NIHSS-SAHUDA

Development has emerged as a key word indicating the level of participation in and integration into the global economy of previously under-developed or marginalized countries, especially from the so-called Third World. Even though decolonial theory contests the validity of what is seen as a particular arrogant Western assessment of the norms at work in such classification of nation-states, it is widely accepted that there is a direct equation between growth and equality: The lower the level of inequality in any country, the faster and the more sustainable the growth in the economy is expected to be. South Africa’sdilemma is that it portrays the extreme negative aspect of this fundamental socio-economic formula.

This dissertation, which examines the aesthetic and discursive issues arising from representations of the figure of the traumatised child in selected contemporary West and Southern African fiction, is located between the fields of postcolonial, trauma, memory and literary studies. It engages with current scholarship on the need to decolonise trauma theory by focusing on literary depictions of traumatised black African children, and is held together by several threads on inquiry.

In 1832 the violinist, composer and pedagogue, Louis Spohr, published a treatise on violin technique entitled Violinschule von Louis Spohr. Of Spohr’s many publications, his treatise on violin technique has remained his most notable published work. This thesis determines the fingering principles implicit in Louis Spohr’s treatise that would manifest themselves in a violinist if his Violinschule were applied as a tutor.