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FACULTY OF HUMANITIES
Department of English
Language and Literature
Research Report 2011
(
Including Linguistics and the Centre for Creative Writing
)
Head of Department: Associate Professor
Carrol Clarkson
Departmental Profile
Members of the department are engaged in research over
a wide area, ranging from the literature of the European
Renaissance to that of contemporary South Africa.
Genres covered include drama, poetry and prose, travel
writing, and autobiography. Some of the finest writers in
the country teach creative writing at undergraduate and
graduate level.
Departmental Statistics
Permanent and long-term contract staff
Professors Emeriti
4
Honorary Professor
1
Professors
4
Associate Professors
7
Senior Lecturers
1
Lecturers
6
Administrative and Clerical Staff
3
Total
26
Students
Doctoral
23
Master’s
98
Honours
127
Undergraduate
2594
Total
2842
Research Fields and Staff
Dr Peter Anderson
Poetry, romanticism to modernism, history and literature,
19th-century Cape literature, culture and society, especially
the eastern frontier.
Dr Mary Bock (Honorary Research Associate)
Analysis of verbal and non-verbal aspects of discourse,
critical discourse analysis, narrative analysis with particular
reference to the language and structure of testimonies
from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Mr Mbongiseni Buthelezi
Teaching and research interests: Oral poetry, oral
storytelling, imperialism and colonialism, historical fiction,
Africa and the diaspora.
Mr Sean Bowerman
Syntactic theory; morphology; formal semantics; History of
Linguistics; Sociolinguistics.
Dr Reuben Chirambo
African literature – poetry and novel, postcolonial literature
and theory, popular culture and society, oral literature,
gender in African literature and popular culture, cultural
and literary theory.
Associate Professor Carrol Clarkson
Post-apartheid South African fiction, literary theory,
especially deconstruction and language philosophy
as it relates to jurisprudence and contemporary South
African fine art.
Associate Professor Imraan Coovadia
Eighteenth- and nineteenth century English and American
literature, and contemporary fiction.
Associate Professor Ana Deumert (Head of
Section: Linguistics)
Sociolinguistics, language contact in Southern Africa;
language policy; language and migration; electronic
communication (SMS, Facebook, Mxit).
Emeritus Professor Dorothy Driver
(Honorary Research Associate)
Topics/authors in South African literature and colonial
literature; the construction/deconstruction of the ‘feminine’
subject in language and literature.
Associate Professor Rodney S. Edgecombe
Shakespeare; Herbert; Marvell; Pope; the age of sensibility;
Keats; Dickens; selected contemporary novelists and
poets.
Professor Gail Fincham
Modernism, particularly Joseph Conrad; postmodern
fiction; narrative theory; postcolonial fiction and theory.
Emeritus Professor Geoffrey Haresnape
(Honorary Research Associate)
Shakespearean poetry and drama; topics/authors in
South African literature in English; topics/authors in early
20th-century English poetry; certain other topics/authors
by consultation.
Professor John Higgins
Literature and society in the 18th century; literature and
society in the 20th century; theories of representation;
psychoanalysis and cinema; Raymond Williams.