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1	Race, Space, and Narrative: Spatial Reading and Racial Literacy in Contemporary Multifocal American Novels Erika Gotfredson (16558647) 18 July 2023 (has links) <p>This dissertation identifies four American novels published between 2016 and 2018—Colson Whitehead’s <em>The Underground Railroad</em> (2016), Jesmyn Ward’s <em>Sing, Unburied, Sing</em> (2017), Celeste Ng’s <em>Little Fires Everywhere</em> (2017), and Tommy Orange’s <em>There There</em> (2018)—that deploy a multifocal narrative structure to facilitate readers’ ethical engagement with their content. Specifically, these novels’ narrative structures guide readers through spatial reading, or reading across numerous characters’ perspectives of a shared space instead of with the grain of chronological time. Contextualizing these novels within the nation’s shifting racial beliefs initiated by the election of Barack Obama in 2008 and the election of Donald Trump in 2016, I argue that, in these novels, multifocalization and the spatial reading it activates dismantle the cognitive schemas and cultural discourses that sustain unjust racial ideologies. Spatial reading engages readers in acts of rereading and contextualization that diverge from the practices of generalization and erasure affiliated with myths of racial progress and the rhetoric of colorblindness, and it accordingly builds readers’ capacity to acknowledge racism as systemic, structural, and multifaceted. By emphasizing how each novel facilitates readers’ racial literacy, this project diverges from and complicates the widespread belief that the humanities contribute to antiracism by building readerly empathy, instead championing how the humanities impart upon readers the tools to analyze and critique systemic racism. </p> North American literature The Underground Railroad Sing, Unburied, Sing Little Fires Everywhere There There Colson Whitehead Jesmyn Ward Celeste Ng Tommy Orange Racial Literacy Spatial Reading Multifocalization American Literature
2	"Medan detta nya fruktansvärda hände i Kramfors, stod mamma i köket och putsade prästgårdssilvret" : hushållssysslor som hemmets rumsliga praktiker. Thorvall, Johansson och Sandberg / "While these new and horrible things happened in Kramfors, mother was in the kitchen polishing silverware from the rectory" : Household chores as spatial practice in novels by Thorvall, Johansson and Sandberg. Pärsson, Sara January 2015 (has links) This thesis is a study of spatial practice and literary depictions of homes in novels by Elsie Johansson, Kerstin Thorvall and Kristina Sandberg. The theoretical perspective is based on Henri Lefebvre´s view on social space, and on the concept of spatial practice. Research questions are: What homes are depicted? How does spatial practice function in the texts? How does the depictedspatial practice relate to norms and ideals? The novels, published 1993-2014, depict an interesting period in Swedish history (cirka 1920-1970) when politics and society at large was deeply involved in reshaping the homes and lives of Swedish citizens. The aim was to turn the citizens into new, healthy and rational parts of the new and rational society. Housewives where put in a position where the new rational housekeeping clashed with the standards and practices of earlier generations. Class is found to be a crucial factor in performing and experiencing domesticity in the studied novels. Housewive characters in the Thorvall and Sandberg novels, raised in working class families, struggle in adapting the spatial practice of home in their new middle class environments.Part of the thesis is a discussion on domesticity seen as an adaptive pracitce – catering to the needs of husbands and children. The novels show this, but also depict housework being used as a way to escape unpleasant conversations or forget ones unpleasant feelings. Another task with complex connotations and uses is cleaning. Cleaning in these novels have a strong connection to positive feelings like pleasure and pride, but also to negative feelings of shame and a loss of control. Acting normal to achieve a state of normality within the home and family is a common strategy for the housewives. The material is found to support Lefebvres idea on the importance of spatial practice - sense of home, for the studied housewife characters, is found to be more dependent on spatialpractice than on the home itself. domesticity homemaking spatial practice spatial reading Kerstin Thorvall Elsie Johansson Kristina Sandberg Henri Lefebvre 20th century Sweden housewives Kerstin Thorvall Elsie Johansson Kristina Sandberg hushållsarbete hushållssysslor rumsliga praktiker praktiker Henri Lefebvre rumslig läsning hem husmor husmödrar Yvonne Hirdman genus Sverige folkhemmet

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Race, Space, and Narrative: Spatial Reading and Racial Literacy in Contemporary Multifocal American Novels