Even if their presence is only temporary, diasporic individuals are bound to disrupt the existing order of pre-structured communities they enter. Plenty of scholars have written on how identity is constructed; I investigate the power relations that form when components such as ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, class, and language intersect in diasporic and transnational movements. How does sexuality operate on ethnicity so as to cause an existential crisis? How does religion function both to reinforce and to hide one's ethnic identity? Diasporic subjects participate in the resignification of their identity not only because they encounter (semi)-alien, socio-economic and cultural environments but also because components of their identity mentioned above realign along different trajectories, and this realignment undoubtedly affects the way they interact in the new environment. To explore this territory, I analyze Monique Truong's The Book of Salt, Peter Bacho's Cebu, Linh Dinh's "Prisoner with a Dictionary" and "'!'," and Gish Jen's Mona in the Promised Land.

Orientador: Maria Dolores Aybar Ramirez / Resumo: Ao nos decidirmos, inicialmente, por um levantamento arqueológico de mulheres escritoras árabes/muçulmanas para uma escolha posterior de obras que nos levassem a um maior conhecimento dessa literatura, deparamos com a escassez de traduções e publicações no Brasil, em comparação com o grande número existente em outros países, principalmente da Europa e da América do Norte. Acreditamos que isso se deva a maior presença dessas mulheres escritoras em tais continentes, gerando um fascínio pelo exótico, mas também um misto de atração e repulsão, sempre acompanhado de estereótipos, já enraizados pelo orientalismo. No Brasil, no entanto, salvo raras exceções, as editoras voltaram-se quase que exclusivamente para as autobiografias de mulheres que tecem duras críticas aos seus países de origem, às suas leis, à situação e normas de conduta para as mulheres, na maioria restritivas e opressoras, reafirmando uma imagem já impregnada de preconceitos. Vemos assim que a oferta de publicações em nosso país também nos impede uma visão mais abrangente e nos força a ratificar impressões essencialistas que em nada contribuem para o conhecimento e possível fruição da literatura produzida por essas mulheres, agora veladas, inclusive, por questões mercadológicas que camuflam e perpetuam as mesmas visões engessadas. Na tentativa de fugir desses relatos, sempre carregados de perseguição e dor, priorizamos para o nosso estudo o romance Meu nome é Salma, da autora jordaniano-britânica Fadia Faqir pois su... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: When deciding, initially, for an archaeological survey of Arab/Muslim women writers for a later choice of works which would lead us to a greater knowledge of this literature, we faced the scarcity of translations and publications in Brazil, in comparison with the large number which exists in other countries, mainly in Europe and North America. We believe that this is due to the greater presence of these women writers in such continents, creating a fascination with the exotic, but also a mixture of attraction and repulsion, always accompanied by stereotypes, already rooted by Orientalism. In Brazil, however, with a few rare exceptions, publishers turned almost exclusively to the autobiographies of women who harshly criticize their countries of origin, their laws, the situation and rules of conduct for women, most of which are restrictive and oppressive, reaffirming an image already steeped in prejudice. We thus see that the supply of publications in our country also prevents us from taking a more comprehensive view and forces us to ratify essentialist impressions which in no way contribute to the knowledge and possible enjoyment of the literature produced by these women, now veiled, by marketing issues which camouflage and perpetuate the same plastered visions. So as to escape these accounts, always laden with persecution and pain, we prioritized the novel My name is Salma, by the Jordanian-British author Fadia Faqir because her narrative, written in English, involves other di... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

<p>This thesis examines sexual trauma in Lydia Kwa’s <em>This Place Called Absence</em> (2000), <em>Pulse</em> (2010), and <em>The Walking Boy</em> (2005), and establishes how the domain of sexuality becomes operative in post-trauma healing. This project engages not only the traditional, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder model of trauma, but, using Laura Brown and Maria Root, expands the definition of trauma by drawing attention to the insidious, everyday trauma that affects minority groups and sexual minorities. Kwa’s novels reveal the dynamics and complexities of sexual trauma, which encompasses acts of sexual violence such as rape and abuse, but also what is rarely acknowledged – the trauma that queer individuals face in a heteronormative society. This thesis also investigates the possibility of healing sexual trauma and locates viable modes of therapy in the area of sexuality, including sexual intimacy, sexual practices such as erotic bondage, and the formation of queer communities. This project seeks to illuminate the connections between queerness and trauma, and, via Kwa’s fiction, considers alternative avenues of healing and therapy beyond the medical field.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

[pt] O presente estudo tem como objeto de investigação a produção escrita contemporânea de mulheres negras e sua inserção no mercado editorial brasileiro. Partindo do pressuposto de que, desde o século XIX, com o surgimento da primeira romancista brasileira Maria Firmina dos Reis, e da poeta Auta de Souza, e ao longo século XX, com o surgimento de novas autoras, cujas obras lançadas sofreram processos de apagamento, descontinuidade e errante intermitência, deixando enorme lacuna sobre suas produções, o meio literário brasileiro continua seletivo e excludente. Estudos acadêmicos e análises empíricas apontam questões de desigualdades socioeconômica, raça, gênero e sexualidade como entraves para a visibilidade das obras de mulheres afrodescendentes, logo a investigação dos processos que inviabilizam o reconhecimento desse grupo deve partir de uma perspectiva crítica, interseccional e decolonial, em consonância com a ressignificação de elementos culturais afro-brasileiros presentes em grande parte dessas obras. O século XXI configura-se como um momento de afirmação para a produção feminina afrodescendente, vivemos o despertar de uma memória ancestral coletiva, uma Primavera Literária Afro-brasileira de forte tons femininos. O estudo irá analisar algumas obras em prosa e verso lançadas nas duas últimas décadas, observado os processos, progressos e desafios ocorridos neste período, bem como a relação entre o surgimento de novas autoras afrodescendentes e a emergência de significativo número de editoras independentes, que tem levado a um aquecimento do meio editorial, bem como a uma autocrítica sobre a incipiente presença de autoras afrodescendentes em catálogos de grandes editoras. / [en] The presente study has as its object of investigation the contemporary written production of black women and their insertion in the brazilian publishing market. Based on the assumption that, since the 19th century, with the emergence of first brazilian novelist Firmina dos Reis, and the poet Auta de Souza, and throughout the 20th century, with new authors s emergence, whose published works have undergone erasure processes, discontinuity and errant intermittence, leaving huge gap in their productions, the brazilian literary space remains selective and excluding. Academic studies and empirical analyzes point out issues of socioeconomic inequalities, race, gender and sexuality as obstacles to the visibility of afrodescendant women s works, therefore, the analysis of the processes that make the recognition of this group unfeasible, must start from a critical, intersectional and decolonial perspective, in line with the reframing of afro-brazilian cultural elements present in most of these works. The 21th century is configured as a moment of affirmation for afro-descendant female production, we live an awakening of a collective ancestral memory, an Afro-brazilian Literary Spring with strong feminine tones. The study will analyze some works in prose and verse relesead in the last two decades, observing the processes, progress and challenges that ocurred in this period, as well as the relationship between the appearance of new afro-descendant authors and the emergence of significant number of independent publishers, wich has led to a warming of the editorial environment, as well as a self-criticism about the incipient presence of afro-descendant authors in catalogs of major publishers.

<p>This dissertation investigates the traumatic legacies of colonialism, imperialism and authoritarianism in Southeast Asia, the diasporic conditions of Southeast Asian refugees in North America after 1975, and the relationship among literature, ethics, and reconciliation more broadly. Focusing primarily on contemporary novels that intervene in the cultural memory of the Cambodian genocide, the War in Viet Nam, and the World War II Japanese Occupation of Malaysia, my dissertation conceptualizes an intimate politics of reconciliation that routes the study of justice foremost through questions of affect, epistemology and ethics. An intimate politics of reconciliation, I argue, encapsulates a constellation of intimate memorial acts—ritual, testimony, collaboration, gifting, and narrative reconstruction—that operate within and against macro-political and juridical modalities of justice. My research highlights productive scenes of convergence between discourses of post-genocide reconciliation and alternative spiritual cosmologies, between refugee collaborative writing and theories of gifting, and between theories of forgetting and social and psychic reparation. In arguing that Southeast Asian diasporic genealogies paradoxically foreground the necessity of both remembering and forgetting in the collective work of reconciliation, this dissertation engages with and challenges two key theoretical paradigms in Asian American Studies—a politics of social justice premised upon a discourse of “subjectlessness” and a psychoanalytic paradigm of productive melancholia theory.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This dissertation examines literary representations of the intersection between British imperialism and British and British-modeled public schools. I categorize British writers who have addressed this nexus in their literary works into two groups, idealists and realists, based on their views of British public schools, imperialism, and the effectiveness of the former in sustaining the latter. I present two examples of idealists, Henry Newbolt and the contributors to The Boy's Own Paper, followed by two examples of realists, Rudyard Kipling and E. M. Forster, who have often been viewed as opposites. I then provide an example of a South-Asian diasporic realist, Selvaduari, who builds upon the critiques of British realists by revealing the contemporary offspring of the marriage between British public schools and imperialism. By analyzing works by idealist and realist authors, I demonstrate the importance of public schools and school literature in promoting and sustaining as well as critiquing and condemning imperialism. / text

Mulberry and Peach is a novel written in the 1970s by a Chinese American writer named Nie Hualing (1925- ). It contains overlapping letters and diaries with flashbacks and flashforwards in first-person narration. Taohong is the new identity after Sangqing’s schizophrenia in the USA in 1969-1970. The book starts with Taohong’s letter, which introduces the main female character Sangqing´s life stories, told through her diaries between 1945-the 1970s in four places of her diasporic lives from mainland China to Taiwan, then the USA. The aim of this thesis is to explore the title of the book, the prologue and the epilogue, Sangqing’s first Dairy on Qutang Gorge (1945), and the four letters from Taohong, using the close reading method and combining the theories and concepts of characterization and symbolism, impressionistic, female aesthetic, intertextuality in literature and the cultural symbols for a deep and detailed text reading analysis.

À travers une étude des œuvres de la littérature moderne dans le monde arabe et ses diasporas, ma thèse de doctorat porte sur l'autonomisation et l’agentivité des sujets masculins arabes queer alors qu'ils déstabilisent les binaires traditionnels et les constructions essentialistes des identités. En déconstruisant l'altérité mutuelle entre Orient et Occident et l'altérisation des homosexuels arabes tant par l'Orient que par l'Occident, je démontre la vulnérabilité de tels discours face à la fluidité, l'intersectionnalité et l'évolution constante des identités. Le premier chapitre étudie les implications des rencontres coloniales passées, des conflits et des relations de pouvoir sur les discours et les conceptions actuelles de la sexualité homosexuelle dans le monde arabe. Il examine également l'influence de l'altérité occidentale/orientale sur l'évolution de l'homoérotisme arabe et le déploiement de la “queerness” comme outil politique d'exclusion. Je considère à fond des concepts clés discutés par des auteurs comme Joseph Massad et Jaspir Puar, y compris “l'Internationale Gay”, l'universalisation de l'homosexualité, l'hégémonie occidentale, l'exception occidentale, “l'homonationalisme” et le “pinkwashing”. Tout en reconnaissant l'importance de tels concepts pour une compréhension nuancée du discours occidental sur les droits de la personne et des revendications libératrices, je maintiens qu'elles contribuent à l'altérisation des activistes arabes queer et des individus qui cherchent à être reconnus publiquement et nient leur pouvoir en les présentant comme manipulés par l'Occident. Le deuxième chapitre montre que les représentations des personnages homosexuels dans la fiction arabe moderne sont limitées et limitantes car elles restent confinées dans des dichotomies actif/passif, masculin/féminin, dominant/soumis, etc. Les représentations de l’homosexualité masculine dans ce chapitre l'associent à la déviance, à la perversion et au viol, et la situent dans des relations inégales et déséquilibrées motivées par l'exploitation matérielle ou le désir d'exercer un pouvoir. Le troisième chapitre explore les représentations de l'homosexualité dans les œuvres contemporaines d'écrivains arabes queer des diasporas. Ce chapitre suit les Arabes queer alors qu'ils se déplacent au-delà des frontières, habitent des lieux intersectionnels, intermédiaires et proposent de nouvelles possibilités d'existence au mépris des attentes et des identifications imposées. Ce faisant, ils résistent à leur altérité tant chez eux qu'en diaspora et témoignent de la complexité, de la mobilité et de la multiplicité des identités postcoloniales. Ma thèse souligne l'importance d'embrasser la diversité et de se réconcilier avec les différents aspects de l'identité afin de lutter contre toutes formes de discrimination, de racisme et de stéréotypes, et de favoriser l'acceptation et la tolérance. / Through a study of works of contemporary literature in the Arab world and its diasporas, my doctoral thesis addresses the empowerment and agency of queer Arab male subjects as they destabilize traditional binaries and essentialist constructions of identities. By deconstructing mutual Othering between East and West and the Othering of Arab homosexuals both by the East and the West, I demonstrate the vulnerability of such discourses in the face of the fluidity, intersectionality, and the constant evolving of identities. The first chapter studies the implications of past colonial encounters, conflicts, and relations of power on present discourses and conceptions of same-sex sexuality in the Arab world. It also examines the influence of Western/Eastern Othering on the evolution of Arab homoeroticism and the deployment of queerness as a political tool for exclusion. I delve into key concepts discussed by authors like Joseph Massad and Jaspir Puar, including the “Gay International”, the universalizing of gayness, Western hegemony, Western exceptionalism, “homonationalism” and “pinkwashing”. While recognizing the importance of such concepts to a nuanced understanding of Western human rights discourse and liberatory claims, I argue that they contribute to the Othering of queer Arab activists and individuals who seek public recognition and deny their agency by presenting them as manipulated by the West. The second chapter shows that representations of homosexual characters in modern Arabic fiction are limited and limiting as they remain confined to dichotomies of active/passive, masculine/feminine, dominant/submissive, etc. The depictions of male-male sexuality in this chapter associate it with deviance, perversion, and rape, and situate it within unequal, unbalanced relationships driven by material exploitation or a desire to exert power. The third chapter explores representations of homosexuality in contemporary works by queer Arab writers in diasporas. This chapter follows queer Arabs as they move beyond borders, inhabit intersectional, in-between locations, and propose new possibilities of existence, in defiance of expectations and imposed identifications. By doing so, they resist their Othering both at home and in diaspora and attest to the complexity, mobility, and multiplicity of postcolonial identities. My research highlights the importance of embracing diversity and reconciling with different aspects of identity in order to fight against all forms of discrimination, racism and stereotypes, and of fostering acceptance and tolerance.