published_or_final_version / abstract / Comparative Literature / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / English Studies / Master / Master of Arts

The thesis examines Greek short stories written and published since the fall of the dictatorship in Greece in 1974, a year marking the beginning of the country's increasing opening to western lifestyles, mentalities and preoccupations. The present research explores two questions: How do Greek short stories of this period respond to the challenges of the postmodern condition, and what is the picture of the postmodern that one could draw from these texts. To this goal more than a hundred short stories are examined, by Sotiris Dimitriou, Michel Fais, Rhea Galanaki, E. Ch. Gonatas, Yiorgos loannou, Christophoros Milionis, Dimitris Nollas, I. Ch. Papadimitrakopoulos, Ersi Sotiropoulou, Christos Vakalopoulos, and Zyranna Zateli. The thesis is structured on a thematic basis, studying the major themes of reality and the subject, in order to evaluate the kind and degree of subversion that this fundamental bipolar axis of modern thought is undergoing in the postmodern condition. The readings are informed by contemporary theory, ranging from microhistory and Bakhtinian dialogism to poststructuralism and deconstruction, Levinas's ethical theory and Wittgensteinian language games. The textual analysis reveals that the traditional notion of reality as a unified totality is coming under severe strain; the critique mounted by the texts ranges from negative recognition of cosmological plurality through epistemological failure to an increasingly positive recognition of multiple incommensurate universes, be that by means of metafiction or, more radically still, a magic realism that transcends the world of the text to imbue performatively the world of the reader. The reality of the past in the form of historical truth is another target of scrutiny, as the unearthing of multiple insignificant, private and a-systemic events undermines the formerly dominant monolithic representations of the past and uncover its discursive construction, thereby facilitating the emergence of marginal historical subjects by means of fictional terms. Accordingly, the subject is no longer represented as a dominant and autonomous agent but as discursively constructed within a web of power relations. Yet this predicament creates the potential for a narrative identity and an alternative ethics founded on the acknowledgment of difference and interpersonal relations. Lastly, games, and especially language games, as a particular trope of merging reality and the subject, signal the cultural determination of irredeemable difference and plurality that is a constant in postmodern critique. Apart from suggesting the significance of the texts studied and proposing novel approaches to them, the thesis also promotes the re-evaluation of the short story as a genre in the study of the contemporary, while at the same time offering a detailed account of particular instances of postmodern critique on the fundaments of modern thought.

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在過去的二十年中，隨著1989 年的革命（以及之後突進的新自由主義經濟政策），信息和通信技術（ICT）的擴散，世界經歷了急劇變化。但高等教育，尤其是英文文學研究有没有根據這一時期的文化、經濟、社會和政治的情況來修正呢？本論文探討從現代主義美學和片面國家論述的小說（英文書寫的），過渡到一個文化和政治驅動並行的後現代形式，及反映一個日益全球化和全球意識的二十一世紀引人注目的問題。通過當代小說的新自由主義全球化的測試 ──或者也被稱為後現代的情况和晚期資本主義的文化邏輯──我們了解世界據稱走向非殖民化只不過掩飾另一種殖民方式，導致葛蘭西的霸權理論效果，使馬克思主義理論的社會力量轉變成促使不同階級的政治權力形式，取決於一個非常關鍵的因素- 共識。 / The world has experienced rapid changes in the last twenty years concomitant of the Revolutions of 1989 (and the subsequent onrush of neoliberal economic policies) and the proliferation of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), but has higher ed,and particularly, the study of English literature modified in accordance to the cultural, economic, social, and political circumstances of the period? This thesis explores the compelling question by illustrating the transition of contemporary literary fiction (written in English) from modernist aesthetics and one-sided national discourse into a culturally and politically driven postmodern form to parallel and reflect an increasingly global and globally aware 21st century. Through contemporary fiction’s examination of neoliberal globalization - or perhaps what is also known as the postmodern condition and cultural logic of late capitalism - we come to understand a return of colonization in a world allegedly moving towards decolonization. What results is the Gramscian theory of hegemony, which gives rise to a Marxist theory of the transformation of social forces into forms of political power adequate to different class projects that depends on a very crucial factor - consensus. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Tchan, Chrystal Ching. / "December 2012." / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2013. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 105-110). / Abstracts also in Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Table of Contents --- p.ii / Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter One: --- Nationalism and the Decline of Empire --- p.15 / Chapter Chapter Two: --- The Reflexive Resurgence of Local and National Formations in Hari Kunzru’s Transmission --- p.42 / Chapter Chapter Three: --- Technocapitalizing Spooks in William Gibson’s Spook Country --- p.66 / Conclusion --- p.103 / Bibliography --- p.105

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Hans Lodeizen is reeds in 1950 oorlede en alhoewel sy bundel Het lnnerlijk behang reeds meer herdrukke beleef het as enige bundel van bekender Vyftigers soos Remco Campert en Hans Andreus, het daar tot dusver sIegs twee krltiese studies en verder korter artikels oor sy digkuns verskyn. Heelwat kritici wys ook op die romantiese trekke in sy digkuns, maar soos bevestig deur De Rover, is daar nog nie aandag gegee aan wat hierdie "romantiek" dan werklik behels nie. As 'n mens die gedigte van Hans Lodeizen en die kritiese werke daaroor lees, word dit gou duidelik dat daar oënskynlik sterk romantiese trekke in sy digkuns aanwesig is, maar dat dit tog nie suiwer romantiek is nle. Soos Rodenko dit uitdruk: "hij is geen romanticus-uit-één-stuk, maar een gebroken romanticus." Deur twee kritici, nl. Stuiveling en Cartens word hy onderskeidelik egter as ekspressionis en surrealis bestempel. Wanneer ons verder in aanmerking neem dat Lodeizen algemeen aanvaar word as die voorloper, of as lid van die Vyftigers wat skerp van die Romantiek verskil, ontstaan die vraag of dit geregverdig is om Lodeizen as 'n "gebroke" of wat-dan-ook-al romantikus te beskou. Die doel van hierdie tesis is dan om na te gean in hoeverre daar weI sprake van romantiese nalewing in sy digkuns is en of dit net nawerking is. In aansluiting by Ziolkowski sal ons van nalewing praat wanneer 'n sekere gegewe, wat ons op grond van die ontleding van die Romantiek in die eerste hoofstuk as "romanties" ervaar, uit die gees van 'n moderne werk spruit. As nawerking beskou ons dan daardie gevalle waar dit duidelik is, dat ons met 'n teksgedeelte oneie aan die gees van die res van die teks te make het, wat nie op die selfde tydsvlak bestaan nie as die teks waarin dit ingebed is. Aangesien nalewing georiënteer is op die ideologiese inhoud van 'n algemene geesteshouding soos dit in die literêre denke tot uitdrukking kom, moet daar eers vasgestel word of daar wel so 'n gedagtekompleks by verskillende Romantiese digters aan te toon is, want slegs enkele, losstaande elemente vorm nog geensins 'n geesteshoudlng of styl nie. Dit is dan die doel van die volgende hoofstuk, terwyl die daaropvolgende hoofstukke sal probeer vasstel of die hoofkenmerke van die tipologiese romantiek wel in die werk van Hans Lodeizen aanwesig is.

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