Hybridity has been a privileged theory in post-colonial writings. It is considered as a source of empowerment that resists oppositional binarism and monolithic discourses that characterize dominant Western historical representations. Amitav Ghosh’s In An Antique Land and his ongoing Ibis Trilogy are historiographic projects that instantiate, both textually and formally, the employment of hybridity in resistance of cultural and political suppression. However, Ghosh at the same time interrogates the discourse of hybridity by highlighting its problematics. Such ambivalent stance creates a paradox that the author leaves open as a site for critical debates. Employing the strength of hybridity, Ghosh rewrites history and challenges the critiques that disapprove the theory for its lack of ethics and suggests that the theory of hybridity can fulfill our ethical imperatives by excavating forgotten voices of the past. / published_or_final_version / English Studies / Master / Master of Arts

Homi K. Bhabha suggests that hybridity bridges more than just cultural, genetic, linguistic and national differences. His theory explores a hybridity that reconciles such ubiquitous peripheral differences as generational, gender, class, societal and even individual differences. Even before the era of imperialism and globalization, such hybridization was present within national and cultural frameworks. The differences were acknowledged, confronted, wrestled with and incorporated into a new entity or phenomenon – whether coherent or incoherent – and made part of a culture, society, morality, etc. This dissertation applies the workings of the hybridization logic to literature, and particularly the in-between spaces in narratology. It explores multiple aspects of the narrative’s liminalities, in character, style and structure, to pinpoint any moments that may engender hybridization in fictional discourse. Kazuo Ishiguro’s novels are replete with fused contradictions and negotiated differences on many levels, extending far beyond any genre differences. This paper seeks to define the concept and workings of ‘hybridity’ in literature through the analysis of Ishiguro’s six novels: Pale View of Hills, An Artist of the Floating World, The Remains of the Day, The Unconsoled, When We Were Orphans and Never Let Me Go. The tenets of Mikhail M. Bakhtin’s dialogism are also employed to unveil multiple connotations or different voices in a discourse, ultimately facilitating the unearthing of hybridity. This dissertation, thus, hones in in particular on the author-narrator dialogic interactions. / published_or_final_version / English Studies / Master / Master of Arts

Thesis (M.A.)--Bowling Green State University, 2006. / Document formatted into pages; contains vi, 78 p. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--McGill University (Canada), 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of History and Politics, Discipline of Politics, 2008. / Includes bibliography ( leaves 297-347) Also available in print form.

Thesis (M.A.)--Michigan State University. College of Music, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Sept. 14, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. 69-73). Also issued in print.

Thesis (M.A.)--Rowan University, 2006. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references.

M.Tech. / My practical and theoretical research is informed by Johannesburg, the city in which I live. My thesis is positioned within postcolonial academic and theorist Homi K. Bhabha’s theory of a “Third Space” and within South African academic, Colin Richards’ (In: Enwezor 1997:234-235) theory of a graft that operates within an enculturated semiosphere. In this instance, I identify spaces in which a graft operates in the form of two examples: garments designed by Strangelove and Stoned Cherrie and selected suburban boundary walls in Parktown West, Westcliff, Houghton, Melville and Emmarentia. These two examples are used to argue whether a graft ‘takes’ to ‘open out’ a space for cultural difference or whether it does not ‘take’, thus closing off space. I understand my examples as hybrid forms and manifestations of identities in a process of re-definition in the context of postcolonial Johannesburg. My practical work explores my hybrid identity in my lived context. The artworks are constructed through a similar process to that of a fashion designer by grafting diverse elements. The visual references used in my artworks are informed by the boundary wall and meaning is incorporated by selecting diverse materials to construct my artworks. My practical work therefore ties together the two examples that I use and informs my art-making process.

Chan Ching Yee Rose. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 133-136). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / 內容提要 --- p.iii / Acknowledgements --- p.iv / Contents --- p.v / Chapter Chapter One: --- The Location of Hong Kong and Hongkong Yan --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter Two: --- Hongkong Yan on a Flying Carpet: The Duality of Chineseness and Foreignness --- p.29 / Chapter Chapter Three: --- The Splitting of Stereotype in The Evergreen Tea House --- p.56 / Chapter Chapter Four: --- Decadence and Unhomeliness in Hong Kong: The Unwalled City --- p.83 / Chapter Chapter Five: --- The Hybridity of Two “Winds´ح： The Essence of Hongkongness --- p.109 / Bibliography --- p.133

published_or_final_version / abstract / Comparative Literature / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy