News

4110I Proseminar Literary Studies

PS 2st, Mo 12-14,
Matzke
 
Modern Ghanaian theatre culture is intricately linked to the nation’s socio-political history and ideas of Pan-Africanism. In this seminar, we will look at selected playwrights and performance forms to discover some of these historical and literary connections. 

Dramatists and directors considered include Kobina Sekyi, the ‘mother’ of the National Theatre Movement, Efua Sutherland; Mohammed Ben-Abdallah and Efo Kodjo Mawugbe. We will pay particular attention to the spider and trickster figure, Ananse, in Ghanaian theatre and its various transformations in, for example, concert party, Sutherland’s Anasegro (‘Ananse plays’) or Abdallah’s Abibigro, a form of (Pan-)African total theatre.
 
Recommended preparatory reading:

• Jesse Weaver Shipley, Trickster Theatre: The Poetics of Freedom in Urban Africa (2015)
• David Afriyie Donkor, Spiders of the Market: Ghanaian Trickster Performance in a Web of Neoliberalism (2016)

 
A reader with additional material will be made available at the beginning of the semester.
 
There will be an optional one-hour “Übung” accompanying this seminar, where we have time and space to explore one or more theatre texts practically. Please check the notice board in GW I for dates and details.

4110N Übung / Workshop Literary Studies

In this “Übung” we will practically explore a play by the prominent Ghanaian playwright Efua Sutherland, The Marriage of Anansewa (1975). This class is part of PS "Trickster Theatre: An Introduction to Ghanaian Drama", but can also be taken separately. The workshop will take place either Dec 1./2. or Dec 8./9. (Friday evening/Saturday). Please check the notice board in GW I for dates and details.

Additional registration on e-learning required until 1 Nov 2017!

​4110J Proseminar Literary Studies

PS 2st, Mo 14-16,
Matzke

With the imminent publication of A Survey of South African Crime Fiction (University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2017) by Sam Naidu and Elizabeth le Roux, crime fiction aficionados are finally being presented with a study aid that provides guidance through the plethora of crime narratives emerging out of South Africa ever since the end of apartheid. In this seminar we will be looking at the genre’s publishing history, genre categories and the role of crime fiction in society; and we will critically analyse a selection of krimi texts, focusing among others on gender, ecocriticism, and the link between past and present.

We will have the good fortune of hosting Sam Naidu at UBT for a public lecture in early 2018!

The following texts will be considered:

• Angela Makholva, Red Ink (2007)
• Deon Meyer, Blood Safari (2009)
• Mala Nunn, A Beautiful Place to Die (2009)
• Michiel Heyns, Lost Ground (2011)
• Sam Naidu and Elizabeth le Roux, A Survey of South African Crime Fiction (2017)

UKZN Press will provide us with discounted textbook copies of the Survey, so please sign up as soon as possible.

Additional registration on e-learning required until 15 September 2017.