“Water always remembers”: ecology and being in Yvette Christiansë’s literary works
Date
2020
Authors
Neocosmos, Zoe Naledi
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Abstract
This thesis investigates two of Yvette Christiansë’s literary works. Unconfessed (2006) and Imprendehora (2009) from the twin perspectives of slave histories and oceanic studies. Themes of ecology and the ocean have not been extensively explored in her works. Placing the sea as a point of critical perspective, this project explores how an oceanic imaginary functions within Christiansë’s works. How might the sea, and related ecologies, extend modes of existence of the disfigured slave subject? Can qualities of the ocean help re-enchant a fractured world? Through close readings of the two works, the project explores the related themes of the ecological, the nonhuman and sacredness. The introduction sets out the aim and rationale of the project, followed by a literature review explaining the different strands of scholarship and theoretical work that have been used to create a scaffolding for my reading of Christiansë’s work. The first chapter explores histories of Cape slavery and oceanic perspectives in Christiansë’s works. The second chapter considers Joshua Bennett’s ‘more than human socialities’, and Mel Y Chen’s theory of ‘animacy’ as a route into investigating enslaved persons at sea and multiple compositions of the nonhuman. The third chapter deploys M. Jacqui Alexander’s notion of ‘the Sacred’ and Harry Garuba’s animist discourse as another route into Christiansë’s texts. The Conclusion returns to theories of ‘ocean materialities’ as a tool in broadening modes of thinking about literature and slavery in South Africa
Description
A research report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, 2020