Thesis--Catholic University of America. / Bibliography: p. 67-73.

This thesis examines the workings of “home” for the displaced individual in contemporary contexts: whether a counterpoint for disorientation arising from displacement, for example, or an attempt to assert control in the very process of identity negotiation across geographical distances, “home” in the novels of White Teeth by Zadie Smith and Ignorance by Milan Kundera, especially, offer an important study of the quest for home through an unexpected anchor of exile. The signifier of ultimate security and belonging in pre-modern eras, God has been destabilized in the post-war, contemporary context. “Home,” like the notional God, that is, has been destabilized by social forces of the diaspora, where “home,” in addition to the physical native place of birth or permanent place of shelter, can take on forms of imaginary exile/unbelonging within the same place without physical estrangement; as Martin Heidegger recognizes home can paradoxically be constituted as a form of control, namely from the inside out: from the existential feeling of “not being at home.” Samad, Irena and Josef of White Teeth and Ignorance, respectively, are analyzed on their alternative quests for control of identity. Replacing the trace of God with a trace now of “home,” Samad, Irena and Josef face limitless freedom outside their native and geographic contexts, which entails at the same time a sense of disorientation. They feel compelled to achieve meaningful identity based on a left-over notion of “home,” or, in the converse, to utilize what they control as “home” to avoid at least self-annihilation. This thesis contends in the contemporary narratives studied that there is a tendency for the individual to avoid estrangement or perceived unnatural “provisional” separations from the idea of “home”; and, second, therefore to seek to control of identity formation in the name of seeking “home.” Such control is desired by reflex of aversion to estrangement, which can be felt with the liberation from God or the distances from the geographies or assumptions of “home.” This thesis will expound, therefore, upon the stages of estrangement through, first, an initial and tentative placement of “home”; then, displacement through physical departure; exile revisited; attempts at re-placement along a nostalgic trace of belonging toward a “home” in the identity negotiation; and the “returnability” of the displaced person to adopt a native “home” after prolonged absence. In conclusion, considering the placement of the self somewhere, in order to gain control over identity inside an environment of dis-placement; in physical and updated “exile” away from place of birth; or even in the form of tragic imagination to be discussed, a trace of “home” (like an absent “god” in Waiting for Godot, for example) cannot be relinquished altogether as a point of reference for reinvention of identity while it can still be reinvented and updated at the same time. However, even this trace remains an illusion of the displaced person, reflecting an ache for certainty of roots as a point of reference for identity formation, rather than a route, running backwards or forwards, towards a feasible alternative “home.” / published_or_final_version / English / Master / Master of Philosophy

Thesis--Catholic University of America. / Bibliography: p. 67-73.

This collection of poems engages narratives of geographical and emotional displacement on a journey toward a place from which to begin writing. The inciting narrative is one of travel - Brazil, to England, and to adulthood. A second narrative emerges as a gradual realization that these first displacements will never be truly resolved and that this lack of resolution is the only occasion from which to write. As the collection continues, the speaker of these poems is less and less comfortable with pronouncement and more and more comfortable with action. The act of doing something - moving, driving, walking, escaping, returning, floating down a river of ice - is what creates the silence needed to proceed. Through the body, deafening directives can be temporarily suspended. / by Elizabeth Rodrigues. / Thesis (M.F.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2008. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2008. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on March 19, 2010). Thesis advisor: Professor Josephine Stealey. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of English, General Literature and Rhetoric, 2006.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2004. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 198-207).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--York University, 2003. Graduate Programme in Women's Studies. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 196-202). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pNQ99173

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Technology: Fine Art, Durban University of Technology, Durban, South Africa, 2015. / This dissertation sets out to investigate cultural dislocation in the work of Leora Farber (1964), Viviane Sassen (1972), George Alamidis (1954) and my art practice. The paper begins by highlighting the importance of this study and defines terminology for the purpose of this research. In addition an explanation of the research methodology used is provided. The study is contextualised through a discussion of writings by Stuart Hall (1997), Edward Said (1987), Heidi Armbruster (2010), Chloe Sells (2011), Katheryn Woodward (1997), Michel Foucault (1967), Leora Farber (2012) and Lorin Friesen (2013). An analysis of the selected artists’ work reveals an investigation of cultural dislocation within diverse cultural contexts. Farber investigates her position as a second generation Jewish woman in post- colonial, post-Apartheid South Africa through the use of three protagonists. She does this in an attempt to create a lasting Jewish / South African hybrid identity. She explores not only her Jewish heritage and its connotations, but also the changing notions of white identity in post 1994 South Africa. Sassen, in her photographic depiction of obscured African subjects, challenges the viewer’s perceptions of Africa and positions herself as being ‘in-between’ Africa and the Netherlands, where she “will always be the stranger … and will never be part of the culture” (Sassen in Jaeger 2010). Alamidis’ work explores cultural dislocation in the context of migration, eloquently expressed through the use of the identity cards of 1950s Greek immigrants as visual metaphors for the loss of identity. I explore cultural dislocation through the history of three female protagonists (my grandmother, mother and myself) and their migration between the Netherlands and Southern Africa. The protagonists’ cultural narratives provide an historical context for a discussion of my art practice in the form of an exhibition titled Discovering Home. The conclusion outlines the research findings and identifies possible areas of future research. The main research finding reveals that the formation of a new subject identity, post migration, is dependent on a specific (historical) time and (geographical and psychological) space. An area of possible future research, in the context of cultural dislocation, is the use of Foucault’s (1967) theory of heterotopias to explore the idea of the ‘third space’ functioning as a personal heterotopia. / M

Cities in Dust is a collection of 15 short stories and the first two chapters of Biggest Little City, a novel-in-progress. This collection looks at queerness, gender, sex work, addiction, illness, and the effects of displacement--leaving homes, cities, relationships, and theoretical safety before we are ready. Cities in Dust works to tell stories from the space between places and the moment between moments. Transition is a city of its own.