Shouting against Silence: André Brink's Voices of Truth

<p>This thesis investigates the notion of 'Truth' upheld by the South African writer André Brink and discusses his deconstruction of the processes of truth-making. I argue that Brink understands fixed narratives, or received 'truth', as constructed to the detriment of alternative narratives, resulting in their subjugation and eventual loss. In response to authoritative discourses, Brink advocates an ongoing and evolving series of challenging narratives which refuse the closure of narrative possibilities. He urges a constant process of un-forgetting and remembering, a contestational activity that undermines the truth-claims of any oppressive group. Three central texts have been chosen as exemplary of Brink's directive to contest fixed truth claims. The first of these, Devil's Valley, offers an opportunity to examine the novelistic (and often postmodernist) blurring of distinctions between binary oppositions such as 'fact' and 'fiction', 'past' and 'present', 'real' and 'unreal'. In undermining the ostensibly dichotomous nature of these pairings, Brink challenges the bases upon which prejudicial systems such as the Apartheid regime rely. In doing so, he reveals the constructions behind both prejudice and hegemonic discourses, and ultimately undermines these foundations. Similarly, Imaginings of Sand provides a means by which to further explore Brink's engagement with prejudice, and most specifically, with the patriarchal oppression of women. I suggest that Brink's female narratives, in which multiplicity and endless possibility are foregrounded, again contest the constraints imposed by a dominant discourse, offering alternative versions. My final textual examination focuses on A Chain of Voices, in which both the polyphonic narration and the thematic content exemplify the concerns discussed previously Brink's usage of various imagery related to oppressive relationships, I claim, provides metaphors for the manner in which binary relationships are co-dependent, rather than dichotomous, undercutting the justifications associated with privileging certain narratives over others. Brink's Truth, I argue, involves an ongoing contestational process of narratorial imagining, a revisionary project central to both the prejudicial environment of Apartheid South Africa, in which much of Brink's work was written, and also to the larger context of prejudice in all its forms and geographical locations.</p>

Shouting against Silence: André Brink's Voices of Truth

<p>This thesis investigates the notion of 'Truth' upheld by the South African writer André Brink and discusses his deconstruction of the processes of truth-making. I argue that Brink understands fixed narratives, or received 'truth', as constructed to the detriment of alternative narratives, resulting in their subjugation and eventual loss. In response to authoritative discourses, Brink advocates an ongoing and evolving series of challenging narratives which refuse the closure of narrative possibilities. He urges a constant process of un-forgetting and remembering, a contestational activity that undermines the truth-claims of any oppressive group. Three central texts have been chosen as exemplary of Brink's directive to contest fixed truth claims. The first of these, Devil's Valley, offers an opportunity to examine the novelistic (and often postmodernist) blurring of distinctions between binary oppositions such as 'fact' and 'fiction', 'past' and 'present', 'real' and 'unreal'. In undermining the ostensibly dichotomous nature of these pairings, Brink challenges the bases upon which prejudicial systems such as the Apartheid regime rely. In doing so, he reveals the constructions behind both prejudice and hegemonic discourses, and ultimately undermines these foundations. Similarly, Imaginings of Sand provides a means by which to further explore Brink's engagement with prejudice, and most specifically, with the patriarchal oppression of women. I suggest that Brink's female narratives, in which multiplicity and endless possibility are foregrounded, again contest the constraints imposed by a dominant discourse, offering alternative versions. My final textual examination focuses on A Chain of Voices, in which both the polyphonic narration and the thematic content exemplify the concerns discussed previously Brink's usage of various imagery related to oppressive relationships, I claim, provides metaphors for the manner in which binary relationships are co-dependent, rather than dichotomous, undercutting the justifications associated with privileging certain narratives over others. Brink's Truth, I argue, involves an ongoing contestational process of narratorial imagining, a revisionary project central to both the prejudicial environment of Apartheid South Africa, in which much of Brink's work was written, and also to the larger context of prejudice in all its forms and geographical locations.</p>

Gerla

This chapter is both a discussion of the specific experience of Soviet hippie women and a reflection of my role as a female and Western interviewer vis-à-vis questions relating to Soviet feminism and emancipation. It begins with a female-centred history of Soviet hippie history and proceeds to discuss female narratives as revealing a different picture of hippiedom than male narratives. The chapter continues with a discussion of the physical and ideological difficulty of ageing for Soviet hippie women, who, more than their male counterparts, were forced to decide for or against a countercultural lifestyle, when children appeared. Their earlier withdrawal and higher connectedness to the mainstream diminished their place in hippie collective memory. It concludes with an evaluation of the absence of second wave feminism in the Soviet hippie scene and the difficulty of translating Western expectations of women’s emancipation into a Soviet context.

Babble: a poetry collection exploring the cultural identity of modern Wales

Babble is a poetry collection that adapts the Welsh metrical tradition in English. The poetry exhibits characteristics of cynghanedd to explore varying perspectives on a modern Welsh cultural identity. Its main aim is to show how a hyphenated identity might be reconsidered to engage with ‒ and represent ‒ individuals struggling to establish a strong Welsh identification. The poetry collection has been influenced by Welsh history, its landscape and literature. It recreates a learning process that took me on a journey through Wales which strengthened my Welsh identity. The collection explores cultural identity through underrepresented female narratives from Welsh history, literature and mythology. My critical essay analyses why poets believed the craft of cynghanedd to be important to their identity and how they applied its techniques in their poetry. A creative methodology has been implemented in a poetry collection that imitates and responds to literature from the twelfth to the twenty-first century. It was critical to have a flexible creative process when writing cynghanedd in English. My poetry looks at modernist poetry and the craft of cynghanedd to develop a new style of poetry that could engage with a diversity of voices in modern Wales. The main aim of the collection was to engage readers with the craft of cynghanedd. This would prompt them to explore its connection to Wales. The collection considered ways that would provoke readers to question their ideas on identity in modern Wales.

Young, educated, and female: narratives of post-1991 internal Albanian migration

This chapter discusses the internal migration of young Albanian women to Tirana for educational purposes. Its aim is to investigate how is gender embedded with the process of migration of young women, and the effects of migration in shaping gendered subjectivities and gender relations. The chapter explores how young Albanian women use education as a platform for migration; how they mobilise social networks to achieve their migration objectives as well as to face the uncertainties in the city of destination. It also expands upon the paradox that embodies these women's migration process: migration is a way to escape from gender constraints and social control from kinship and community; however, in the city of destination they face gendered and sexualised prejudices and constraints that underlie the same mechanism than those they escaped from and put them in new forms of precarity and dependency.