3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item The historical development of the commemoration of the June 16, 1976 Soweto students' uprisings: a study of re-representation, commemoration and collective memory(2015-09-02) Hlongwane, Ali KhangelaSouth Africa’s post-apartheid era has, in a space of nearly two decades, experienced a massive memory boom manifest in a plethora of new memorials, monuments, museums and the renaming of streets, parks, dams and buildings. This memorialisation process is intrinsically linked to questions of power, struggles and contestation in the making and remaking of the South African nation. The questions of power, struggle and contestation manifest as a wave of debates on the place of history, collective memory, identity and social cohesion in the inception as well as the functioning of the various memorialisation projects in society. This thesis concludes that debates concerning the meaning(s) as well as the way in which the June 16, 1976 uprisings have been memorialized, has been ongoing for the last three decades, and will continue into the future. This, as the findings bear out, is because the wider contextual situating of collective memory in its intangible and tangible form is intrinsically linked to complex experiences of the past; to ongoing experiments of a “nation” in the making, as well as pressing contemporary social challenges. The thesis also concludes that questions of power, struggle and contestation also manifest as a quest for relevant idioms and aesthetics of re-representation and memorialisation. Further, the thesis makes observations on the politics behind the assembling and the assembled archive as a toolkit in the fashioning of pasts and the making of collective memory. It reflects on the processes of re-thinking and remaking of the June 16, 1976 archive. These conclusions have been arrived at through an investigation of how the memory and meaning of the June 16, 1976 uprisings have been re-constructed, re-represented and fashioned over the last three decades. This was done by tracking and analysing the complex, diverse forms and character of its memorialisation. In the process, the study arrives at a conclusion that the memorialisation of the June 16, 1976 uprisings is characterised by the multiplicity of tangible and intangible features. The intangible features are characterised by forgetting, at one level, and are, on another level, animated through rituals of commemoration, counter- commemoration and memorial debate. The memorial debate on the uprisings is that of unity and diversity, division, contestation and counter-commemoration and essentially irresolvable, as history and memory are tools to address contemporary challenges.Item "No" - Jose Saramago's subversive creativity from The History of the Siege of Lisbon to The Stone Raft: voyages into the idea of national identity(2009-02-19T10:58:44Z) Mihai, Corina M.Abstract This study outlines a reading of Saramago’s novels as tracing a reflective itinerary into history, questioning the modalities informing a contemporary consciousness, thus acknowledging and re–configuring the past. Through an interpretation of these narratives as ‘voyages into the idea of identity’ it is shown that they reveal a symmetrical pattern tracing the Portuguese national saga from its foundation myth in The History of the Siege of Lisbon to contemporary images of identity in The Stone Raft. In light of this, the analysis examines the subversive narrative strategies employed with regard to the interrogation of canonized historical facts that led to the construction of Portuguese cultural memory and identity. Although the discussion is particularly located within Portuguese texts, the issues raised are relevant within the broader context of Western civilization. It is argued that, within his fictional discourse, Saramago aims at a reformulation of the notion of identity, highlighting the importance of preserving and actively affirming one’s individuality. Drawing on the postmodern perspective of pluralism in the reconstruction of the past, this analysis explores the relationship between history, fiction, memory and identity as reflected in the narratives under discussion. The focus will be on the textual nature of historiography as well as on the relative character of memory, aspects suggesting the irretrievable nature of the past and the necessity of using various acts of supplementation, construction and invention when representing it. Furthermore, the dialogue between Saramago’s fictional canvass and the theoretical framework, drawing on the thinking of critics such as Hayden White, David Lowenthal, Tzvetan Todorov, Linda Hutcheon, is intended to situate Saramago’s stance viz–à-viz the truthfulness of historiography within the contemporary preoccupation with the representation and construction of the past with an eye to reflecting present needs.Item The Incredible Journey of Freddy Reddy(2006-11-16T07:53:47Z) Lauf, Kyle RadfordThis is an historical documentary about an individual’s remarkable journey, one which starts in Durban in 1957 and ends with the protagonist’s arrival in London later the same year before he would subsequently move to Oslo in 1961. The documentary is intended primarily for a South African television audience. As such, it is a history to be apprehended visually rather than in writing, and to a large and heterogeneous, though primarily South African audience. The documentary is actually about two journeys: the physical overland African passage to Europe with its various episodes, and the journey of an ambitious young adult from a humble and disadvantaged background with only a primary school education. It culminates with him gaining acceptance for study of medicine at a Norwegian university, where he would eventually qualify as a doctor and later as a psychiatrist. Though set against the backdrop of the emerging political opposition to apartheid, the documentary is a somewhat depoliticised personal history – the biographical narrative of an old man who accomplished something in his youth which altered his whole life. It is not primarily a political history, nor is it a narrative about the experience of exile. The documentary attempts to locate a historical and spatial context from where the protagonist emerged, but does not attempt to portray the history of South African Indians as a racial or cultural group, per se.