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Title of the Master`s Thesis The Representations of the violence in the Latin American literature: the Analysis of selected novels of the contemporary Colombian writers Abstract The master's thesis consists of two main parts: historical and literary. First chapters provide an overview on the historical events of the 20th century of the Colombian history. Following parts are based on the representation of principal actors and instigators of the Colombian armed conflict, mentioning political parties, guerrillas, groups of paramilitares and drug cartels. The literary part offers an overview on the history of literary genres which concern the theme of violence and the definition between novela de la violencia and novela sobre la violencia are provided as well. On the background of the literary works of recent Colombian writers is showed the progress of new literary genres related one to each other by the violence, perception of this by the society and its transition into the literature. Key words Colombia - 20th century - armed conflict - violence - Colombian literature - contemporary literature

It is often acknowledged that the sexually intermediate body destabilises sexual dimorphisms, but, so far, little attention has been paid to the way sexual intermediacy relates to normative figurations of time. Focusing mainly on literary and cultural discourses from late Romanticism to Modernism, the thesis examines how constructions of sexual intermediacy have contributed and responded to shifting concerns with temporality. It also investigates the relationship between literature and science through a comparative engagement with evolutionary, psychoanalytic and sexological discourses. The individual chapters deal with the conflicted temporality of the substantiated androgyne; the haunted and uncanny materiality of the hermaphroditic body in late nineteenth-century science and literature; sexual intermediacy and the prescriptive linear narrative of the case history; the sexual, temporal and national crises of World War I; and sexual travels in time and space. Overall, the thesis illustrates that sex and time are intimately related and shows that the changing understanding of sexual intermediacy opens up a powerful critique of sexual and temporal structures.

Esta tese de doutorado sobre o diário de Virginia Woolf divide-se em duas partes. A primeira, uma análise do diário como um todo, busca trazer à tona sua literariedade e aproximações modernistas, que, como procuro mostrar, viram-se obliteradas durante os processos de sua edição. O diário de Woolf tem sido tradicionalmente usado como suporte para interpretar suas obras principais os livros de ficção e não-ficção cuja publicação ela supervisionou pessoalmente em vida , porém, como observa seu biógrafo Quentin Bell, ele é, em si, uma grande obra. A primeira parte destaca ainda pontos de uma possível teoria literária woolfiana (as aspas se devem ao fato de Woolf ter sido avessas a consolidações e se propor a quebrar o molde a cada novo livro), tais como as possibilidades de representação do mundo e do indivíduo as subjetividades e os movimentos da história, da guerra e da violência, principalmente aqueles relacionados à mulher. Buscou-se realizar tal análise em confronto com o restante da obra de Woolf e seu contexto, dando atenção às particularidades do seu diário e, em especial, ao que chamo de sua forma-cruzamento. Sustento que o diário é uma obra especialmente marcada pelas intercessões entre gêneros; ficção e realidade; e interior e exterior (público e privado); bem como entre as demais obras woolfianas, num movimento de constante autotextualidade. A segunda parte da presente tese oferece a tradução integral e comentada do período em que Virginia Woolf morou no número 52 da Tavistock Square, em Londres (de março de 1924 a início de agosto de 1939), que denomino Diário de Tavistock. Tal tradução alinha-se com um entendimento que enxerga no próprio ato tradutório uma aproximação com o ato crítico, no sentido de que também proporciona um embate privilegiado com o texto e suas múltiplas relações interpretativas. / This doctoral thesis on Virginia Woolf\'s diary is divided into two sections. The aim of the first one, an analysis of Woolfs diary as a whole, is to highlight its literary and modernist traits, which as I try to demonstrate have been almost obliterated during its editing process. Woolfs diary has been conventionally used by scholars as a secondary source to interpret her major works the fiction and non-fiction books whose edition she personally oversaw , but as Quentin Bell, Woolfs biographer, declares, it is a major work of its own. The first part also highlights points of a Woolfian literary theory (I liberally use quotes here, for Woolf objected to being fixed on definitions and wished instead to break the mold with each new book). Among these are the possibilities of artistic representation of both the world and the individual e.g., the subjectivities and the movements of history, war and violence, especially those related to women. Such analysis takes into consideration the rest of Woolf\'s work, privileging the particularities of her diary and, especially, what I call its crossing form. Her diary is a work deeply marked by intercessions between genres; fiction and reality; interiority and exteriority (public and private), as well as between her other writings, in a movement of constant autotextuality. The second part of the thesis offers an annotated translation into Portuguese of the period in which Woolf lived at 52 Tavistock Square, London (March 1924 early August 1939), which I call the Tavistock Diary. Such a translation is aligned with an understanding that the translation act is also a critic one, in the sense that it provides a privileged confrontation with a text and its multiple interpretative relations.

The desire and need for historical representation in postmodernism are coupled with the self-reflexive acknowledgement of our inability to faithfully represent the past. This dissertation examines the ways in which certain historical events are represented in postmodern fiction. More specifically, it introduces the term ‘distortion’ to designate various ways that postmodern authors have attempted to convey traumatic and violent histories through intentional permutations of historical facts. In this study, I analyse six texts, representative works that present the multi-faceted nature of what I call ‘distorted’ historical fiction. Each text is devoted to one of three historical events: the Holocaust in Martin Amis’s Time’s Arrow and Art Spiegelman’s Maus; the Chilean dictatorship in Diamela Eltit’s Lumpérica and Isabel Allende’s La Casa de los espíritus; and finally, the Algerian War of Independence in Kateb Yacine’s Nedjma and Mohammed Dib’s Qui se souvient de la mer. The analyses of each text are guided by three main questions: How is the depicted history distorted in the narrative? Why is the historical reality distorted? And lastly, what are the hermeneutical effects for the reader of engaging with the distorted historical text? I contend that these historical fictions apply various modes of distortion to create a specific and often peculiar effect on the reader. These include distortions of narrative form and voice, as well as distortions of temporality and space. I argue that the reader’s encounter with distorted historical fiction creates a peculiar hermeneutical effect of ‘defamiliarisation,’ which has affinities with Viktor Shklovsky’s use of the term and Bertolt Brecht’s ‘V-effekt.’ The sense of defamiliarisation creates a conflict in readers, in which their foreknowledge of a past event clashes with the event's distorted depiction. This conflict demands that the reader be responsible, implying that the reader should not be ‘swept away’ by the distorted narrative. Instead the responsible reader is encouraged to interact with the text, apply previous historical knowledge to correct said distortions, and through this interaction gain a greater intimacy with the past.

Bears and wolves are large mammalian predators who fill similar biological niches and have acquired similar cultural significance throughout Western history. Although superficial similarities exist between them in Charles G. D. Roberts's short animal stories, Roberts uses anthropomorphism to differentiate between these two species. This thesis uses a historical-cultural approach to provide the context for determining what was known or believed about these animals during Roberts's life and what contemporaneous theories were likely to have influenced Roberts's writing. The present literary analysis of bears and wolves in Roberts's stories shows that the species are primarily differentiated through the degree of anthropomorphism attributed to their individual members. Roberts anthropomorphizes bears more than his other species, and this contributes to the bears representation of the positive potential of animality. By contrast, Roberts minimizes anthropomorphization of wolves, who represent the negative potential of animality. In Roberts's work, humans who live in the wilderness must become either bear-like or wolf-like. Those who embrace bears positive animal potential are those who belong in the natural world, while those who practice the wolves' negative animal potential are denied a place in the natural order. Humans ultimately prove themselves to be superior animals through their use of technology, but must also demonstrate positive qualities, such as morality, in order to show that they belong in nature. Roberts's binary of animality speaks to a conflict that continues today, between the desire to accept the animality that is part of human nature and simultaneously to deny the baser aspects of that animality.

The desire and need for historical representation in postmodernism are coupled with the self-reflexive acknowledgement of our inability to faithfully represent the past. This dissertation examines the ways in which certain historical events are represented in postmodern fiction. More specifically, it introduces the term ‘distortion’ to designate various ways that postmodern authors have attempted to convey traumatic and violent histories through intentional permutations of historical facts. In this study, I analyse six texts, representative works that present the multi-faceted nature of what I call ‘distorted’ historical fiction. Each text is devoted to one of three historical events: the Holocaust in Martin Amis’s Time’s Arrow and Art Spiegelman’s Maus; the Chilean dictatorship in Diamela Eltit’s Lumpérica and Isabel Allende’s La Casa de los espíritus; and finally, the Algerian War of Independence in Kateb Yacine’s Nedjma and Mohammed Dib’s Qui se souvient de la mer. The analyses of each text are guided by three main questions: How is the depicted history distorted in the narrative? Why is the historical reality distorted? And lastly, what are the hermeneutical effects for the reader of engaging with the distorted historical text? I contend that these historical fictions apply various modes of distortion to create a specific and often peculiar effect on the reader. These include distortions of narrative form and voice, as well as distortions of temporality and space. I argue that the reader’s encounter with distorted historical fiction creates a peculiar hermeneutical effect of ‘defamiliarisation,’ which has affinities with Viktor Shklovsky’s use of the term and Bertolt Brecht’s ‘V-effekt.’ The sense of defamiliarisation creates a conflict in readers, in which their foreknowledge of a past event clashes with the event's distorted depiction. This conflict demands that the reader be responsible, implying that the reader should not be ‘swept away’ by the distorted narrative. Instead the responsible reader is encouraged to interact with the text, apply previous historical knowledge to correct said distortions, and through this interaction gain a greater intimacy with the past.

Bears and wolves are large mammalian predators who fill similar biological niches and have acquired similar cultural significance throughout Western history. Although superficial similarities exist between them in Charles G. D. Roberts's short animal stories, Roberts uses anthropomorphism to differentiate between these two species. This thesis uses a historical-cultural approach to provide the context for determining what was known or believed about these animals during Roberts's life and what contemporaneous theories were likely to have influenced Roberts's writing. The present literary analysis of bears and wolves in Roberts's stories shows that the species are primarily differentiated through the degree of anthropomorphism attributed to their individual members. Roberts anthropomorphizes bears more than his other species, and this contributes to the bears representation of the positive potential of animality. By contrast, Roberts minimizes anthropomorphization of wolves, who represent the negative potential of animality. In Roberts's work, humans who live in the wilderness must become either bear-like or wolf-like. Those who embrace bears positive animal potential are those who belong in the natural world, while those who practice the wolves' negative animal potential are denied a place in the natural order. Humans ultimately prove themselves to be superior animals through their use of technology, but must also demonstrate positive qualities, such as morality, in order to show that they belong in nature. Roberts's binary of animality speaks to a conflict that continues today, between the desire to accept the animality that is part of human nature and simultaneously to deny the baser aspects of that animality.

China inspired and fascinated the Western early-20th-century author. Some, like Pearl S. Buck, writing about a China where she grew up and lived for many years, offered careful, portraits of the Chinese people she loved. Others, such as Fu Manchu creator Sax Rohmer, depicted China as an evil empire and the Chinese as cruel and dangerous criminal masterminds. French author Victor Segalen saw China as the last crumbling frontier of an elusive exotic world that existed in stark contrast to the suffocating modernity and alienation of Europe. This thesis project examines three specific examples of Western literature about China from the early twentieth century: British author Sax Rohmer, whose depictions of exaggeratedly evil Oriental vilains reinforced Western fears of the Chinese Other; French writer Victor Segalen whose mystical portraits of a magnificent Chinese Empire served as the basis for his artistic manifesto on exoticism, and Pearl S. Buck, whose portrayals of sympathetic Chinese peasants helped shift American popular opinion and foreign policy. These three authors, though their styles, approaches and motives varied greatly, all feature the intersecting themes of exoticism, modernity and imperialism. The tensions between these three elements play out in different ways in each chapter of this thesis, and yet all three are examples of exotic writing about China at a time when exoticism was a lost cause, or as Chris Bongie describes it, “an idea with no future” (15). In these examples, imperialism still coloured perceptions of a racially distinct other, and modernity’s inevitability made imagining the exotic a depressing, frightening or naïvely hopeful exercise. In all three examples, this results in an exoticism that seeks to extend the boundaries of what had become a shrinking frontier. Some of the authors succeed in balancing the tensions between exoticism, imperialism and modernity, but in general most do not, and the texts remain deeply conflicted. / Graduate / 0295 / 0332

Cette thèse s’intéresse aux romans d’Amitav Ghosh, auteur d’origine bengalie, écrivant en langue anglaise. Elle les met en regard autour des trois notions de voix, langue et langage. Une analyse croisée des romans selon ces trois axes, qui eux-mêmes se chevauchent, permet de définir une écriture du métissage, une écriture de l’entre-deux. Les notions s’articulent autour d’une problématique axée sur la parole et s’appuie sur la théorie bakhtinienne du roman comme espace dialogique. Dans un premier temps, le métissage pose la question de la parenté de l’écriture, et permet d’interroger l’intertextualité qui y est à l’œuvre. Le métissage est mélange et dispersion, et brouille l’origine. Le métissage, que l’on prendrait dans son acception génétique, fonctionne par ailleurs comme un tissage. Ce travail analyse le tressage narratif du texte et met en évidence l’influence de la tradition orale. Le texte se trame sur un métier qui tisse voix et points de vue. Polyphonie et hétéroglossie permettent d’illustrer les stratégies du mélange déployées par l’auteur. Les langues du texte ainsi mises en perspective permettent de définir le métissage comme stratégie de l’imprévisible. Les romans s’hybrident de langues étrangères et permettent de placer le romancier dans le questionnement du roman contemporain sur la traduction. / Amitav Ghosh is a Bengali writing in English. This dissertation focuses on his novels from the standpoint of the three following notions: voice, language and speech. An interwoven analysis confronting the novels to these three notions which overlap allows us to define a writing of métissage, a writing of the in-between. Voice and language intersect, and prompts to ground the investigation of the text in a problematic revolving around speech, and based on Bakhtine’s theory of dialogism. First, métissage leads to question the parenthood of Ghosh’s writing and its intertextuality. Métissage means mixing and dispersal, and so, undermines the notion of origin. Then, the biological process of métissage parallels the act of weaving. This analysis shows how the narrative interweaves voices and points of view, and exposes its orality. Polyphony and heteroglossy are the backbones of the narrative. They illustrate the mixing strategies used by the writer. Such an approach of the languages he uses in his novels allows us to define métissage as a strategy of the unpredictable. The novels interweave foreign languages. This shows how Ghosh asserts his voice in the questioning of translation which characterizes the contemporary literary scene.