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

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

Applies James Gee's concept of Discourses to illustrate how literacy and orality thematically constitute hybrid identity in Silko's novel Ceremony. Then, applies Wallace Chafe's linguistic framework of integration and involvement showing that the novel is a linguistic hybrid, not just a text that thematically elevates hybridity. Unlike other Native American authors who create half-breed characters merely as bridges between two cultures, Silko creates her character Tayo as an embodiment of an emergent hybrid culture.

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

Thesis (MA (English))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: During the past century, for a variety of reasons, more people have been crossing national and cultural borders than ever before. This, along with constantly developing communication technology, has seen to it that clear-cut distinctions, divisions and borders are no longer as easily definable as they once were. This process, now commonly referred to as ‘globalisation,’ has led to a rising trend of ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘cultural hybridity,’ terms often connected with celebratory views of our postmodern, postcolonial world as a colourful melting pot of cultures. However, what these celebratory views conveniently avoid recognising, is that the increasing occurrence of hybridity places a growing number of people in a painful space inbetween identities where they are “neither just this/nor just that” (Dayal 47), “neither the One… nor the Other… but something else besides” (Bhabha Commitment 41). Perhaps in an effort to combat this ignorance, a new breed of authors – who have experienced the rigours of migration first-hand – are giving voice to this pain-infused space on the periphery of cultures and identities through a developing genre of transcultural literature. This literature typically deals with issues of identity closely related to globalisation and multiculturalism. In my thesis I will be looking at three such novels: Jamal Mahjoub’s The Drift Latitudes, Kiran Desai’s Inheritance of Loss, and Caryl Phillips’ A Distant Shore. These authors move away from an idealistic, celebratory view of hybridity as the effortless blending of cultures to a somewhat disenchanted approach to hybridity as a complex negotiation of split subjectivity in an ever-fracturing world. All three novels lend themselves to a psychoanalytic reading, with subjects who imagine themselves to be unitary, but end up having to face their repressed fractured subjectivity in a moment of crisis. The psychoanalytic model of the split between the conscious and the unconscious, then, resonates well with the postcolonial model of the intrinsically fractured hybrid identity. However, while psychoanalysis focuses on internal processes, postcolonialism focuses on external processes. Therefore, I will be making use of a blend of psychoanalytic and postcolonial concepts to analyse and access discursive meanings in the texts. More specifically, I will use Homi Bhabha’s concept of ‘hybridity’, Freud’s concept of the ‘uncanny’, and Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of ‘the stranger’ as distinctive, yet interconnected conceptual lenses through which to view all three of these transcultural novels. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In die afgelope eeu het meer mense as ooit vantevore, om ‘n verskeidenheid redes, lands- en kultuurgrense oorgesteek. Tesame met die voortdurende vooruitgang van kommunikasietegnologie, het dit tot gevolg dat afgebakende grense, skeidings en verskille nie meer so maklik definieerbaar is as wat hulle eens was nie. Hierdie proses, waarna in die algemeen verwys word as ‘globalisering’, het gelei tot die groeiende neiging van ‘multikulturalisme’ en ‘kulturele hibriditeit’. Dit is terminologie wat dikwels in verband gebring word met feestelike beskouings van ons postmoderne, post-koloniale wêreld as ‘n kleurryke smeltkroes van kulture. Wat hierdie feestelike beskouings egter gerieflikheidshalwe verkies om te ignoreer, is die feit dat die toenemende voorkoms van hibriditeit ‘n groeiende aantal mense in ‘n pynlike posisie tussen identiteite plaas waar hulle nòg vis nòg vlees (“neither just this/nor just that” [Dayal 47]), nòg die Een… nòg die Ander is… maar eerder iets anders buiten.. (“neither the One… nor the Other… but something else besides” [Bhabha Commitment 41]). Miskien in ‘n poging om hierdie onkunde die hoof te bied, is ‘n nuwe geslag skrywers – wat die eise van migrasie eerstehands ervaar het – besig om met ‘n ontwikkelende genre van transkulturele literatuur ‘n stem te gee aan hierdie pynlike ‘plek’ op die periferie van kulture en identiteite. Hierdie literatuur handel tipies oor die kwessies van identiteit wat nou verwant is aan globalisering en multikulturalisme. In my tesis kyk ek na drie sulke romans: Jamal Mahjoub se The Drift Latitudes, Kiran Desai se Inheritance os Loss en Caryl Phillips se A Distant Shore. Hierdie skrywers beweeg weg van die idealistiese, feestelike beskouing van hibriditeit as die moeitelose vermenging van kulture na ‘n meer realistiese uitbeelding van hibriditeit as ‘n ingewikkelde vergestalting van verdeelde subjektiwiteite in ‘n verbrokkelende wêreld. Al drie romans leen hulle tot die lees daarvan uit ‘n psigo-analitiese oogpunt, met karakters wat hulself as eenvormig beskou, maar uiteindelik in ‘n krisis-oomblik te staan kom voor die werklikheid van hul onderdrukte verbrokkelde subjektiwiteit. Die psigo-analitiese model van die breuk tussen die bewuste en die onbewuste weerklink welluidend in die post-koloniale model van die intrinsiek verbrokkelde hibriede identiteit. Terwyl psigo-analise egter op interne prosesse toegespits is, fokus post-kolonialisme op eksterne prosesse. Derhalwe gebruik ek ‘n vermenging van psigo-analitiese en post-koloniale konsepte om uiteenlopende betekenisse in die onderskeie tekste te analiseer en hulle toeganklik te maak. Meer spesifiek gebruik ek Homi Bhabha se konsep van hibriditeit, Freud se konsep van die ‘geheimsinnige / onheilspellende’ en Zygmunt Bauman se konsep van ‘die vreemdeling’ as kenmerkende, maar steeds onderling verwante konseptuele lense waardeur aldrie transkulturele romans beskou word.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2008.

‘Becoming Animal’: Motifs of Hybridity and Liminality in Fairy Tales and Selected Contemporary Artworks serves as a theoretical examination of the concept of the hybrid. My research unpacks the liminal aspect of hybridity, locating the hybrid in the imaginative world of popular fairy tales, folk lore and mythology. In my accompanying MFA exhibition, Becoming(s), I explore these motifs through an installation of mixed-media sculptures which are based on the hybrid creatures that populated the fantasy world of my childhood. The written component of my MFA submission will relate directly to my professional art practise, developing it further and situating it within a relevant context. In my mini-thesis I will consider the liminal in relation to the ‘animal turn’ in contemporary art, with a particular focus on relevant artists working with the motifs of hybridity, such as Nandipha Mntambo, Jane Alexander and Kiki Smith. The ‘animal turn’ is a term used by Kari Weil (2010: 3) to describe a contemporary interest in issues of the nonhuman, and in the ways that the relationship between humans and nonhumans is marked by “difference, otherness and power”. Of key concern to my research will be Giles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s concept of ‘becoming animal’. Rather than describing a transition from one stable state to another, ‘becoming animal’ suggests a radical dissolution of boundaries – not just between species (such as ‘human’ and ‘animal’) but between any essentialising binaries. As such, ‘becoming animal’ suggests a conception of identity as being fluid and mutable, rather than stable and fixed.