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Full-Text Articles in English Language and Literature

“Bury Your Head Between My Knees And Seek Pardon”: Gender, Sexuality, And National Conflict In John Okada’S No-No Boy, Patricia A. Thomas Aug 2012

“Bury Your Head Between My Knees And Seek Pardon”: Gender, Sexuality, And National Conflict In John Okada’S No-No Boy, Patricia A. Thomas

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In “‘Bury Your Head Between My Knees and Seek Pardon’: Gender, Sexuality, and National Conflict in John Okada’s 1957 novel, No-No Boy,” I analyze the ways in which the complexities of gendered sexuality expressed by protagonist Ichiro Yamada intersect with post-World War II and Internment-era national identifications for American nisei. I demonstrate that this apparent story of one man’s pursuit to resolve his conflict over national identity is, in reality, a tour de force of literary subversion that not only destabilizes the subterfuge that surrounded internment but also—in its deliberate failure to resolve questions of national conflict on the …


The Sacred Role Of Animal Beings In Iroquois Lore, Melissa J. Martinelli May 2012

The Sacred Role Of Animal Beings In Iroquois Lore, Melissa J. Martinelli

English Theses

The act of storytelling provides a connection between the spiritual and physical spheres, and the Haudenosaunee people (more commonly recognized as Iroquois) utilize the oral narrative to convey the most sacred truths of their culture. In focusing primarily upon animals and animal beings, one can recognize the deep reverence traditional tribal members feel toward animals as certain legends seek to unite individuals with the spirits, personalities, and bodies of such creatures in narrative form. Too often animals are overlooked as “lesser” beings, yet in legends of the Iroquois they possess potent orenda (great power) that can help one achieve success …


Paradox Of The Abject: Postcolonial Subjectivity In Jamaica Kincaid’S The Autobiography Of My Mother And Cristina García’S Dreaming In Cuban, Allison Nicole Harris May 2012

Paradox Of The Abject: Postcolonial Subjectivity In Jamaica Kincaid’S The Autobiography Of My Mother And Cristina García’S Dreaming In Cuban, Allison Nicole Harris

Masters Theses

In Powers of Horror, Julia Kristeva defines abjection as the seductive and destructive remainder of the process of entering the symbolic space of the father and leaving the pre-symbolic space of the mother, resulting in a desire to return to the jouissance of the pre-symbolic space. In this project, I read Jamaica Kincaid’s The Autobiography of My Mother as an attempt to link Xuela’s psychic abjection with the postcolonial identity. Xuela exists on the boundaries of the colonial dichotomy, embracing the space of the abject because she is haunted by her dead mother. She cannot return to her mother, …


Paradigms Of Style: A Study Of Zulfikar Ghose's Novels, Abu Ul Wafa Mansoor Ahmed Abbasi May 2012

Paradigms Of Style: A Study Of Zulfikar Ghose's Novels, Abu Ul Wafa Mansoor Ahmed Abbasi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study deals with Zulfikar Ghose's--an expatriate English language writer of Pakistani origin living in the USA--novels. In this study, I focus on, among other things, the writer's negotiation with style and socio-politically provocative subject matter. I study Ghose's novels in a "good old fashioned way" in which I analyze his work by exploring his achievement as an artist, both in terms of style and socio-political subject matter. The focus is, precisely, to highlight the writer's correspondence between language and reality.


Architectures Of The Veil: The Representation Of The Veil And Zenanas In Pakistani Feminists' Texts, Amber Fatima Riaz Apr 2012

Architectures Of The Veil: The Representation Of The Veil And Zenanas In Pakistani Feminists' Texts, Amber Fatima Riaz

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

My dissertation, which works at the intersections of feminist theory, architectural theory and postcolonial literary theory, examines the spatiality of the zenana and the burqa as represented in Pakistani literary and cultural texts. I propose that the burqa creates a portable closet, an interstitial, liminal, “third space” that allows Pakistani (secluded and veiled) women to not only traverse the borders between the private (female, domestic) and public (male) spaces, but to also signal chastity and religiosity while in the public, and semi-public spaces of the cities and villages of Pakistan. I argue that the dupatta, the chador and the hijab …


The Hegemony Of English In South African Education, Kelsey E. Figone Apr 2012

The Hegemony Of English In South African Education, Kelsey E. Figone

Scripps Senior Theses

The South African Constitution recognizes 11 official languages and protects an individual’s right to use their mother-tongue freely. Despite this recognition, the majority of South African schools use English as the language of learning and teaching (LOLT). Learning in English is a struggle for many students who speak indigenous African languages, rather than English, as a mother-tongue, and the educational system is failing its students. This perpetuates inequality between different South African communities in a way that has roots in the divisions of South Africa’s past. An examination of the power of language and South Africa’s experience with colonialism and …


The Monkey In The Looking Glass: Fairies, Folklore And Evolutionary Theory In The Search For Britain's Imperial Self, Tessa Katherine Jacobs Apr 2012

The Monkey In The Looking Glass: Fairies, Folklore And Evolutionary Theory In The Search For Britain's Imperial Self, Tessa Katherine Jacobs

Scripps Senior Theses

In his groundbreaking work of postcolonial theory, Orientalism, Edward Said puts forth the idea that imperial Europe asserted an identity by constructing the character of its colonized subjects. Said writes that his book tries to “show that European culture gained in strength and identity by setting itself off against the Orient as a sort of surrogate and even underground self” (3). The object of this thesis is a related project, for it too is a search for imperial Britain’s surrogate or underground self. Yet rather than positioning this search within the British colonies, this thesis takes as its context a …


Debating Difference: Haitian Transnationalism In Paul Gilroy’S Black Atlantic, Jamella N. Gow Jan 2012

Debating Difference: Haitian Transnationalism In Paul Gilroy’S Black Atlantic, Jamella N. Gow

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Blacks who have descended from the nineteenth century Atlantic slave trade have historically debated and worked to claim a sense of cultural identity that reflects their African heritage and their identity as diasporic. I am particularly interested in how people of the black Atlantic claim their multiple identities since, for people of a diaspora, one main factor is the fact that they inhabit multiple spaces but cannot call any home. How does transnationalism become a better way to describe the cultural identity of those in the "black Atlantic" since these people have to create new or adapted identities as they …