358 research outputs found
Naidu, Sam (Prof)
No full textInstitutional Research output Sam Naidu Department of Literary Studies in English (2003-present) Sam Naidu ORCID 0000-0001-9456-8657Top 30 Researchers 2018, 2019 Vice-Chancellor’s Book Award 2019. Professor Sam Naidu: A Survey of South African Crime Fiction: Critical Analysis and Publishing History”, co-authored with Professor Elizabeth le Roux </a
Transnational Crime in Deon Meyer’s Devil’s Peak and Santiago Gamboa’s Night Prayers:
No full textNaidu argues that transnational crime wreaks havoc on global, national and personal levels in the postcolonial crime novels Devil’s Peak (2007) by South African author Deon Meyer and Night Prayers (2016) by Colombian author Santiago Gamboa. As postcolonial crime novels, they critique sociopolitical instability and corruption harking back to colonial times. Using mobility studies, Naidu interrogates the novels’ rendering of complex relations between the local and the global, and the past and the present. Despite stylistic and generic differences, both novels engage with the pervasive, transnational nature of criminal syndicates and current crimes which are a result of turbulent and unjust histories. Naidu examines the mobility of hapless victims, postcolonial anti-detectives and subversive heroines and comments on the ironic hope afforded by such figures
In search of the comprador: self-exoticisation in selected texts from the South Asian and Middle Eastern diasporas
No full textName on title page of thesis: Mohammad Shabangu -- Name in graduation programme: Shabangu, Bandile MuhammadThis thesis is concerned with transnational literature and writers of the Middle Eastern and South Asian diasporas. It argues that the diasporic position of the authors enables their roles as comprador subjects. The thesis maintains that the figure of the comprador is always acted upon by its ontological predisposition, so that diasporic positionality often involves a single subject which straddles and speaks from two or more different subject positions. Comprador authors can be said to be co-opted by Western metropolitan publishing companies who stand to benefit by marketing the apparent marginality of the homelands about which these authors write. The thesis therefore proceeds from the notion that such a diasporic position is the paradoxical condition of the transnational subject or writer. I submit that there is, to some degree, a questionable element in the common political and cultural suggestions that emerge upon closer evaluation of diasporic literature. Indeed, a charge of complicity has been levelled against authors who write, apparently, to service two distinct entities – the wish to speak on behalf of a minority collective, as well as the imperial ‘centre’ which is the intended interlocutor of the comprador author. However, it is this difference, the implied otherness or marginality of the outsider within, which I argue is sometimes used by diasporic writers as a way of articulating with ‘authenticity’ the cultures and politics of their erstwhile localities. This thesis is concerned, therefore, with the representation of ‘the East’ in four novels by diasporic, specifically comprador writers, namely Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia, and Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns. I suggest that the ‘third-world’ and transnational literature can also be a selling point for the transnational subject, whose representations may at times pander to preconceived ideas about ‘the Orient’ and its people. As an illustration of this double-bind, I offer a close reading of all the novels to suggest that on the one hand, the comprador author writes within the paradigm of the ‘writing back’ movement, as a counter-discourse to the Orientalist representations of the homeland. However, the corollary is that such an attempt to ‘write back’, in a sense, re-inscribes the very discourse it wishes to subvert, especially because the literature is aimed at a ‘Western’ audience. Moreover, the template of the comprador could be used to explain how a transnational post-9/11 text from an Afghan-American, for instance, may be put to the service of the imperial machine, and read, therefore, as a supporting document to the U.S. policy on Afghanistan
The use of hydroxyapatite as a new inorganic consolidant for damaged carbonate stones
No full textThe feasibility and the effectiveness of using hydroxyapatite (HAP) formed by reacting limestone with a solution of diammonium hydrogen phosphate (DAP) in mild conditions, as a consolidant for carbonate stones were investigated. Firstly, a novel method for predamaging limestone was developed. Then, the effects of DAP solution concentration and reaction duration were evaluated to define the best treatment conditions, and the strengthening effect was evaluated on artificially damaged Indiana Limestone sam- ples. Treated samples exhibit a significant increase in the dynamic elastic modulus and tensile strength, which is attributed to microcrack reduction and pore filling consequent to formation of calcium phosphate phases at grain boundaries, as assessed by SEM/EDS and ESEM/EBSD. Consequent to a slight reduction of coarser pores, as revealed by MIP, the sorptivity of treated samples is only slightly reduced, so that water and water vapor exchanges with the environment are not significantly blocked
Comment on 'Second-Order Statistical Structure of Geomagnetic Field Reversals' by P. S. Naidu
No full textIn a recent paper, Naidu [1975] has proposed that the reversal intervals of the geomagnetic field for the period 0-76 m.y. are not independent. In fact, the author has fitted a first order autoregressive moving average model to the data published by Heirtzler et al. [1968]. This conclusion, if true, is of importance because it suggests that the mechanism governing the reversals of the geomagnetic dynamo possesses a memory
"I, Too, Mourn The Loss": Mrs Hudson and the Absence of Sherlock Holmes
No full textThis book of interdisciplinary essays serves to situate the original Sherlock Holmes, and his various adaptations, In a contemporary cultural Context. This collection is prompted by three main and related questions: firstly, why is Sherlock Holmes such an enduring and ubiquitous cultural icon; secondly, why is it that Sherlock Holmes, nearly 130 years after his birth, is enjoying such a spectacular renaissance; and, thirdly, what sort of communities, imagined or otherwise, have arisen around this figure since the most recent resurrections of Sherlock Holmes by popular media? Covering various media and genres (TV, film, literature, theatre) and scholarly approaches, this comprehensive collection offers cogent answers to these questions
Evaluating Distance Education
No full textThis article discusses approaches for evaluating distance education activities. It comprises a framework for evaluation that is based on widely adopted approaches to educational evaluation and which can be used for evaluating other educational activities as well. The critical components of this framework are threefold: various phases in the evaluation process, the main focus of each phase, and most appropriate strategies for gathering data in each phase. The use of a framework such as this will ensure that the evaluation process is systematic and also thorough. The discussion here extends earlier discussions of the topic by this author in two other publications. These are in a chapter titled “Designing and evaluating instruction for e-learning”, that is published in a book edited by Patricia Rogers “Designing Instruction for Technology-Enhanced Learning” (see Rogers, 2002), and in a chapter titled “Evaluating the impacts of e-learning” in the book “E-learning: A Guidebook of Principles, Procedures and Practices” (see Naidu, 2006).</jats:p
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