Browsing by Author "Van den Heever, Aletta Jacoba"

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    n Alledaagse andersheid : n ondersoek na Lauren Beukes se Zoo city as voorbeeld van heterotopiese literatuur, met verwysing na Animals people deur Indra Sinha en Ikabod
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2016-03) Van den Heever, Aletta Jacoba; Anker, Willem; Van Niekerk, Marlene; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Afrikaans and Dutch.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In the first part of this thesis Foucault’s concept of heterotopia is used to investigate the difference between narrative complexity and complexity itself. Lauren Beukes’s novel Zoo City is analyzed within the framework of heterotopic literature. The question is asked whether the novel illustrates the “liberated imagination” Gerald Gaylard refers to – “[an imagination that] can lay the foundations for the resolution of many a complex and sensitive post-colonial tribulation Africa must wrest with” (Wertlen, 2011:16) – or whether Beukes’s Zoo City is rather – as Corrigall (2013:18) suggests about The Shining Girls (2013) – a “cop-out; [alleviating] the need to negotiate the sometimes irreconcilable socio-political issues of our times”. In comparison I discuss Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People as an example of heterotopic literature. With this analysis I want to show what the difference is between a novel in which heterotopic spaces and aspects can be found and a novel which constitutes a critical-ethical heterotopia in itself. The second part of the thesis is a novel titled Ikabod. In the novel issues around conservation, decline, and the economy and politics of survival are investigated.
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    Toevalligheid in Ingrid Winterbach se "Die boek van toeval en toeverlaat" : interpretasies van die roman met die fokus op die tema van kontingensie
    (Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2010-03) Van den Heever, Aletta Jacoba; Viljoen, Louise; University of Stellenbosch. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Afrikaans and Dutch.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis is a study of Ingrid Winterbach‟s novel, Die boek van toeval en toeverlaat. The premise of the thesis is that a study of the theme of contingency or chance can lead to a heightened insight into the novel. The novel is approached from different perspectives, but in each perspective the way in which the theme of chance is developed in the novel, is illuminated. By way of introduction the history of the term “contingency” in the Afrikaans language and Western philosophy is broadly traced. This is the background to a reading of the novel as a reaction to contingency. This is followed by a reading of the novel from the perspective of the sociology of religion. The focus is on the nominizing function of religion; the role of language in this process and the way in which Helena Verbloem‟s shells become symbol of man‟s search for meaning and order. In the third chapter the novel is read from the perspective of popular science with the focus on the part of chance in the history of evolutionary thought and the way the novel interprets this. A reading of the novel from the perspective of the philosophy of language follows: the arbitrary and contingent nature of language is discussed and the way the novel underlines this, is brougth to the attention. In the last chapter the novel is read from the perspective of literary theory, focusing on the traditional narrative structure and the way in which it is undermined, undermining also in the process a teleological reading of the novel. Following the reading of the novel from these different perspectives, the conclusion is made that Ingrid Winterbach acknowledges contingency and makes it her own to such an extent that she meets Nietzsche‟s criteria for a “brave poet”. She is indeed a brave and poetic novelist.
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    Wilma Stockenström as digter van die donker ekologie
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2021-12) Van den Heever, Aletta Jacoba; Viljoen, Louise; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Afrikaans and Dutch.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study uses the theoretical field of ecocriticism, and specifically Morton’s environmental philosophy of dark ecology as point of departure to do a qualitative, text-based investigation of Wilma Stockenström as dark ecopoet. Using Morton’s dark ecology, as set out in Dark Ecology. For a Logic of Future Coexistence (2016), three characteristics of the dark ecopoet are identified. Firstly, the dark ecopoet’s thinking springs from ecognosis. Ecognosis is knowing and letting be known in a strange loop (Morton, 2016:5). The dark ecopoet’s coexistence is characterized by an embrace of this strange loop of knowing and a hermeneutics without closure that accompanies it. Secondly, the dark ecopoet undermines agrilogistics. Agrilogistics is a technical and logical approach to space that tries to straighten out the loop structure of things and thought (Morton, 2016:109), partly by presenting the law of non-contradiction as inviable (Morton, 2016:47). Agrilogistics promises to get rid of fear, anxiety and contradictions – social, physical and ontological – by putting up thin and rigid boundaries between the human and non-human world (Morton, 2016:43). To undermine agrilogistics, the dark ecopoet has to let the arche-lithic flicker – that is the third characteristic. The arche-lithic is the primordial connection between human and non-human that has never disappeared (Morton, 2016:63). Agrilogistics supresses the arche- lithic flickering, the anxiety born from the fact that we don’t know everything and that we can’t know the future (Morton, 2016:82). The dark ecopoet embraces these gaps. Wilma Stockenström’s poetry is not only discussed in relation to the concept of the dark ecopoet; her work is also used to give further form to this concept. Except for the fact that the characteristics of the dark ecopoet will be traced in her poetic oeuvre, there will also be a specific focus on the way in which she embodies the ethical dimension of the dark ecopoet. To do this, the work of Latour and Purdy will be used. Particularly due to the ethics of uncertainty, openness and unfathomable ambiguity (Snyman, 2015:219) that characterises her work, her metapoetics does not lend itself to identify a “role” for the dark ecopoet. Instead, Stockenström helps us to think anew about coexistence: while she shouts out the unsayability of the earth, she continues – in her stammering and self-deprecating way – to give voice to the unrevealable surplus of being and meaning. As dark ecopoet she has no illusions that her poetry has the potential to save the “atmosphere rich one” (Stockenström, 1988:21) or the “other little noses”, but she honours the “coexistence” with “fellow animals” (Stockenström, 1984:60).