Browsing by Author "Pieterse, Annel"

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    Islands under threat : heterotopia and the disintegration of the ideal in Joseph Conrad's Heart of darkness, Antjie Krog's Country of my skull and Irvan Welsh's Marabou stork nightmares
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2005-03) Pieterse, Annel; Goodman, Ralph; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences . Dept. of English.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The stories and histories of the human race are littered with the remnants of utopia. These utopias always exist in some "far away" place, whether this place be removed in terms of time (either as a nostalgically remembered past, or an idealistically projected future), or in terms of space (as a place that one must arrive at). In our attempts to attain these utopias, we construct our worlddefinitions in accordance with our projections of these ideal places and ways of "being". Our discourses come to embody and perpetuate these ideals, which are maintained by excluding any definitions of the world that run counter to these ideals. The continued existence of utopia relies on the subjects of that utopia continuing their belief in its ideals, and not questioning its construction. Counter-discourse to utopia manifests in the same space as the original utopia and gives rise to questions that threaten the stability of the ideal. Questions challenge belief, and therefore the discourse of the ideal must neutralise those who question and challenge it. This process of neutralisation requires that more definitions be constructed within utopian discourse - definitions that allow the subjects of the discourse to objectify the questioner. However, as these new definitions arise, they create yet more counter-definitions, thereby increasing the fragmentation of the aforementioned space. A subject of any "dominant" discourse, removed from that discourse, is exposed to the questions inherent in counter-discourse. In such circumstances, the definitions of the questioner - the "other" - that have previously enabled the subject to disregard the questioner's existence and/or point of view are no longer reinforced, and the subject begins to question those definitions. Once this questioning process starts, the utopia of the subject is re-defined as dystopia, for the questioning highlights the (often violent) methods of exclusion needed to maintain that utopia. Foucault's theory of heterotopia, used as the basis for the analysis of the three texts in question, suggests a space in which several conflicting and contradictory discourses which seemingly bear no relation to each other are found grouped together. Whereas utopia sustains myth in discourse, running with the grain of language, heterotopias run against the grain, undermining the order that we create through language, because they destroy the syntax that holds words and things together. The narrators in the three texts dealt with are all subjects of dominant discourses sustained by exclusive definitions and informed by ideals that require this exclusion in order to exist. Displaced into spaces that subvert the definitions within their discourses, the narrators experience a sense of "madness", resulting from the disintegration of their perception of "order". However, through embracing and perpetuating that which challenged their established sense of identity, the narrators can regain their sense of agency, and so their narratives become vehicles for the reconstitution of the subject-status of the narrators, as well as a means of perpetuating the counter-discourse.
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    Language limits : the dissolution of the lyric subject in experimental print and performance poetry
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2012-12) Pieterse, Annel; Green, Louise; De Villiers, Dawid; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of English.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this thesis, I undertake an extensive overview of a range of language activities that foreground the materiality of language, and that require an active reader oriented towards the text as a producer, rather than a consumer, of meaning. To this end, performance, as a function of both orality and print texts, forms an important focus for my argument. I am particularly interested in the effect that the disruption of language has on the position of the subject in language, especially in terms of the dialogic exchange between local and global subject positions. Poetry is a language activity that requires a particular attention to form and meaning, and that is licensed to activate and exploit the materiality of language. For this reason, I have focused on the work of a selection of North American poets, the Language poets. These poets are primarily concerned with the performative possibilities of language as it appears in print media. I juxtapose these language activities with those of a selection of contemporary South African poets whose work is marked by the influence of oral forms, and reveals telling interplays between media. All these poets are preoccupied with the ways in which the sign might be disrupted. In my discussion of the work of the Language poets, I consider how examples of their print poetics present the reader with language fragments, arranged according to non-syntactic principles. Confronted by the lack of an individuated lyric subject around whom these fragments might cohere, the reader is obliged to make his/her own connections between words, sounds and phrases. Similarly, in the work of the performance poets, I identify several aspects in the poetry that trouble a transparent transmission of expression, and instead require the poetry to be read as an interrogation of the constitution of the subject. Here, the ―I‖ fleetingly occupies multiple, shifting subject positions, and the poetic interplay between media and language tends towards a continuous destabilising of the poetic self. Poets and performers are, to some extent, licensed to experiment with language in ways that render it opaque. Because the language activities of poets and performers are generally accommodated within the order of symbolic or metaphoric language, their experimentation with non-communicative excesses can be understood as part of their framework. However, in situations where ―communicative‖ language is expected, the order of literal or forensic language cannot accommodate seemingly non-communicative excesses that appear to render the text opaque. Ultimately, I am concerned with exploring the manner in which attention to the materiality of language might open up alternative understandings of language, subjectivity and representation in South African public discourse. My conclusion therefore considers the consequences when the issues opened up by the poetry – questions of self and subject, authority and representation – are translated into forensic frameworks and testimonial discourse.