Thesis (M.A.) -- Central Connecticut State University, 2010. / Thesis advisor: Aimee Pozorski. "... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Art in English Literature." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 88-89). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

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This thesis is a selective study of Postmodern literature, focusing on the work of Alasdair Gray and Salman Rushdie. Postmodern literature is an expression of and response to the profound uncertainty that characterises the late-twentieth century. The works of many diverse authors attempt to come to terms with the Postmodern situation, which Jürgen Habermas has described as `the legitimation crisis'. The Enlightenment metanarratives that legitimise Western, industrial societies, have been undermined by Capitalism and events. We no longer accept general metanarratives and this generates profound uncertainty. As Postmodern literature challenges the incomplete certainties of grandnarratives, such as religious and political ideologies, it adopts uncertain forms. Texts create series of debates because these dramatise our conflicting uncertainties and our reluctance to accept, set positions, and answers that erroneously claim to be universal and absolute. By presenting issues in conflict without offering a set conclusion, fiction is able to bring its readers actively into the arguments and find a role for itself within society. The uncertainty of the present has contributed to an impression that we have lost a sense of connection with the past and future and therefore continuous identity. Postmodern novels tend to concentrate upon the struggles of the present in order to free the future from both restrictive traditional visions and the paralysing present. The future finally emerges as the direct product of the past and present, but we can also begin to imagine it as something radically different. Postmodern literature does not create new metanarratives, it legitimises a tense and provisional relationship with society that helps peoples to live in an uncertain world while not surrendering to it.

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In Derek Attridge's J.M. Coetzee and the Ethics of Reading (2004), the novel is referred to as "an ethically charged event, one that befalls individual readers and, at the same time, the culture within which, and through which, they read" (xii). The ethical positions of individuals, communities and cultures are addressed through one of the most explosive issues in imaginative fiction: "the right to speak." What happens when a novelist not only encroaches on the values of an ethnic group or religion but also speaks on their behalf, as if from within that community or belief? This question has become especially charged with the emergence since the 1960s of "cultural politics": the identification of a political viewpoint within each discrete community in a multicultural society, and the resolute claim by each community to represent its history and values in its own terms. I consider this question by way of the responses to two novels: William Styron's The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967) and Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses (1988). Both of these novels were highly controversial when they were released, inciting anger among minority groups because they transgressed the limits of representation. Styron's novel challenged the right to speak because, as a White man, he attempted to portray the consciousness of a Black slave. The African-American community, during a time of upheaval, radicalism and assertion of their power, responded with vitriol, arguing that Styron's novel was a racist, stereotypical, appropriation of Black history. The allegedly blasphemous portrayal of Islam in Rushdie's Satanic Verses created even greater controversy throughout the Islamic world and British Muslim community - their anger amplified by a feeling of betrayal by one of their own. These novels illustrate the ethical dilemmas of the representations of minority groups and make urgent the question of whom has the right to speak for them in literature. Increasingly the tensions between individualistic White liberal ideology and communitarian sensitivities about the representation of their cultures, religions, histories and identities are being contested through the site of the novel. Satanic Verses and Nat Turner demonstrate the challenges faced by multicultural societies when liberals and communitarians force themselves into a manufactured binary through which no effective debate can take place. While the novelist's right to speak should be defended precisely because of the ethical dilemmas that can be presented by literature, freedom of speech is never absolute. The "ethical event" of the novel requires a more nuanced response, which recognises both the valuable and the potentially destructive nature of literature.

Salman Rushdie is one of the world’s most pre-eminent writers of contemporary literature. He is best known as a literary author who has written the controversial religious satire in The Satanic Verses, which brought him a prolonged death threat imposed by Islamic authorities. The novel Midnight’s Children won the prestigious Booker of Bookers prize in 1993 and the Best of the Booker award in 2008. Throughout his writing career, however, he has exceeded his role as a novelist and shown his commitment to using his fame and cultural authority to open debates and publicize his opinions on social and religious issues and world politics. This thesis analyses the various aspects of controversies surrounding Rushdie, as an elite transnational author, a literary celebrity, a public intellectual and an outspoken critic on sensitive topics. It comes to examine the social significance of public personas and the nature of complexity embedded in their career. Rushdie’s presence draws the media’s attention, and more often than not, instigates international disputes and contentions. By looking at different aspects of Rushdie’s identity, the thesis addresses controversies raised by his diverse roles and his traversing of spaces in the cultural industry – in academia, the book market, public forums, talk shows, celebrity jamborees and even fashion magazine dinner parties. As an elite postcolonial writer, does his iconic status “compromise” him in the literary field by the generation of exotic cultural stereotypes and the exploitation of his Indian upbringing? What can literary and cultural critics do to work beyond condemning this trend? As a literary celebrity and public intellectual, do his involvements in publicity activities and New York’s celebrity circuit make him abandon the professional integrity and the time-honored “disinterested” position of the writer? How should the reader understand the connections between the media and the author, and the novel and popular culture? In addition, given his deeply skeptical position on religious matters, how does the writer understand the world of Islam, and how does this understanding underpin his antagonistic relationship with the fundamentalists? Addressing these questions, the thesis is by no means an account of a single writer’s life and career, but suggests that the complexity of intellectual life in general is made necessary in a cultural landscape saturated with media hype, publicity maneuvers and commoditization. In such contexts, writers exploring their time must, in different degrees, participate actively in what they write against, and be implicated in these processes. Under the influence of the market, the change in social trends and with their aspired career in mind, it seems that there can be no non-involvement for these individuals. Yet, by taking the case of Rushdie, I also argue that implicit in the novelist’s self-conscious manipulation of his diverse roles and the parodic metafiction in his work are important indications about the image construction of controversial public personas, the cultural meaning of the novelist as a public intellectual, and the implicated career that a writer may have at the turn of the century.

Salman Rushdie is one of the world’s most pre-eminent writers of contemporary literature. He is best known as a literary author who has written the controversial religious satire in The Satanic Verses, which brought him a prolonged death threat imposed by Islamic authorities. The novel Midnight’s Children won the prestigious Booker of Bookers prize in 1993 and the Best of the Booker award in 2008. Throughout his writing career, however, he has exceeded his role as a novelist and shown his commitment to using his fame and cultural authority to open debates and publicize his opinions on social and religious issues and world politics. This thesis analyses the various aspects of controversies surrounding Rushdie, as an elite transnational author, a literary celebrity, a public intellectual and an outspoken critic on sensitive topics. It comes to examine the social significance of public personas and the nature of complexity embedded in their career. Rushdie’s presence draws the media’s attention, and more often than not, instigates international disputes and contentions. By looking at different aspects of Rushdie’s identity, the thesis addresses controversies raised by his diverse roles and his traversing of spaces in the cultural industry – in academia, the book market, public forums, talk shows, celebrity jamborees and even fashion magazine dinner parties. As an elite postcolonial writer, does his iconic status “compromise” him in the literary field by the generation of exotic cultural stereotypes and the exploitation of his Indian upbringing? What can literary and cultural critics do to work beyond condemning this trend? As a literary celebrity and public intellectual, do his involvements in publicity activities and New York’s celebrity circuit make him abandon the professional integrity and the time-honored “disinterested” position of the writer? How should the reader understand the connections between the media and the author, and the novel and popular culture? In addition, given his deeply skeptical position on religious matters, how does the writer understand the world of Islam, and how does this understanding underpin his antagonistic relationship with the fundamentalists? Addressing these questions, the thesis is by no means an account of a single writer’s life and career, but suggests that the complexity of intellectual life in general is made necessary in a cultural landscape saturated with media hype, publicity maneuvers and commoditization. In such contexts, writers exploring their time must, in different degrees, participate actively in what they write against, and be implicated in these processes. Under the influence of the market, the change in social trends and with their aspired career in mind, it seems that there can be no non-involvement for these individuals. Yet, by taking the case of Rushdie, I also argue that implicit in the novelist’s self-conscious manipulation of his diverse roles and the parodic metafiction in his work are important indications about the image construction of controversial public personas, the cultural meaning of the novelist as a public intellectual, and the implicated career that a writer may have at the turn of the century.

Salman Rushdie is one of the world’s most pre-eminent writers of contemporary literature. He is best known as a literary author who has written the controversial religious satire in The Satanic Verses, which brought him a prolonged death threat imposed by Islamic authorities. The novel Midnight’s Children won the prestigious Booker of Bookers prize in 1993 and the Best of the Booker award in 2008. Throughout his writing career, however, he has exceeded his role as a novelist and shown his commitment to using his fame and cultural authority to open debates and publicize his opinions on social and religious issues and world politics. This thesis analyses the various aspects of controversies surrounding Rushdie, as an elite transnational author, a literary celebrity, a public intellectual and an outspoken critic on sensitive topics. It comes to examine the social significance of public personas and the nature of complexity embedded in their career. Rushdie’s presence draws the media’s attention, and more often than not, instigates international disputes and contentions. By looking at different aspects of Rushdie’s identity, the thesis addresses controversies raised by his diverse roles and his traversing of spaces in the cultural industry – in academia, the book market, public forums, talk shows, celebrity jamborees and even fashion magazine dinner parties. As an elite postcolonial writer, does his iconic status “compromise” him in the literary field by the generation of exotic cultural stereotypes and the exploitation of his Indian upbringing? What can literary and cultural critics do to work beyond condemning this trend? As a literary celebrity and public intellectual, do his involvements in publicity activities and New York’s celebrity circuit make him abandon the professional integrity and the time-honored “disinterested” position of the writer? How should the reader understand the connections between the media and the author, and the novel and popular culture? In addition, given his deeply skeptical position on religious matters, how does the writer understand the world of Islam, and how does this understanding underpin his antagonistic relationship with the fundamentalists? Addressing these questions, the thesis is by no means an account of a single writer’s life and career, but suggests that the complexity of intellectual life in general is made necessary in a cultural landscape saturated with media hype, publicity maneuvers and commoditization. In such contexts, writers exploring their time must, in different degrees, participate actively in what they write against, and be implicated in these processes. Under the influence of the market, the change in social trends and with their aspired career in mind, it seems that there can be no non-involvement for these individuals. Yet, by taking the case of Rushdie, I also argue that implicit in the novelist’s self-conscious manipulation of his diverse roles and the parodic metafiction in his work are important indications about the image construction of controversial public personas, the cultural meaning of the novelist as a public intellectual, and the implicated career that a writer may have at the turn of the century.