“Creolization, Possession, and Performances in Caribbean Cultural Discourses” entails an intercultural, interdisciplinary investigation of the motifs of spiritual and bodily possession in historic and contemporary discourses of Caribbean cultures. Through a multifaceted analysis of literary, visual, oral, and performative texts, I emphasize the manner in which the historically-rooted tensions of possession invite a more complex understanding of the dynamics of creolization—or the amalgamation of racial, ethnic, and religious identities—in the Caribbean. The conflicts engendered by spiritual and bodily possession connote the crossroads, or the metaphorical site of racial, cultural, linguistic, and religious interchange analogous to the post-Columbian Caribbean region. In my analyses I problematize the discourses of creolization by highlighting the tensions and resistance that are deeply embedded in the crossroads, and which are most prominently revealed through the motifs of spiritual and bodily possession. ^ The introductory chapter provides an overview of post-Columbian Caribbean histories and Caribbean cultural discourses. Chapter 1 examines the Virgin of Charity of El Cobre, Patroness Saint of Cuba, and the orisha Ochún, the Afro-Cuban deity syncretized with the Virgin of Charity in Cuban history and folklore. Chapter 2 continues the investigation of racialized, gendered archetypes of femininity in Cuban culture with an emphasis on visual religious culture and the aesthetics of feminine sweetness in Cuba and Puerto Rico. Chapter 3 analyzes spiritual possession as a pathway to health and transcendence, with an emphasis on several novels by Cuban-born writer Mayra Montero, whose early literature invokes the Haitian religious experience. In Chapter 4 I ponder the prevalence of haunting feminine figures in Caribbean literatures and folklores while drawing attention to Franco-Caribbean cultural discourses. Chapter 5 examines maternality in contemporary literatures by Afro-Caribbean women, and the discourses of the heroic male Caribbean maroon that frequently disavow the heroism of Afro-Caribbean mothers. In Chapter 6 I consider globalization, diasporas, and Caribbean nationalisms while focusing on Trinidad Carnival as a performative spectacle that paradigmatically dramatizes the racial, cultural, and gendered tensions of Caribbean creolization. The concluding chapter offers some insights on the directions in which Caribbean cultural studies and cultural praxis may develop in the future. ^

As a generic study of literary utopia and Chinese utopian literature, this dissertation is mainly concerned with a refutation of generic confusion pervasive in critical studies of Chinese utopian literature, and the methodology owes much to cultural and literary semiotics. The preliminary chapters are dedicated to an investigation of the conventions indigenous to literary utopia. The paradigmatic inquiry in Chapter II helps to locate several codes pertinent to literary utopia through the articulation of an inter-generic dialogue among utopia and its neighboring genres. The syntagmatic inquiry in Chapter III, using late nineteenth-century American literary utopias as an appropriate example, pinpoints the genre's dynamic feature: it is the existence of a generic contract, through the articulation of an intra-generic dialogue, that guarantees the diverse texts as truly belonging to the genre. Investigations of the alleged Chinese utopian literature in Chapter IV has led to the conclusion that most celebrated Chinese utopias of the classical era are paradisiacal myths. It is not until the late Ch'ing (ca. 1840-1911) that, in an obscure body of literature, literary utopia typical of the genre emerges on the Chinese scene. Chapter V is devoted to a study of these late Ch'ing texts in the light of the generic conventions of literary utopia. The significance of this exploration lies in the discovery of the uniqueness of Chinese utopias: drastically different from their predecessors and much under foreign influence, late Ch'ing utopias still assume a distinct identity apart from their Western counterparts. This dissertation addresses problems related to thematic approaches to utopian literature in general and misconceptions in regard to Chinese utopian literature in particular.

The Nobel Prizewinner Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) wrote in Bengali and translated his own poems into English. Rabindranath's work in Bengali revolutionized the indigenous literary tradition, but little or none of his Bengali style is visible in the translations he produced for an English audience. He addressed a different reader when writing for the English, and an audience that he understood in a specific way because of the Anglo-Indian colonial context and the image that it presented of English language and its culture. Rabindranath had two distinct aesthetic and cultural ideologies, and he was aware of the radical split in this understanding of the Other, or of the British colonial presence in India. The present study examines the way that this ambivalence in comprehending the motivations of the colonizers was created and manipulated by colonial policies. Like many others of his generation, Rabindranath Tagore believed in the "ideal" presence of the English as it was represented in English literature. This faith generated a perception of two distinct kinds of English: the "petty" and the "great." While translating, he had in mind the constituency of the "great" English who formed an ideal world of culture. Towards the end of his life, he became disillusioned with the deceptive cultural transactions implied in colonial poetics.

Since antiquity western texts have employed representations of consumption to articulate questions of desire and power. Images of eating and drinking serve not only to structure texts but also to question and subvert institutional practices, traditional dichotomies of value, and discourse itself. The primacy of desire is illustrated by a conflation with power that results in a textuality marked by excess. Its two poles are represented by cannibalism and a total refusal to eat; both are forms of absolute desire. Texts dealing with consumption are varied. Theoretical discourse such as Rumohr's Geist der Kochkunst or Brillat-Savarin's Physiologie du gout disrupts traditional notions of genre by equating consumption with discourse. Polysemy and a state of constant metamorphosis are common characteristics of literary texts that concentrate on consumption. Although no unbroken development can be affirmed, earlier works such as Petronius's Satyricon or the Bible emphasize a transcendental aim, while modern ones such as Ror Wolf's Fortsetzung des Berichts stress indeterminacy and the overwhelming presence of death.

This dissertation examines canonical female figures throughout Medieval, Renaissance, Victorian and Contemporary British and American literature who are single mothers. Historical research is combined with Freudian, Jungian and feminist psychoanalytic criticism to provide insight into the mythic and subconscious impetus for the creation of these characters as well as a real life context. The purpose of this discussion is to explore the position in society that these women hold, the range of their power, and, if possible, explore the reaction each character has to her position as single parent. The dissertation works chronologically, beginning in Chapter One with Grendel's Dam in Beowulf, Spenser's Errour in The Faerie Queene, and Milton's Sin in Paradise Lost as examples of monster mothers spawning illegitimate and unnatural children. Are they are monsters first, or monsters because they reproduce without sanction? Chapter Two explores the widow's world during the Renaissance and Jacobean period, with a focus on the dramas All's Well That Ends Well and Coriolanus by William Shakespeare and The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster. Financial power and unleashed sexuality are in conflict with patriarchal laws of inheritance. Chapter Three promotes Helen Graham of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Hester Prynne of The Scarlet Letter, as openly choosing their single parent status. The benefit and cost of their uncomfortable choice is outlined. Elizabeth Gaskell's Ruth provides a "moral" balance to the rebellion advocated in the previous works. Chapter Four examines the preoedipal mother and the double bind of the Victorian "angel in the house." Abandonment, murder and baptism appear in George Eliot's Adam Bede, Charles Dickens' Bleak House, and Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Chapter Five analyzes the voice and power of contemporary single mothers. Works include, Tillie Olsen's "I Stand Here Ironing", Anne Tyler's The Accidental Tourist and Toni Morrison's Beloved. The seeming dysfunction of single mother homes and the intrusion of patriarchal institutions are explored.

This doctoral thesis studies the life and writings of Hrotsvit of Gandersheim, a 10th century Saxon canoness within the Ottonian Empire. Hrotsvit's decision to write, and thus enter the male-dominated literary realm, places her within a unique category. This canoness' writings explore her perceptions of the worth of the Christian female in subjectivity and voice. Although her stated purpose for her dramas was to compete with the Roman poet, Terence, she also sought to provide female characters with strengths and choices not given to other female characters in either the Classical or medieval tradition. This project aims to study Hrotsvit's six dramas, as compared with Terence's six plays, in terms of the canoness' interplay with thematic inversion and subversion. This paper will delve into Hrotsvit's background in order to hypothesize as to her ambitions and goals. It will also analyze the canoness' forms of inversion and subversion within both writers' prologues, focusing on the humility topos as understood in Classical times and medieval times. This thesis also will study the themes of female subjectivity and voice within the literary structures of disguise, marriage, and parental figures. Lastly, this dissertation will analyze the themes of female subjectivity and voice within Hrotsvit's dramas as compared to the hagiographical sources she used as her source material, in order to posit that the canoness not only openly challenged Terence, but also obliquely challenged the representation of women from the hagiographical literature. / A Dissertation submitted to the Program in Interdisciplinary Humanities in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2014. / October 9, 2014. / Hrotsvit, Terence / Includes bibliographical references. / Laurel Fulkerson, Professor Directing Dissertation; Martin Kavka, Committee Member; David Johnson, Committee Member.

My dissertation argues that Spain was as important to the development of African American literary consciousness as more studied locales such as Paris, Harlem, or Chicago. I argue that a literary idea of Spain gave African American writers a conceptual space for thinking about race in the past and the future, and for considering the intersections between race and religion. Drawing on the work of Arthur Schomburg, Langston Hughes, Dorothy Peterson, and Richard Wright, I contend that mid-twentieth century African American writers adapted a broader trend of Anglophone historiography that viewed Spain as a quintessentially “medieval” country (feudal, agrarian, and Catholic), set in opposition to the essentially “modern” United States (democratic, industrial, and Protestant). This historiography appropriated Spanish history to position Spain as the physical site of the pre-modern history of the United States, creating what I call “geographic temporality,” where a physical space is associated with a specific time period.

This dissertation offers a narrative reading of Dante’s use of the poetic form of the tenzone. I frame Dante’s tenzoni within the history of the form’s use in the Italian vernacular tradition, beginning with Giacomo da Lentini and the scuola siciliana. The practice of writing tenzoni in the Italian tradition ends with Dante, contemporaneous to the beginnings of the Commedia. Through close readings of Dante’s tenzoni, I explore how Dante shapes culture and issues social criticism dialogically. Ultimately, I argue that the form of the tenzoni was fundamental both to Dante’s ethical development and to the codification of the vernacular, leading to the first epic poem in the Italian language.

This thesis is a translation of and annotations on the Elucidarium of Honorius Augustodunensis. The Elucidarium i s an outline, in dialogue form, of Catholic doctrine. Written early in the 12th century, it was very popular during the Middle Ages and, with adaptations, remained in use until modern times. The translation makes the work available to those who do not read Latin and the annotations provide background, references and source material useful for understanding the text.

My dissertation titled “Things Left Unsaid: Historical Silences and Multiethnic Women’s Fiction” addresses the use of narrative by four ethnic American women authors, namely Dina Nayeri, Edwidge Danticat, Julia Alvarez, and Amy Tan (immigrants or second-generation citizens), who write about personal tragedies and trauma to address the issue of omission and silence in historical records. I argue that these literary works are an admixture of narrative and history that function as a mode of storytelling that allows readers to bear witness to events of social and political importance. Transnational and literary theorists have often prioritized the émigré status of these women authors to argue that they have been able to become successful spokespersons for their people because of their journey away from their homeland. However, my dissertation employs an interdisciplinary approach to demonstrate the opposite—these women authors may refashion themselves as hybridized citizens, but they do not sever ties with their homelands, nor do they speak for the entirety of their respective ethnic communities. On the contrary, through their fictions, these authors focus on the importance of individualistic and personal storytelling to counter the silencing effects produced through the unidimensional processes of History that do not incorporate a multitude of voices and points of opinion. I argue that the use of narrative and storytelling by these four ethnic American women authors redress such omissions. / English