent global economic crises of 2007/2008 and the economic hurdles accompanying those events are perhaps the most dramatic instances of how necessary the implementation of efficient and effective financial regulation is. The international financial system has experienced a retinue of changes in the last two decades. One of the main challenges of financial regulators has been to keep abreast of as well as adapt to these changes, which are of an international nature. In a majority of countries, the financial sector is one of the most intensely regulated and supervised industries. Over a period of time, it has become evident that regulatory arrangements have a formidable impact on: i. The size, structure and efficiency of a financial system; ii. The business operations of financial institutions and markets; iii. Competitive conditions both overall and between sub-sectors of the system. The impact of regulation can either be stagnant or progressive; this depends on how the objectives of regulation are defined and how efficiently regulatory arrangements are related to their objectives. The issue at hand is to engage regulatory institutions, structures and mechanisms for supervision and enforcement need to be implemented because they are pertinent to the formal regulatory requirements in the overall regulatory regime. Effective financial regulation would be unable to exert its objectives in the absence of efficient supervision and enforcement. In numerous countries the institutional structure of regulation has experienced change or is in the process of change. Different models of institutional structure are availed such as the single/consolidated model, the twin-peak model and the multiple regulator model. For example, the United Kingdom has embraced the single/consolidated regulator model while Australia has employed the twin-peak regulator model. Kenya operates on the multiple regulator model. This report addresses the role of financial regulators in the Kenyan economy. The objectives of the research are to: Provide comprehensive information about the theory and practice of financial regulation; Identify the financial regulators in Kenya and define their roles; Address the issue of multiple regulators and the duplicity of roles; Discuss international trends in regulation and examine different regulatory regimes; Consider the viability of a single/consolidated regulatory regime in Kenya; Suggest a possible future regulatory regime for Kenya and identify the key issues associated with such a regime; Suggest areas for further investigation and research.The approach of this report will constitute the following: Chapter 1 discusses the rationale for the research, objectives, scope and scale of the research, preliminary literature review and the research methods to be employed. Chapter 2 focuses on financial regulatory systems in general as well as an extensive analysis of financial regulators in Kenya. Chapter 3 combines the research methods employed and also contains a comparative analysis of the regulatory regime. Chapter 4 examines the findings of the research, the lessons learnt and the regulatory responses. Chapter 5 includes recommendations towards improvement of regulatory systems and an executive summary of outstanding policy issues and priorities in Kenyan financial regulation.
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- Date Issued: 2013