"Eastern Europe" in the Mental Map of an English Traveller from the 16th to the 18th Century Abstract The thesis aims to interpret the early modern English/British travel writings about (Central) Eastern Europe. It results in the reconstruction of mental maps of the selected travellers with regard to a typology (merchants, professionals, intellectuals, clergymen, and women). The special attention is paid to the images of marginality, such as inconvenience and danger, ignorance and backwardness, exaggeration and pomp, former splendour and present lamentation, pleasant and unpleasant landscape. The primary sources comprise a selection of fifteen travel writings which are read and interpreted with respect to the development of the genre and to the broader cultural and historical context. The covering concept is a mental map conceived as an imaginary representation of space and as a tool for cultural orientation and self-identification. The reconstruction of the mental maps is performed in four steps. Firstly, by defining the subject (a traveller) within the typology. Secondly, the landmarks (centres) in the mental maps are reconstructed. Thirdly, the images of marginality are presented. Finally, the mental maps are concluded. Methodologically, the thesis is based on the interpretation and language analysis of...

Traveling Women and Consuming Place in Eighteenth-Century Travel Letters and Journals considers how various women-authored travel narratives of the long eighteenth century employ food in the construction of place and identity. Chronologically charting the letters and journals of Delarivier Manley, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Janet Schaw, and Frances Burney, I argue that the “critical food moments” described in their letters and journals demonstrate material, cultural, and social implications about consumption. My interdisciplinary project is located at the intersection of three seemingly divergent topics: food studies, human geography, and women-authored travel narratives. Approaching “place” as a way of being-in-the-world, my project traces the connection between verbal constructions of place and issues of identity, national and gender, across the eighteenth century. Looking at what I term “critical food moments” during travel allows us particular insight into how food simultaneously serves a literal (intended for consumption) and a figurative (used as a literary topic and device) function, and how tropes of food—such as digestion—function as lexicons which offer women writers opportunities to better understand and criticize the nation and their own identities within the nation. I argue that food-centered moments allow us to better understand the lived experiences of women traveling in the eighteenth century, to analyze how material and sensory conditions influenced and shaped women’s understandings of themselves and their positions (places) in the world. Taken together, these four women authors represent a wide-range of perspectives from various social and economic backgrounds, and yet, what they have in common is crucial: a connection with the food, communities, and places they travel.

La vie et l’œuvre de Jane Dieulafoy offrent un témoignage original de la complexité des rapports socio-sexués à la fin du XIXe siècle. Par ses voyages, son travestissement occasionnel, puis permanent, son apport au savoir architectural et archéologique ou encore son rapport à l’écriture, cette femme a remis en cause la frontière sociale entre les sphères privée et publique, sans tenir pour autant un discours subversif ou même féministe. L’étude de La Perse, La Chaldée et la Susiane tente de suivre au plus près les oscillations d’un être à la recherche d’une libération du corps, du mouvement et de l’écriture, mais encore souvent respectueux des contraintes et représentations léguées par l’éducation, la culture et la société. Les transgressions nécessaires à l’accomplissement du but fixé n’en sont pas moins réfléchies et demeurent à l’intérieur du cadre social de l’époque. Il est cependant possible de comprendre les contradictions apparentes de Jane Dieulafoy – et notamment l’union de qualités masculines et féminines - comme une recherche de totalité, rappelant par certains côtés le mythe de l’androgyne. / The life and work of Jane Dieulafoy provide original evidence of the complexity of the gender role relationships at the end of the nineteenth century. Through her journeys, her occasional, then permanent cross-dressing, her contribution to the architectural and archaeological knowledge or her writing style, this woman has challenged the social boundaries between the private and public spheres without resorting to a subversive or even feminist speech. Studying La Perse, la Chaldée et la Susiane allows to closely follow the oscillations of a being in search of the liberation of the body, of freedom of movement and writing, but still often respectful of the constraints and representations inherited from her education, culture and society. The transgressions necessary for her to accomplish this goal are nonetheless well thought-out and remain within the social context of the time. However, it is possible to understand the apparent contradictions of Jane Dieulafoy - particularly the union of masculine and feminine features - as a search for wholeness, recalling in some ways the myth of the androgyne.

No description available.

This study examines how travelogues by the Russian author Anton Chekhov, an American, George Kennan and a British citizen, Harry de Windt, contributed towards establishing the image of Siberia towards the end of the 19th century, juxtaposing their individual views against the commonly perceived view of the region at the time. In examining the texts, a literary analysis is merged with elements of other approaches, through a strong thematic focus, centring on the cultural and ideological assumptions implied in the texts. The findings reveal that both native inhabitants and foreigners are capable of expressing a justifiable opinion on a locality, resulting in different versions of what is observed, from divergent points of view. Although the three writers in this study appear to support a negative view of Siberia, closer investigation show evidence of optimism about the eventual destiny of a region in a stage of transition. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / M.A. (Russian)

Journaliste, essayiste, prosateur, poète, romancier mais aussi à ses heures réalisateur, photographe ou architecte, Curzio Malaparte (1898-1957) reste, malgré un succès public durable qui dépasse largement les frontières italiennes, un oublié de l’histoire littéraire du XXe siècle. S’il suscite actuellement un regain d’intérêt c’est surtout dans la mesure où sa participation aux deux guerres mondiales ainsi que sa trajectoire du fascisme au communisme et au catholicisme en font le miroir des contradictions de son temps. Or, est-ce bien là son principal mérite ? La présente étude propose un parcours à la fois chronologique et thématique dans l’œuvre malapartienne en s’appuyant sur l’analyse du rapport entre l’univers et la page écrite. La curiosité insatiable que l’écrivain projette sur le monde qui l’entoure dégénère, au contact de l’événement-guerre, en plongée macabre dans les atrocités de l’histoire. Les pages cruelles et hallucinées de Kaputt (1944) ou de La pelle (1949) marquent l’apogée d’une écriture qui voudrait rendre compte de la réalité tout en refusant de s’en satisfaire. Face au visage décevant de l’histoire, Malaparte échafaude un rêve de « recommencement » à la fois individuel (grâce au « mythe de l’auto-engendrement ») et collectif (dans une perspective eschatologique), mais ne renonce jamais définitivement à poursuivre dans le monde cette quête désespérée de sens qui nous le rend si proche. / Curzio Malaparte (1898-1957) was not only a journalist, essayist, prose writer, poet and a novelist but also a director, photographer and architect when time permitted. Yet despite his success both in Italy and beyond, he remains largely unknown in 20th century literary history. If he is enjoying a resurgence in popularity today it is due to his involvement in two world wars as well as his trajectory from fascism to communism and onward to Catholicism, a mirrored contradiction to his era. Or does his significance lie therein ? This thesis follows both a chronological and thematic path through his work focusing on the relationship between the universe and the written page. The insatiable curiosity the writer projects on the world around him disintegrates into history’s most gruesome atrocities following the onset of war. The cruel and uncanny pages of Kaputt (1944) and La Pelle (1949) mark the culmination of a style of writing that tries to both account for and interrogate reality. In the disappointing face of history, Malaparte constructs a dream for a new beginning that is at once individual (thanks to the « myth of self-generation ») and collective (from an eschatological perspective), yet he never renounces definitively the pursuit of this desperate quest for meaning that brings him so close to us.

Ce travail s’interroge d’une part sur la pratique de l’écriture du voyage chez les écrivains voyageurs francophones qui ont visité ou séjourné en Chine entre 1840 et 1939,et d’autre part sur la manière dont leur écriture traite des notions d’exotisme et d’altérité.Le paradigme du voyage romantique constitue un point de repère important, même si les siècles antérieurs ne sont pas à négliger. La réflexion prend en compte des complexités géographique, historique, politique, culturelle et philosophique qui ont marqué l’Occident et l’Extrême-Orient pendant cette période de cent ans. À ces enjeux « collectifs » s’en ajoutent d’autres plus personnels qui ont leur importance : la dimension individuelle du voyage, les données biographiques, les convictions spirituelles, les lectures et la conception même de l’écriture et de la littérature.La première partie de la thèse envisage les traits fondateurs du récit de voyage et aborde les récits du corpus d’un point de vue historique. La deuxième partie explore les interactions qui régissent le voyage et son écriture afin de mettre en évidence un art de composition qui transforme le vécu et le souvenir en écrit. La troisième partie appréhende l’écriture du voyage sur le plan de l’imaginaire, à travers la notion d’exotisme dans une vision qui se veut synthétique, et la question de représentation de l’altérité par le truchement de deux thèmes fédérateurs : le blanc de la carte et la langue chinoise. / This study concerns itself with two aspects of the techniques of French-speaking travel writers who visited China between 1840 and 1939 and of those who lived thereduring this period: on the one hand their writing practices and on the other the manner inwhich their texts deal with the notions of exoticism and the Other. The archetype of the romantic voyage constitutes an important reference, but the preceding centuries are takeninto account, too. The study integrates the geographical, historical, political, cultural andphilosophical complexities which characterised the West and the Far East during this particular hundred-year period. These « collective » factors are complemented by other similarly important but specifically personal elements : the individual character of thejourney, biographical details, spiritual convictions, reading preferences and the writers’particular conceptions of literature and writing.The first part of the dissertation examines the founding characteristics of the travelwriting and approaches the corpus from an historical perspective. The second part exploresthe interactions between the journey itself and the way it is described in order to highlightan art of composition which transforms experience and memories into writing. The thirdpart considers the travel writing as the work of the imaginary through a synthesizing analysis of exoticism, and the problem of the representation of the Other by means of twounifying themes: the blank areas on the map and the Chinese language.

近年來，有關文學和殖民宰制之間關係的研究一直是文學研究中重要的一個主題。在我論文的序章，阿圖塞有關意識形態的看法就被拿來詮釋這層共謀的關係。身為文學作品中一份子，蜜雪兒•克莉芙的作品《天堂無路可通》卻藉著呈現後殖民情境下的克蕾兒•薩維巨和她家人的故事試著去翻轉和顛覆主導的意識形態。我就針對變易位置、歷史書寫、身份認同三個糾結在整個故事中的重要主題加以討論。 我的論文的第二章是對後殖民漂泊離散的現象和與這現象相關的放逐和移民的概念加以詳細的說明。在這部分中，柯恩關於文化上飄泊離散的四個標準，用來衡量在《天堂無路可通》中薩維巨一家人的移民狀況是很有幫助的。此外，對於「家」這個概念的政治考量也納入這部分的討論中。克蕾兒遊蕩的旅程引導她去思索在她周圍所圍繞的一些問題：其中之一便是對於「歷史」可信度的疑惑，另一個則是對於自己身份認同探究。因此，在第三章中，我探討的是再現的機制和歷史書寫再現的是宰制意識形態。在《天堂無路可通》中，克蕾兒的個人記憶/個人歷史於是成為了對官方歷史可靠性詰問的對抗力量，也提供了另一版本的歷史。 交織在漂泊離散經驗和對歷史和記憶質疑之中的課題是關於身份的認同，特別是文化上的認同。在我的論文的第四章，我所討論的是身份認同形成的過程和文化認同的轉變。在這章中，首先，以「旅行」的概念來解釋克蕾兒的游牧式旅程。接下來，我陳述有關於本質主義者和非本質主義者個自對於身份認同的看法和他們之間對於這個議題的爭論。而他們之間對於身份認同的不同看法正好明白地昭示在霍爾對於文化身份認同的定義中。此外，巴霸創新的「第三空間」和「居中」的想法也納入這部分關於身份認同的討論中。如何去面對由於移民、放逐和飄泊離散所產生的文化認同危機，如何去調合和重建一個新的文化上的身份認同，和如何以這個新的身份認同去詮釋故事中克蕾兒的回歸牙買加是我最後一部分的討論。希望，經由我對《天堂無路可通》這本小說的研究，能提供一些對了解後殖民小說的見解，特別是本於/有關/來自加勒比海的小說。 / The discussion of the relationship between literature and the colonial manipulation has been an important theme in the study of literature in recent years. In the introduction of my thesis, Louis Althusser’s concept of ideology is utilized to interpret this complicity relationship. As a literary work, Michelle Cliff’s No Telephone to Heaven tries to reverse and subvert the dominant ideology by presenting the story of Clare Savage and her family under postcolonial condition. My discussions are aimed at three important themes, displacement, history, and identity, interwoven in the whole story. The second chapter of my thesis is the elucidation of the postcolonial phenomenon, the diaspora experiences, and the relative concepts of exile and migration. In this part, Robin Cohen’s four criteria of cultural diaspora are useful to assess the immigrant condition of the Savages in No Telephone to Heaven. Moreover, the politics of “home” is associated within this part of discussion. What Clare’s wandering journey leads her to is the contemplation of the questions arising around her: of these questions, one is the suspicion of the reliability of “history,” and another is the inquiry about her own identity/identities. So, in the third chapter, I discuss the regime of representation and the historiography as a kind of representation of the dominant ideology. The personal memory/history of Clare in No Telephone to Heaven, then, becomes a counter-force to interrogate the reliability of the official history, and provides another version of history. Interweaving with the diaspora experiences and the interrogation of history and memory is the topic about identities, particularly the cultural identity. In the fourth chapter of my thesis, I discuss the process of identity formation and the transformation of cultural identity. In this chapter, first, Clare’s nomadic journey is explained by the concept of “travel.” Then, I state the thoughts about identity between the essentialists and non-essentialists and the debates of identity between them. Such different views of identity are prominently demonstrated in Stuart Hall’s definition of cultural identity. Besides, Homi Bhabha’s innovative idea of “the third space” and the concept of “in-between” are included in this part of discussion about identity. How to face the crisis of cultural identity out of migration, exile, and diaspora, how to negotiate or reconstruct a new cultural identity under postcolonial condition, and how to interpret Clare’s return to Jamaica by virtue of this new identity, are the last parts of my discussion. I hope, through my reading of No Telephone to Heaven, I might provide some insights for understanding the postcolonial novels, especially the novels of/about/from the Caribbean area.

Thesis (MA (English Studies))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This project seeks to analyze the representation of identities in Shiva Naipaul's travel narrative North of South: An African Journey (1978) as encoded in the binaries of primitive / traditional; civilized / modern; settler / native; civic / tribal and neo-colonial / liberated. By analyzing this select series of identities, this project aims to explore the fractured nature of identity as constructed in the post-colony. It will argue that the identities are rendered unstable by the ungrounded nature of the post-colonial space in which they are located. Naipaul concludes his travel narrative by qualifying the postcolonial situation as an abortion of Western civilization in the trope of Conrad's Kurtz. Naipaul implies that any identity in Africa is a simulacrum, a phantom double, a copy of something that was not there to begin with. He attempts to articulate the diverse cultures that he encounters as though he were apart from them without recognizing that he is essentially and inextricably a part of the various cultural articulations themselves. It is easy to criticize Naipaul, therefore, as a non-starter. With the advantages of hindsight, however, it is possible for the contemporary reader to recognize these instabilities as evidence of the post-modern phenomenon in which reality is not an absolute. As a modernist writer, Naipaul's efforts to understand these instabilities of identity as an articulation of culture are circumvented by a Sisyphean struggle wherein he attempts to establish a sense of ontological alterity in the narrative yet implicates himself, as well as his invocation of archival literature and hence his ultimate position of disillusionment, hopelessness and doom. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie projek poog om die verteenwoordiging van identiteite in Shiva Naipaul se reisverhaal, North of South: An African Journey (1978), gekodeerd met die binere van die primitiewe / tradisionele ; beskaafde / moderne; setlaars / inheemse; staats / etniese; en neo-kolonialisme / vryheid, te analiseer. Deur die analise van die gekose reeks identiteite, neig die studie om die gebroke aard van identiteit in In post-koloniale omgewing te ondersoek, en te redeneer dat die identiteite bemoeilik word deur die ongegronde natuur van die postkoloniale ruimte waarin hulle voorkom. Naipaul omvat North of South om die post-kolonialistiese situasie te kwalifiseer as In aborsie van die Westerse beskawing in die metafoor van Conrad se Kurtz. Naipaul impliseer dat enige identiteit in Afrika In simulacrum is, In spookbeeld, 'n kopie van iets wat nooit was nie. Hy poog om die menigte kulture wat hy ondervind te omskryf asof hy van hulle verwyder is, sonder om te besef dat hy volledig deel uitmaak van die geleding van hierdie kulture, en dit is daarvolgens maklik om Naipaul as 'n mislukking te kritiseer. Met die duidelikheid van In moderne leser se terugblik is dit wei moontlik om hierdie onkonsekwenthede as bewyse te sien van die post-modernistiese verskynsel waarin realiteit nie In absoluut is nie. As In modernistiese skrywer is Naipaul se bemoeienis om hierdie onbestendigheid van identiteit as 'n omskrywing van kultuur te verstaan belemmer deur 'n Sisyphiesestryd waarin hy poog om In sin van die andersheid van die aard van die werklikheid in die storielyn te vestig, maar tog impliseer hy homself asook sy gebruik van argiefmateriaal, en vandaar sy uiteindelike posisie van ontnugtering, hopeloosheid en verwoesting.

Thesis (MA (English Studies))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Texts by women travellers describing their journeys date back almost as far as those produced by their male counterparts, yet women’s travel writing has only become an area of academic interest during the past ten to fifteen years. Previously, women’s travel writing was mostly read for its entertainment value rather than its academic merit and – as Sara Mills notes in her Discourses of Difference – appeared almost exclusively in the form of coffee table books or biographies offering romanticized accounts of heroic, eccentric women who undertook epic journeys to Africa (4). The growing interest in women’s travel writing as part of colonial discourse coincides with the emergence of gender studies and related subjects. The emergence of these areas of academic enquiry can be attributed to the systematic dismantling of the patriarchal structures, which previously dominated social and academic domains. The aim of this study is to examine European women’s travel writing as a subversive discourse which, while sharing some characteristics with traditional male-produced travel texts from the colonial era, was informed by the discursive constraints of femininity. These texts thus differ from male-produced texts in the sense that, because of the different discursive constraints informing women’s travel writing, they offer commentary on aspects of Africa and its peoples which men had omitted in their travel accounts. Three specific texts by British women who recorded their travels in Africa form the basis of the discussion in this dissertation: the travel writing of Lady Anne Barnard (South African Cape Colony, 1797 – 1801), Mary Kingsley (West Africa: Gabon and the Congo, 1896 – 1900) and Barbara Greene (Liberia, 1935). Since, as Mills argues, “feminist textual theory has restricted itself to the analysis of literary texts and has been concerned with analysis of the text itself” (12), which limits the extent to which one can provide interesting, discerning, and relevant comment on women’s writing, the readings of these texts are not limited to feminist theory of women’s travel writing. Social expectations until as recently as the early twentieth century located women firmly in the domestic sphere. It was almost unthinkable for women to undertake travels other than the traditional Grand Tour. To attempt to venture into the predominantly male territory of travel writing was to expose oneself to harsh criticism and to risk being labelled as eccentric and unfeminine. Thus women had to find a way of making both their travels and writing seem acceptable by social standards, while still presenting as true as possible a picture of Africa in their writing. These constraints of the discourse of femininity on their texts necessarily make women’s writing seem concerned almost exclusively with matters of feminine interest. Mills attributes this to women travel writers’ “problematic status, caught between the conflicting demands of the discourse of femininity and that of imperialism.” (Mills, Discourses of Difference 22) / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Reisbeskrywings deur vroue dateer byna so ver terug as dié wat deur mans geskryf is. Tog het vroue se reisbeskrywings eers in die afgelope tien tot vyftien jaar akademiese belangstelling begin ontlok. Voorheen is vroue se reisbeskrywings meestal vir vermaak eerder as akademiese meriete gelees, en – soos Sara Mills in haar Discourses of Difference opmerk – het dit byna uitsluitlik verskyn as koffietafelboeke of verromantiseerde biografieë van heldhaftige, sonderlinge vroue wat epiese reise na Afrika onderneem het (4). Die toenemende belangstelling in vroue se reisbeskrywings as deel van koloniale diskoers val saam met die verskyning van gender-studies en verwante vakgebiede. Die ontstaan van hierdie akademiese vakgebiede kan toegeskryf word aan die stelselmatige aftakeling van die paternalistiese strukture wat sosiale en akademiese arenas voorheen oorheers het. Die doel van hierdie studie is om Europese vroue se reisbeskrywings te ondersoek as ‘n ondermynende diskoers wat, hoewel dit sekere eienskappe van tradisionele reisbeskrywings deur manlike skrywers uit die koloniale tydperk toon, gegrond is in die beperkende diskoers van vroulikheid. Hierdie tekste verskil dus van tekste deur manlike skrywers in die opsig dat dit, as gevolg van die verskillende diskoersbeperkinge waarin dit gegrond is, kommentaar lewer op aspekte van Afrika en sy bevolking wat mans in hul reisbeskrywings uitgelaat het. Drie spesifieke tekste deur Britse vroue wat hul reise beskryf het vorm die grondslag van hierdie verhandeling; dit is die reisbeskrywings van Lady Anne Barnard (Suid-Afrikaanse Kaapkolonie, 1797 – 1801), Mary Kingsley (Wes- Afrika: Gaboen en die Kongo, 1896 – 1900) en Barbara Greene (Liberië, 1935). Mills voer aan: “Feminist textual theory has restricted itself to the analysis of literary texts and has been concerned with analysis of the text itself” (12). Dít beperk die mate waartoe interessante, skerpsinnige en toepaslike kommentaar oor vroue se reisbeskrywings gelewer kan word; dus is die interpretasie van hierdie tekste nie beperk tot feministiese teorie met betrekking tot vrouereisbeskrywings nie. Tot so onlangs as die vroeë twintigste eeu het die samelewing se verwagtinge vroue streng tot die huishoudelike sfeer beperk. Afgesien van die tradisionele Grand Tour was dit bykans ondenkbaar vir vroue om te reis. As ‘n vrou inbreuk sou probeer maak op die tradisioneel manlike gebied van die skryfkuns sou sy haarself blootstel aan skerp kritiek en onwenslike etikettering as eksentriek en onvroulik. Dus moes vroue ‘n manier vind om sowel hul reise as hul skryfwerk sosiaal aanvaarbaar te maak en terselfdertyd so ‘n egte beeld as moontlik van Afrika te skets in hul skryfwerk. Die beperkinge wat die diskoers van vroulikheid op hul tekste plaas, lei noodwendig daartoe dat vroue se skryfwerk as byna geheel en al beperk tot sake van vroulike belang voorkom. Mills skryf dít toe aan vroue-reisbeskrywers se “problematic status, caught between the conflicting demands of the discourse of femininity and that of imperialism.” (Mills, Discourses of Difference 22)