2016 STELLENBOSCH UNIVERSITY ELECTIVE COURSE DESCRIPTIONS
All Electives below are worth 2 US Credits
ELECTIVE 1
„SO WE LIVE HERE, FOREVER TAKING LEAVE‟*: ANDREA BARRETT‟S SHORT STORIES
Jeanne Ellis
In a Paris Review interview, Andrea Barrett, whose two collections of short stories are prescribed for
this elective seminar, explains her reasons for using the interwoven lives of her characters, many of
whom are based on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century natural scientists and explorers, as a linking
device between the various stories and her novel The Voyage of the Narwhal as follows: ―I‘m trying
to make the reader feel the effects of genetic linkages, feel the molecules of DNA tumbling across
time and space and continents, combining and recombining. Families and people from different
cultures marry and have children, who move to other places and marry yet other people; I want to
convey a palpable sense of those relationships over time.ǁ In a different context, Barrett, a biologist
by training whose fascination with the intersections between science, history and fiction will inform
our reading of her stories, moreover notes that she had been ―thinking about the fluidity of families
during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when disaster was a part of daily life and parents
routinely lost their young children, even as children were routinely orphaned. So many people were
handed over to the care of relatives and friends, to grow up in the homes of those not their natural
parents. It‘s hard not to be curious about both the enormous kindness that implies, and the potential
difficulties. Or not to wonder if this isn‘t one of those places where science intersects with personal
history. A child wondering, How do I know who I am? may later wonder, How do we know anything
we know? – that passionate curiosity about identity becoming the seed of scientific inquiry. Taking
Barrett‘s reflections on her writing to guide our exploration of this set of recurring themes and tropes
in the stories, we will also return to the work and lives of those passionately curious natural
historians of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that form the background to her short fictions.
*Rainer Maria Rilke, Eighth Duino Elegy (trans. Stephen Mitchell)
Barrett, A. Ship Fever: Stories. Norton, 1996
Barrett, A. Servants of the Map: Stories. Norton, 2003
A reader of additional material will be supplied
ELECTIVE 2
SAVOUR AND SAVE: AN INTRODUCTION TO ANIMAL STUDIES AND ECOCRITICSM
Tilla Slabbert
This elective introduces students to key approaches in Animal Studies and ecocriticism by examining
the role of nature and animal representations in a range of literary and visual texts. We trace the main
shifts in perspectives of ‗nature‘ from Enlightenment to the present day. The literary component
focuses on a selection of South African texts (prose and poetry) to illustrate the importance of
literature in conveying cultural perspectives and consciousness about the environment in a
heterogeneous society. In the visual component of the elective, we engage with the work of artists,
such as: Willie Bester, Pieter Hugo and Strijdom van der Merwe and examine the ‗spectacle‘ of the
animal and nature in wild life documentaries and advertising. The elective aims to stimulate critical
thinking about complex local and global ecological concerns, to create a vital appreciation of the
fragile interdependency of all life forms, and to emphasise the importance of literature to inspire
awareness and life style changes beyond the class room walls.
Coetzee. John.M. The Lives of Animals, Princeton University Press, 1999
Mda, Zakes. The Heart of Redness, Oxford University Press, 2007
Winterbach, Ingrid. To Hell with Cronje, Human and Rousseau, 2002
ELECTIVE 3 (Choose Elective 3 OR Elective 4 due to scheduling clash)
INTRUDER ALERT: BABOONS, BOUNDARIES AND THE SPACE OF NATURE IN SOUTH AFRICAN
WRITING
Eckard Smuts
Baboons occupy a complex and deeply ambivalent position in the cultural history of Southern Africa.
From early San mythologies and up to the present-day novel, the figure of the baboon has
consistently insinuated itself into a kind of borderland between the socio-cultural and the natural
sphere, compromising the possibility of an easy dissociation between those two fields. In this course,
we will read a number of literary texts in which baboons feature prominently, exploring the various
ways in which they confound and interrupt conventional cultural narratives about the place of nature
in our society. Our focus will be on three primary texts, which students will be expected to read
carefully in preparation for class discussion; in addition, we will be looking at a number of shorter
pieces, both literary and theoretical, that deal with the topic of animals and the natural environment
more generally. These additional pieces will be made available over the course of the semester.
Marais, E. The Soul of the Ape, Penguin, 1973
Gordimer, N. Something Out There, Jonathan Cape, 1984
Heyns, M. The Reluctant Passenger, Jonathan Ball, 2002 ELECTIVE 4 (Choose Elective 3 OR Elective 4 due to scheduling clash)
BORDERS AND BOUNDARIES: ASIAN NARRATIVES OF PARTITION AND SEGREGATION
Vedita Cowaloosur
―Like all walls it was ambiguous, two-faced. What was inside it and what was outside it depended
upon which side you were on.
Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed
This course brings together contemporary fiction and non-fiction (short stories, novels, films and
memoir) about the separation of India/Pakistan/Bangladesh, North Korea/South Korea, and the as yet
ongoing conflicts over the Israel/Palestine territories. Taking a comparative approach, we will
investigate the logic and motivation behind these divisions, and explore to what extent the writers we
will study here probe the arbitrariness of the borders and boundaries erected to divide one nation
from another. We will be particularly attentive to any passionate justification and/or outright
condemnation of these borders and boundaries, and follow their influences or repercussions in
subsequent literary/artistic debates and productions. We will also assess how these nation-specific
narratives of partition and segregation fit into the larger category of ―world literatureǁ in a world
that continues to be torn asunder through wars, conflicts and confrontations.
Barghouti, M. I Saw Ramallah, Random House, 2003
Shelach, O. Picnic Grounds: A Novel in Fragments, City Lights, 2003
A reader of additional short stories will be made available
ELECTIVE 5 (Choose Elective 5 OR Elective 6 due to scheduling clash)
LITERARY RESPONSES: IMPLICATING THE SELF
Nwabisa Bangeni.
This elective draws on reader response and critical reading theories, and explores some of the
following concerns:
the extent to which knowledge is objective or subjective; the question of whether the world as we
experience it is culturally constructed; how the gap, historically, culturally and semiotically between
the reader and the writer is bridged, and the extent to which it is bridged the question of the extent to
which interpretation is a public act, conditioned by the particular material and cultural circumstances
of the reader, vs. the extent to which reading is a private act governed by a response to the relatively
independent codes of the text.
Using stylistic, linguistic and narratological methods, we will explore the manner in which texts
govern reader responses and, focusing on the affective responses to texts, we will explore how the
reader makes meaning of the text.
Heyns, Michiel. Bodies Politic, Jonathan Ball, 2008
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. The Thing Around Your Neck, Harper Collins, 2009
ELECTIVE 6: (Choose Elective 5 OR Elective 6 due to scheduling clash)
AFRICAN-AMERICAN EXPERIENCE IN FICTION
Grace A. Musila
This course examines African American experiences as portrayed in the fiction of three major writers
in the African American canon: Gloria Naylor, Toni Morrison, and James Baldwin. Among the
thematic concerns explored are questions of race, violence, family, trauma, healing, religion and
sexuality. The primary readings include both autobiographical and fictional texts, by male and
female African American writers. The seminar will explore issues such as what snippets of
experiences do the various writers explore? What insights do these give into broader historical and
socio-political landscapes? What overlaps and tensions are there in the various writers‘ perspectives
on these issues? What stylistic choices do the writers make? How do these impact on the texts‘
treatment of such volatile issues such as violence, race, trauma and sexuality?
Baldwin, J. Go Tell it on the Mountain, Penguin, 1991
Morrison, T. Song of Solomon, Vintage, 1977
Naylor, G. The Women of Brewster Place, Minerva, 1990 ELECTIVE 7 (Choose Elective 7 OR 8 OR 9 due to scheduling clash)
COMPLICATING THE „I‟: AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND SELF-CONSTRUCTION
Megan Jones
In this elective we will explore writing the ‗Self‘ and its relation to theories of modernism, feminism
and poststructuralism. We will work through some of the central tensions inhering in the genre of
autobiography; its positioning in the liberal humanist canon, its status as ‗fiction‘ and its
contemporary diversification. Drawing on the ideas of thinkers such as Jean Jacques Rousseau,
Virginia Woolf and Jacques Derrida, we will ask how texts speak to their particular socio-historical
moments in their attempts to construct or deconstruct the ‗Self‘. How does autobiography interrogate
vectors of gender, sexuality, race, class and nation? How might these literatures prompt us, as readers
and scholars, to rethink the parameters of our own subjectivities?
Joyce, J. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Penguin, 2000
Angelou, M. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Ballantine, 2009
Coetzee, J.M. Summertime, Penguin, 2010
ELECTIVE 8 (Choose Elective 7 OR 8 OR 9 due to scheduling clash)
QUEER STUDIES: AN INTRODUCTION *IPSU Elective*
Shaun Viljoen
Queer studies has become a field that invites continual review of how we read and the assumptions
we bring to bear when making meaning of texts. We will explore the term ―Queerǁ and
contestations around naming, desire and identity.
We begin by reading stories by four South Africans and one American – Richard Rive, Shaun de
Waal, Mathilda Slabbert, Natasha Distiller and Annie Proulx – to attempt ―queer readingsǁ, and to
define what ―queer readingǁ is. We the look at the ideas of Michel Foucault in his History of
Sexuality Vol. 1 and the final chapter from Judith Butler‘s Bodies that Matter to help us think
through discourses on sex, sexuality, gender and textualised desire. We also view and discuss
representation of sexuality in three films – Vito Russo‘s Celluloid Closet, which documents
Hollywood depictions of homosexuality since the start of film, as well as Ang Lee‘s Brokeback
Mountain and Greyson and Lewis‘s Proteus.
Readings provided:
Behr, Mark. ―Omission, Silence and Emphasis: Teaching Beloved and Brokeback Mountain in
Early 21st Century USAǁ. Unpublished Conference Paper, 2007
Boucher, Leigh and Sarah Pinto. ―‗I ain‘t Queer‘: Love, Masculinity and History in Brokeback
Mountainǁ. The Journal of Men’s Studies 15.3 (2007): 311-330
De Waal, Shaun. ―These Things Happenǁ. These Things Happen. Johannesburg: Ad Donker, 1996
Distiller Natasha. ―Asking For Itǁ. Urban 3. Ed. Dave Chislett. Spearhead, 2003
Rive, Richard. ―The Visitsǁ. Selected Writings. Ad Donker, 1977
Slabbert, Mathilda. ―To Calm the Vapours of Restǁ. Unpublished, 2006
Please buy the following:
Foucault, Michel. The Will to Knowledge: The History of Sexuality Vol 1, Penguin, 1998
ELECTIVE 9 (Choose Elective 7 OR 8 OR 9 due to scheduling clash)
PHOTOGRAPHY, THEORY, POLITICS
Kylie Thomas
In this course we will read some key texts on photography. We will consider how various thinkers
have understood the relation between the aesthetic and the political. We will also read two novels
and engage with the work of several photographers.
Barthes, R. Camera Lucida, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1981
Sebald, W. G. Austerlitz, Random House, 2001
Vladislavić, I. Double Negative, Umuzi, 2011 12 ELECTIVE 10 (Choose Elective 10 OR 11 OR 12 due to scheduling clash)
VISIONS OF REAL: FOUR AMERICAN MODERNIST POETS
Dawid de Villiers
In the period between the two world wars—a period marked by a significant shift in the way the
Western world viewed itself and its destiny, as well as its relation to tradition—a number of
remarkable and influential poets emerged in America. This course aims to provide an introduction to
the work of four highly original poets, namely Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore and
Williams Carlos Williams, and to consider how they viewed their relation to the American canon as
well as the Western literary tradition. More specifically, our discussion and analysis of their poems
will take account of the ways in which they rethink, explore and express the relationship between
individual creative imagination and (historical) reality in an attempt to work out some sense of the
human‘s place in a universe that in the eyes of many had begun to seem devoid of all reason and
purpose.
The reading material for this course will be made available in the form of poetry hand-outs.
ELECTIVE 11 (Choose Elective 10 OR 11 OR 12 due to scheduling clash)
ON THE SUBJECT OF CHAUCER
Daniel Roux
Ideas about what it means, exactly, to be a ―selfǁ are transmitted from person to person, so they
literally move across geographic space and through time, flowing and changing like water.
Somewhere in the 13th century, a great many of these rivers, flowing from all corners of the globe,
started to converge around the Mediterranean basin and Europe, forming a great new turbulent
reservoir. We look at this phenomenon now and call it "the emergence of the humanist subject", a
convenient and somewhat inadequate name to label this confluence of tributaries that swelled in size
until it had engrossed most of Europe by the 16th century, and from there almost the whole world.
We will use Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales to see how this constellation of ideas around
human autonomy and agency emerged in England and modulated the way people understood and
experienced what it means to be a "self". This course is therefore not so much an "introduction to
Chaucer" as it is a kind of boat trip through time to a vantage point where we can appreciate the
aetiology and scope of a very powerful cultural concept - the humanist subject - that has radically
transformed the globe.
Chaucer, G. The Canterbury Tales, Norton Critical Edition, 2005
ELECTIVE 12(Choose Elective 10 OR 11 OR 12 due to scheduling clash)
THE SHORT STORY
Sally-Ann Murray
The‘ short story is a strange genre, a creature that cannot be contained by the definite article. Readers
of short fiction have often been schooled to expect intense depth of character, detailed atmospherics,
and dramatic plotting which turns on sudden, universalising insight. Yet many writers of short
stories, even those considered realist rather than meta-fictional or stylistically eccentric, have adapted
conventions for varied effect and intent. The form is currently experiencing something of a
resurgence among both writers and readers. (In 2013, for instance, Lydia Davis won the Man Booker
International, and Alice Munro the Nobel.) In this elective, referencing a range of stories and
scholarship from the classic to the contemporary, we will explore short story poetics as challenging
and mutable, considering the ability of the form to accommodate diverse imaginative inclinations and
ideas.
Links to stories and critical readings will be provided, along with some PDFs and handouts.
ELECTIVE 13 (Choose Elective 13 OR 14 due to scheduling clash)
RHIZOME AND RADICANT: READING FLUX
Wamuwi Mbao
Taking as its starting point the notion that writing is ―a question of freeing life wherever it is
imprisoned, or of tempting it into an uncertain combatǁ (Deleuze and Guattari 171), this elective
engages with ways of seeing and reading the world that challenge the solidity of objects and their
fixing in the global cultural economies that proliferate our lives. How can we usefully extend our
understanding of a culture in perpetual motion?
Gevisser, M. Lost and Found in Johannesburg, Jonathan Ball, 2014
Cole, T. Open City, Faber and Faber, 2012
Film: Mad Men Season 1, 2007
ELECTIVE 14 (Choose Elective 13 OR 14 due to scheduling clash)
THEATRE OF THE ABSURD: AN EXISTENTIAL BRIDGE BETWEEN MODERNISM AND
POSTMODERNISM
Riaan Oppelt
This course looks at various plays written and performed in the 1950s and formed what theater critic
Martin Esslin called The Theatre of the Absurd. Writers like Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, Harold
Pinter, Eugene Ionesco and Edward Albee emerged in this period with challenging and eccentric
works like Waiting for Godot, The Bald Soprano, The Maids, The Birthday Party and The Zoo Story.
These plays broke away from conventional dramatic narrative and presented audiences with out-ofthe-ordinary situations, presentations and an exigent sense of style and deliverance. After the 1950s,
many of the ―Absurdistsǁ gained continued acclaim with other works that, although reflective of
certain changes in style and mood, were still generally regarded as stemming from the earlier pieces
of the 1950s. Students will read plays primarily from the 1940s and 1950s, as well as Martin Esslin‘s
renowned survey, The Theatre of the Absurd, and engage in critical discussions that focus on the
similarities between these writers and their works as well as wider speculation on the merits of these
works as either modernist or postmodernist texts.
Selected critical essays will be made available.
Albee, Edward. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Pocket Books 1964
Beckett, S. Waiting for Godot, MacMillan, 1987
Esslin, M. The Theatre of the Absurd, Penguin 1980
Pinter, H. Pinter Plays: One, Methuen, 1978
Recommended reading:
Albee, E. The Zoo Story and The Sandbox, Dramatists Play Service Inc
Genet, J. The Maids, Grove Press, 1962
Ionesco, E. The Bald Soprano& Other Plays, New York: Grove Press, 1958