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This dissertation looks at the way in which the shifting configurations of nation, gender and future in Micah might affect readers' positioning as subjects---that is their positioning as agents of speech and action---in a way that might engender resistance to oppression. It is suggested that if readers of Micah identify with the ambiguous and shifting national and gendered identities, within the context of the book's visions for the future, they are urged to recognize contradictions within their own subjectivity. This has the possible effect of shifting the reader's pre-formed subject position, or at least interrogating it, a process which may allow for resistance to oppression. The theoretical problematic for this approach originates within recent discussions of textual determinacy in biblical and literary criticism: "is it the text or the reader that controls meaning?" The work of theorist Homi K. Bhabha on the negotiation of cultural difference in colonial and post-colonial contexts is used to engage the position---common to much contemporary literary and cultural criticism---that the reader comes to the text already formed as a subject within ideology, and that this will necessarily affect or control the way she reads the text. Zizek's reading of Althusser through Lacan is taken as a starting point for an understanding of "subject formation" thus conceived. This position, which tends toward the fixity of the subject, can be seen as analogous to Bhabha's discussion of the role of "pedagogical objects and discourses" (cultural icons, stereotypes, formative events) within the construction of national identity. By way of contrast, Bhabha's key concepts---hybridity, third space, outside the sentence, liminal identification, time-lag, agency in indeterminacy; in short performative practice---envision an identification with difference in a way that allows for the subject to be repositioned and for meaning to be reinscribed. Bhabha's notions of pedagogical object and

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Jeffrey Eugenides‟ Middlesex can be ascribed to many genres, one of which is the novel of immigration. Mikhail Bakhtin has suggested that each genre, indeed any literary motif, can be defined by its own chronotope, literally “time space,” “the intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships that are artistically expressed in literature.” The essay discusses the chronotope of immigration in Middlesex, and looks at how four specific intersections of time and space, embodied by the four houses inhabited by the Stephanides family, contribute to the unfolding of this particular immigration saga. The four houses can thus be seen to represent the key elements of this novel‟s instance of a chronotope of immigration, which brings up concepts such as assimilation, hybridity and “third space.” The essay also examines the relations of central characters to time, space and each other; the upstairs/downstairs and inside/outside dichotomies within each house providing interesting keys to inter-gender and inter-generational alienation within this chronotope of immigration.

Techn. Universiẗat, Diss., 2001--Dresden.

In this thesis, I expand considerations of diaspora as not only a migration of people and cultures but a migration of thought. Specifically, I demonstrate that literary representations of diaspora produce what I consider to be an epistemological migration, challenging the idea that race and culture are stable and impermeable and offering instead racial and cultural fluidity. I assert that this causal relationship is best exemplified by narratives of racial passing written by diasporic writers. Using Homi Bhabha’s concepts of mimicry, hybridity, and ambivalence, I analyze Helen Oyeyemi’s Boy, Snow, Bird and Zoë Wicomb’s Playing in the Light, arguing that Boy, Snow, Bird’s narrative form is a form of mimicry that repeats European and African literary traditions and subverts Eurocentrism, while Playing in the Light is a “Third Space” in which to accept notions of the non-categorical fluidity of race. Through this analysis, I draw particular attention to Oyeyemi’s and Wicomb’s unique abilities to refract notions of race, rather than presumably reflect a system of strict categories, and, ultimately, I argue that these novels transcend the realm of literature, existing as empowering calls for society’s modifications of its racial perceptions.

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Vivimos en un mundo poscolonial pero las estructuras antiguas sique siendo presentes, especialmente en continentes como África y en países como Guinea Ecuatorial, una antigua colonia española en África. El objetivo con nuestro estudio es analizar los ideales coloniales en la novela Herencia de bindendee de Trifonia Melibea Obono Ntutumu Obono con un enfoco en el racismo y como la autora ha retratado la situación poscolonial en Guinea Ecuatorial. Intentamos destacar ejemplos de personajes, objetos o acciones que funcionan como señales de inferioridad o superioridad de los personajes según teorías de Frantz Fanon y Homi K. Bhabha. Además, presentamos ejemplos de crítica de estas ideales y estereotipos que las teorías no explican. La conclusión es que la obra muestra ejemplos de tanto un mundo fiel a la época colonial como un mundo de rebelión. / Vi bor i en postkolonial värld men de gamla strukturerna är fortfarande närvarande, speciellt på kontinenter som Afrika och i länder som Ekvatorialguinea, en tidigare spansk koloni i Afrika. Syftet med vår studie är att analysera de koloniala idealen i romanen Herencia de bindendee av Trifonia Melibea Obono Ntutumu Obono med fokus på rasismen och hur författaren har beskrivit den koloniala situationen i Ekvatorialguinea. Vi belyser exempel på karaktärer, föremål och handlingar som fungerar som tecken på mindervärde eller överlägsenhet hos karaktärerna enligt teorier av Frantz Fanon och Homi K. Bhabha. Dessutom presenterar vi några exempel av kritik av de ideal och stereotyper som förekommer i romanen och som de nämnda teorierna inte förklarar fullt ut. Slutsatsen är att romanen visar exempel på både en värld trogen den koloniala epoken och en värld av uppror.

Vi bor i en postkolonial värld men de gamla strukturerna är fortfarande närmarande, speciellt på kontinenter som Afrika och i länder som Ekvatorial Guinea, en tidigare spansk koloni i Afrika. Syftet med vår studie är att analysera de koloniala idealen i romanen Herencia de bindendee av Trifonia Melibea Obono Ntutunu Obono med fokus på rasismen och hur författareb beskriver den postkoloniala situationen i Ekvatorial Afrika. Vi belyser exempel på karaktärer, föremål och handlingar som fungerar som tecken på mindrevärde och överlägsenhet enligt teorier av Frantz Fanon och Homi K. Bhabha. Dessutom presenterar vi några exemplel på kritik av de ideal och stereotyper som förekommer i romanen och som de nämnda teorierna inte förklarar fullt ut. Slutsatsen är att romanen visar på värld troden den koloniala epoken och en värld av uppror. / Vivimos en un mundo poscolonial pero las estructuras antiguas siguen siendo presentes, especialmente en coninentes como África y en países como Guinea Ecuatorial, una antigua colonia española en África. El objetivo con nuestro estudio es analizar los ideales en la novela Herencia de bindendee de Trifonia Melibea Obono Ntutumu Obono con un enfoque en el racismo y como la autora retrata la situación poscolonial en Guinea Ecuatorial. Destacamos ejemplos de personajes objetos y comportamientos que funcionan como señales de inferioridad o superioridad según las teorías de Frantz Fanon y Homi K. Bhabha. Además, presentamos ejemplos de crítica de estas ideales y esterotipos que las teorías no explican, La conclusión es que la obra muestra ejemplos de tanto un mundo fiel a la época colonial como un mundo de rebelión.