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Reading for the road : routes through African literatures
Thesis (PhD (Development Studies))--University of Pretoria, 2024.
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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University of Pretoria
2025
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| _version_ | 1867613486208516096 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author2 | Murray, Noeleen |
| author_browse | Murray, Noeleen |
| author_facet | Murray, Noeleen |
| collection | Thesis |
| dc_rights_str_mv | © 2023 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. |
| description | Thesis (PhD (Development Studies))--University of Pretoria, 2024. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:repository.up.ac.za:2263/100462 |
| institution | University of Pretoria (South Africa) |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:36:54.588Z |
| license_str | Other — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UPSpace — University of Pretoria Institutional Repository |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| publishDateRange | 2025 |
| publishDateSort | 2025 |
| publisher | University of Pretoria |
| publisherStr | University of Pretoria |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UPSpace — University of Pretoria Institutional Repository |
| spelling | oai:repository.up.ac.za:2263/100462 Reading for the road : routes through African literatures Murray, Noeleen u21777871@tuks.co.za Cane, Jonathan Boyd, Michael John UCTD Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Road Infrastructure Literature Form Space Poetics of space Intersection Construction Landscape Affordance Infrastructuralism Thesis (PhD (Development Studies))--University of Pretoria, 2024. The central concern of this thesis is formal representations of the road in African literature. The thesis is cast within the field of infrastructuralism, a branch of literary study proposed by Michael Rubenstein, Bruce Robbins and Sophia Beal (2018), applying the new formalist theories of Caroline Levine (2015) while conducting an approach related to Isabel Hofmeyr, Sarah Nuttall and Charne Lavery’s theory of ‘Reading for Water’ (2022). These frame the road as both a material and conceptual construct. An exploration of the African road precedes a detailed unpacking of the materiality of the infrastructure. Subsequently, the road is traced through three African novels in investigations I have termed ‘intersections’, referring to the meeting point of roads as a departure for analysis. I focus on Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s Petals of Blood (1977), tracing the road through the newly independent Kenya. The promises of independence are aligned with the affordances of the material road as a measure of its fulfilment. In Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country (1948) I examine different experiences and directionality of the road, analysing this against the political conditions that led to the oppressive apartheid regime. The construction of the road is investigated in Ben Okri’s The Famished Road (1991). I study the road as a magical, shifting form, setting its construction alongside Nigeria’s independence. In these intersections, different theoretical approaches are used to analyse the material infrastructure as a method of surfacing discourse surrounding the social and political conditions presented in the literary space. UP Postgraduate Doctoral Bursary Anthropology, Archaeology and Development Studies PhD (Development Studies) Unrestricted Faculty of Humanities SDG-09: Industry, innovation and infrastructure 2025-02-03T20:08:46Z 2025-02-03T20:08:46Z 2025-05 2024-08 Thesis * A2025 http://hdl.handle.net/2263/100462 en © 2023 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. application/pdf University of Pretoria |
| spellingShingle | UCTD Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Road Infrastructure Literature Form Space Poetics of space Intersection Construction Landscape Affordance Infrastructuralism Reading for the road : routes through African literatures |
| title | Reading for the road : routes through African literatures |
| title_full | Reading for the road : routes through African literatures |
| title_fullStr | Reading for the road : routes through African literatures |
| title_full_unstemmed | Reading for the road : routes through African literatures |
| title_short | Reading for the road : routes through African literatures |
| title_sort | reading for the road routes through african literatures |
| topic | UCTD Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Road Infrastructure Literature Form Space Poetics of space Intersection Construction Landscape Affordance Infrastructuralism |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/2263/100462 |