Postgraduate Conference 3 & 4 October 2024

Conference Convenor: Dr Jeanne Ellis, Honours Coordinator jellis@sun.ac.za

Conference Committee 2024: Elle Fieggen (Hons), Lameez Hendricks (Hons), Lobke Minter (PhD), Annie Scholes (Hons), Julia Snyckers (MA), Danie Stander (Postdoc), Josephine Troost (MA), Linda van der Walt (Hons)

postgradconference2024@gmail.com 

DAY 1 THURSDAY 3 OCTOBER

09:00-09:10Arrival and RegistrationConference Committee
09:10-09:20WelcomeDr Dawid de Villiers
09:20-o9:30Conference HousekeepingConference Committee
SESSION 1CHAIR: Julia Snyckers
09:30 (20 min)Siwongiwe Makupula (PhD)                        
Struggle Credentials and Aspirational Figurations in Zuma’s Musical  Presences 
09:55 (15 min)Linda van der Walt (Hons)    
Unconventional Crime Fiction: Analysing the More-Than-Human in Lauren Beukes’ Zoo City  
10:15 (20 min)Andile Cele (MA)         
African Spirituality and Healing in Mohale Mashigo’s The Yearning           
10:40 (15 min)Zikisani Mgijima (Hons)       
Literature as a Mirror of Reality: The Marginalization of Women in Literature  as a Reflection of the Evolution of Gender Oppression 
11:00-11:10SESSION 1 PLENARY FOR FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS/DISCUSSION   TEA BREAK 11:10-11:30
SESSION 2CHAIR: Elle Fieggen
11:30 (20 min)Lobke Minter (PhD)
Thinking with Scars: Moving Beyond Trauma                                               
11:55 (15 min)Erica Beesley  (Hons)  
The Solitude of Immortality: An Investigation of Loneliness in Anne Rice’s  Interview with the Vampire
12:15 (15 min)Pascalé Potgieter (Hons)
Nightbitch, the Trans/Performative Power of (Maternal) Rage and Pleasure
12:35-12:45SESSION 2 PLENARY FOR FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS/DISCUSSION

LUNCH BREAK 13:00-13:45

SESSION 3CHAIR: Linda van der Walt
14:00 (20min)Lara Alhadeff  (PhD)  
Cueing Assimilation: Chronic Illness and the Need to Conform in Women’s Unconventional Narratives
14:25 (15min)Annie Scholes (Hons)            
Whodunit: How Dissociative Identity Disorder is Portrayed in Gregory Hoblit’s Primal Fear and Akiva Goldsman’s The Crowded Room
14:45 (15min)Hana Gammon (Hons)         
Boxed In: An Examination of “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” Through a Lens of Otherness
15:05-15:15SESSION 3 PLENARY FOR FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS/DISCUSSION TEA BREAK 15:15-15:35
SESSION 4CHAIR: Annie Scholes
15:35 (20min)Izelle Viljoen (MA)          
Survival of the Family: Analysing the Oikos in Bong Joon Ho’s The Host  (2006), Snowpiercer (2013), and Parasite (2019)
16:00 (15min)Elle Fieggen (Hons)              
“The Fallen Leaves Tell a Story”: An Ecocritical Perspective on the  Catastrophic Narratives and Virtual Environments of the Video Game Elden Ring
16:20 (15min)Kayla Marnitz (Hons)                 
An Ecology of Intimacies: Thinking Interspecies Relationships Through Water
16:40-16:50SESSION 4 PLENARY FOR FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS/DISCUSSION
 

DAY 2 FRIDAY 4 OCTOBER

SESSION 1CHAIR: Danie Stander
09:00 (20min)Bramwel Odari Lusala (PhD)            
Gendered Diasporic Mobility in Neema Shah’s Kololo Hill                        
09:25 (15min)Michael Pieterse  (Hons)        
An Alienation of One’s Humanity, Ladies and Gentlemen: An Exploration into Life Writing Emerging From 19th and 20th Century Atrocities
09:45 (15min)Lameez Hendricks (Hons)     
“Its Suffering Was the Sole Property of Those Who Had Experienced It”: Victims and Victimhood in Joe Sacco’s Safe Area Goražde: The War in Eastern Bosnia 1992-1995
10:05-10:15SESSION 1 PLENARY FOR FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS/DISCUSSION   TEA BREAK 10:15-10:35
SESSION 2CHAIR: Josephine Troost
10:40 (20min)Stephanie Kambourakis (PhD)                  
Canines, Courtship, and the Nineteenth-Century Novel                                            
11:05 (15min)Lané De Lange (Hons)             
Civility, Relationships and Social Conduct in Jane Austen’s Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice, and Sense and Sensibility
11:25-11:35SESSION 2 PLENARY FOR FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS/DISCUSSION
SESSION 3CHAIR: Lameez Hendricks
11:35 (20min)Julia Snyckers (MA)    
“Into This Dim, Silent, Shadowy Room”: Salvaging the Voice of Ida Bauer in  Sheila Kohler’s Dreaming for Freud (2014)
12:00 (15min)Sumari Harmse  (Hons)           
Neo-Victorian Biofiction and the Author Mother: Examining the State of the Children in A. S. Byatt’s The Children’s Book  
12:20 (20min)Josephine Troost   (MA)         
Charles Dickens as an Abusive and Controlling Husband in Gaynor Arnold’s Girl in a Blue Dress (2008)
12:45-12:55SESSION 3 PLENARY FOR FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS/DISCUSSION  
12:55-13:05CONFERENCE CLOSING PLENARY      
Conference Convenor Dr Jeanne Ellis