Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

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Browsing Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences by Author "Addison, C.A."

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    The reading of poetry : appreciation and evaluation
    (2001) Meihuizen, Dorothea; Meihuizen, N.C.T.; Addison, C.A.
    The impulse that prompted me to the writing of this thesis is a profound uneasiness about the way in which the Humanities are being undervalued in the eyes of the world today, and nowhere more so, it increasingly seems, than at educational institutions, especially South African universities. As mechanisation and commodification become more and more the order of the day, and as technology replaces human interchange, the passions and sympathies of man, so powerfully expressed in English literature, steadily become of secondary importance. My focus here, then, is on the vital importance of English literature in the affairs of human beings and their daily interactions with the world around them. My attention will be directed mainly towards poetry, for I believe that even amongst those who do read good books, a large proportion eschew poetry and, in a sense, fear it. My experience in teaching at secondary and tertiary levels of education has shown me that this is because students have not been given, or adequately instructed in the use of, the tools with which to understand or to appreciate poetry in more than a very superficial way, and that this lack leads to their not devoting much time or attention to it. Also, because they fail to understand more than simply the contents of a poem (and sometimes not even this), and because they are aware that there is a deeper significance to a good poem than what they perceive, students and other readers feel inadequate, and shy away from poetry altogether. Of course, I do not include amongst these readers those who daily concern themselves with Iitera-ture and who have made it one of the mainsprings of their lives. I am aware, too, that every generalisation has its exceptions and that there are people who at an instinctive, as well as a cognitive level, fully comprehend what the poet is saying.
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    The relevance of Antonio Gramsci’s concepts of hegemony and intellectuals to apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa
    (University of Zululand, 2013) Pillay, Pravina; Addison, C.A.
    This dissertation focuses on the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci and the relevance of his concepts of hegemony and intellectuals to South Africa. Gramsci’s writings have a strong Italian resonance. The dissertation emphasises parallels as well as differences between the Italian and South African contexts to demonstrate that his theories on topics such as the creation of a proletarian state, the Revolutionary Party, passive revolution and language, in addition to the key concepts of intellectuals and hegemony, can be successfully applied to apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa – even though these theories were originally designed to fit the turbulent Italy of Gramsci’s own time. The argument proceeds through a rigorous textual analysis of both Gramsci’s pre-prison and prison writings as well as the works of various commentators on Gramsci. Through interpreting, assessing and analysing Gramsci’s writings and those of commentators, it becomes evident that underpinning all of Gramsci’s activities and writings is a vision for an improved society in Italy, a proletarian state in which the masses were no longer exploited by other social classes. The dissertation uses this vision to reflect on past and present South African political and social landscapes, exploring in the process how Gramsci’s thoughts can be used both to illuminate the problems inherent in apartheid South Africa and to redress the growing inequities in post-apartheid South Africa. The dissertation also applies Gramsci’s thought to South African literary texts, especially to Zakes Mda’s Heart of Redness. Though Gramsci has been used to interpret South African situations before, there has been to date no detailed study on his theories’ applicability to both the apartheid and the post-apartheid eras. The dissertation therefore contributes to the growing reputation of Gramsci’s works as textbooks for promoting and achieving a better society, free from all forms of exploitation.
University of Zululand