The 'colony' in Olive Schreiner‟s fiction and non-fiction is a place or space, I shall argue, that is both dynamic and complex. The comings and goings, the stories, of the 'characters' in the space are not reducible to the division of indigene/settler. This dissertation takes as its starting point a still prevalent view that Schreiner's literary achievement displays a typical 'colonial blindness' in matters of dispossession and resistance: that the colonial person has little connection to his/her material surrounds. In reaction to what I regard as a binary language of response, my focus is on what I refer to as 'margins' in Schreiner's writings: that is, to apparently tangential incidents which add complexity to the conception of colony and, by extension, to that of the colonial novel. My argument is that in her treatment of a colony of diverse, conflicting stories, which are told in both fictional and non-fictional forms, Schreiner challenged the dichotomous language of colonialism (in its sharp delineations between indigene and settler) and imbued her times (1880s-1920s) with visionary potential: a potential that continues to have import where the reductive categories of indigene and settler retain purchase even in postcolonial times. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2011.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of English, General Literature, and Rhetoric, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of English Language and Literature. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--York University, 2006. Graduate Programme in History. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 331-350). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:NR39017

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Notre Dame, 2007. / Thesis directed by Margaret Anne Doody and Seamus F. Deane for the Department of English. "July 2007." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 396-449).

published_or_final_version / abstract / English / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

When analyzing literatures that expose the effects of colonialism one can identify similarities between the lives of the oppressed. Although colonization occurs in different times and locations the consequences upon the subjugated become comparable throughout history. One prominent pairing of mirrored colonial episodes can be identified in the literature of Irish author James Joyce and St. Lucian poet Derek Walcott. Both authors endured British colonialism and produced literatures which revealed similar themes and narratives. Yet simply because both authors lived through colonization does not equate their experiences as parallel. This thesis argues that Joyce and Walcott created comparable literatures because they experienced subjugation on islands. A comparison of Joyce's Ulysses (1922) and Walcott's Omeros (1990) reveals the similar colonial experiences which were produced by island landscapes. Overall, this thesis will argue that the colonial turmoil which Joyce highlighted in Ulysses becomes mirrored in the postcolonial plot of Omeros. / by Sebastian Terneus. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2011. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2011. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Culitivated Tastes argues for a new evaluation of colonial landscape art and representations of nature from the Netherlands Indies (colonial Indonesia). The thesis focuses on examples from Java, Sumatra, Ambon and Bali during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but also discusses early post-colonial literature. It uses paintings and photography, with supporting references to Dutch colonial novels, to argue that images of landscape and nature were linked to the formation of Dutch colonial identities and, more generally, to the politics of colonial expansion. Paintings were not simply colonial kitsch (mooi Indi??, or 'beautiful Indies', images): they were the purest expression of Dutch ideals about the peaceful, prosperous landscapes that were crucial to uncontested colonial rule. Often these ideals were contradicted by historical reality. Indeed, paintings rarely showed Dutch interventions in Indies landscapes, particularly those that were met with resistance and rebellion. Colonial photographs often supported the painterly ideals of peace and prosperity, but in different ways: photographs celebrated European intrusions upon and restructuring of Indonesian landscapes, communicating the notions of progress and rational, benevolent rule. It is in literature that we find broader discussions of nature, which includes climate as well as topography. Here representations of landscape and nature are explicitly linked to the formation of colonial identities. Dutch anxieties about the boundaries of racial and gender identities were embedded within references to Indies landscape and nature. Inner colonial worlds intersected with perceptions of the larger environment in literature: here the ideals and triumphs associated with Dutch colonial expansion were juxtaposed against fears related to remaining European in a tropical Asian landscape.

Doris Lessing and Tsitsi Dangarembga write fiction set in Zimbabwe, the former Southern Rhodesia. Although Lessing grew up as a white settler and Dangarembga, a generation later, as part of the colonized African population, the women sometimes address similar issues. Both write of young girls trying to find a speaking position; under colonialism, what they want to say cannot be said. Lessing's first-person stories differ from her more distant third-person works, which show how white settlers either refuse to recognize their own complicity within the colonial system or accept living a compromised life. Her younger narrators are as yet innocent; the stories often focus on the character's discovery of her own responsibility as a member of the white ruling class. However, these girls have varying levels of self awareness; some seem unaware of the implications of their stories, while others catch glimpses of their own complicity, yet are unable to act. Although Lessing herself is highly critical of colonialism, her stories sometimes risk textually replicating and thus reinforcing the values she criticizes. Dangarembga's first-person novel Nervous Conditions (1988) portrays Tambu, a girl from a poor African family, and her more modern cousin Nyasha. Tambu narrates the story as an adult, Although Nyasha resents colonialism and her patriarchal family, Tambu proceeds with her education, attempting to ignore the injustice around her. Because of the use of an adult narrator, the reader sees what Tambu the child cannot see. Nyasha is unable to voice her concerns; her protest surfaces as anorexia. Both Lessing's and Dangarembga's characters have difficulty speaking because colonialism does not include a space for what they want to say; even if they spoke, their words could make little difference. Lessing' s characters can "speak" only by leaving the country, as Lessing herself did. Dangarembga's Tambu may or may not have "escaped" her situation; by the book's publication, Rhodesia had overcome white rule, and it may be this political change that allows Tambu to tell her story. / Graduation date: 2002