This project explores connections between hero and history, text and context. By engaging Postcolonial theories about the roles that invasion and oppression, play in developing national identity and how colonized people respond to such encounters in literature, I examine how experiences of invasion and hostile interaction as represented in medieval and early modern English literature influenced the creation of specific heroic values. In my first chapter, I analyze The Battle of Maldon and Beowulf as exemplars of the Anglo-Saxon culture, observing that Byrhtnoth and Beowulf work as fictional embodiments of a fantasy of power: men of super-human strength and exceptional resoluteness who, through remarkable sacrifices, inspire men to accomplish phenomenal deeds of their own. Next, I explore Arthur in The Alliterative Morte Arthure and Le Morte Darthur, who embraces his hybridity, fluidly moving between the Anglo-Saxon warrior tradition and the French romance tradition. Last, I consider Shakespeare’s Henry V, which depicts a conquering hero who possesses the prowess and nobility of his heroic predecessors and the ability to succeed where they failed, securing England’s continental dominance. In each era, I contend that the authors created heroes on whom they could project a fantasized identity which defied the realities of their time, heroes who changed based upon the type of threat faced by England. This study samples five hundred years of literature and uses this breadth to explore cross-periodic continuity, finding that the heroes of these texts respond not only to their historical context, but also to each other. This scope allows one to see how the emblem of the hero responds to the reality of the authors and audiences of these texts. The figure of the hero develops over centuries, demonstrating that as the needs of the authors and audiences change, so, too, does the character who represents them. These literary figures provide a unique window into the culture and concerns of the authors and audiences during the medieval and early modern eras. They represent desire for strength, inspiration, glory and triumph. They reflect the agony of anxiety, vulnerability, defeat, and hopelessness. Most importantly, they reimagine, reframe, and redress reality.

Over the past two decades the contribution of postmigrant literature to Germany's literary landscape has attracted significant scholarly interest. This study investigates selected prose of Turkish-German authors. Six primary texts are reconceived as "transgressive" as they intervene in contemporary spatial, especially urban and global discourses. They employ diverse "spatial tactics" by citing conventional dichotomies (local-global, West-East) in order to abandon and replace them subsequently with dynamic views on space and time. This thesis proposes a new theoretical model of literary analyses in order to grasp the multidimensional aspects of space. Thereby, Lotman's cultural semiotics is used as springboard to expand the model throughout the readings of the texts. By including additional theories on space from disciplines such as gender studies (Gleber; Weigel), urban geography(Lynch; Downs/Stea), cultural-historical psychology (Nora; Assmann) and postcolonial criticism (Said), this analysis focuses on narrative strategies that challenge physical and conceptual concepts of boundaries. The originality of this approach lies in a perceptive, thorough reading of textual productions of space that refrains from pinpointing the texts as homogenous minority literature. The theoretical model examines spatial motifs and themes inherent in the primary texts while disregarding the alleged "foreignness" of the authors. Each of the main chapters discusses two works focusing on the dimensions gender-space, memory-space and geography-space: Emine S. Ozdamar's Die Brikke vom Goldenen Horn and Aysel Ozakin's Die Blaue Maske are analyzed as novels transgressing gender-coded urban spaces. The Berlin settings in Aras Oren's Berlin Savignyplatz and Zafer Senocak's Gefahrliche Verwandtschaft are conceived as multi-discursive fragments shedding new light on German "realms of memory". Yade Kara's Selam Berlin and Feridun Zaimoglu's Zwolf Gramm Gluck are investigated in relation to "glocal" dislocations and Oriental imaginations. This dissertation makes two key contributions to German literary studies: First, it proposes an alternative reading to the common practice of categorizing postmigrant literature by cultural heritage and generation by putting forward the idea that writers adopt manifold perspectives on spatial configurations. Second, by reading literary spaces through an alternate disciplinary lens, this dissertation reads the texts as multilayered complexities of spatial presentations and advocates a comparative, text-centered method of literary analysis. / Arts, Faculty of / Central Eastern Northern European Studies, Department of / Graduate

This thesis documents the genealogy of the development of Jakarta’s urban water supply infrastructure from 1873 (the inception of the first colonial water supply network) to the present. Using an analytical framework of governmentality, supplemented by insights from postcolonial studies and political ecology, the thesis explains the highly unequal patterns of water access in Jakarta as the product of (post)colonial governmentalities, whose relations of power are expressed not only through discursive categories and socio-economic relations, but also through material infrastructures and urban spaces. The thesis presents material from the colonial archives, Jakarta’s municipal archives, and the publications of international development agencies and engineering consultancy firms. This is combined with primary data derived from interviews, questionnaires, and participant observation of the implementation of current pro-poor water supply projects in Jakarta. This data is used to document how water supply is implicated in the discursive and material production of the city and its citizens, and to challenge conventional developmentalist and academic analyses of water supply access. Specifically, a conceptual triad of water, space, and populations – produced through, but also productive of government rationalities – is used to explain two apparent paradoxes: (1) the fragmentation of access in Jakarta despite a century of concerted attempts to develop a centralized system; and (2) the preferences of lower-income households for non-networked water supply, despite its higher cost per unit volume. This analysis hinges on an elucidation of the relationships between urban governance and urban infrastructure, which documents the interrelated process of differentiation of types of water supply, water use practices, populations, and urban spaces from the colonial period to the present. This, in turn, is used to explain the barriers being encountered in current pro-poor water supply development projects in Jakarta. The thesis thus makes a contribution to current academic debates over the ‘colonial present’. The contribution is both theoretical – in the emphasis placed upon the materiality of governmentality – and empirical. Finally, the thesis also makes a contribution to the urban and development studies literatures through its reinterpretation of the urban ‘water crisis’. / Arts, Faculty of / Geography, Department of / Graduate

This thesis examines the context in which the Russian composer, M. Balakirev, used folk idioms to create a representation of Circassian musical culture in Islamey: Oriental Fantasy. It was composed for piano in 1869 after Balakirev’s trip to the Caucasus during its colonization by the Russian Empire and it is an interesting example of a musical representation of the "Oriental." Based on Edward Said’s theory of the Orientalism, this thesis examines the construction of Circassian stereotype as Russia’s “Other”. It presents the complex historical relations between Russians and Circassians and discusses evidence for treating Islamey as an example of an Orientalist Other, taken from several authors, including Balakirev himself. Ultimately, this thesis describes Balakirev’s representation of Circassian culture and proposes reasons for his appropriation of folk music. It concludes by outlining the benefits of cultural exchanges between the Russian and Circassian nations that took place over the last century.

My auto/ethnographical journey stems from my experience where, as an I-m-migrant, I feel like I live in the hy-phens negotiating between “a here, a there and an elsewhere” (Trinh, 2011), straddling cultures, homelands, I-dentities, and languages. This identity crisis has made me quest/ion how other i-m-migrant women, especially the Indo-Canadian women in Ottawa, navigate their hyphe-nated existence(s) with/in these liminal spaces which are both home and not-home. As both insider and outsider, I engaged in complicated conversations with Indo-Canadian women to hear about their live(d) experiences and to understand the process of my / our be/com/ing’ and be/long/ing in these hybrid spaces. The questions that guided me through this inquiry are: How do Indo-Canadian women re-produce and re-create this notion called home? What are some of influences of (im)migration on this notion of ho[me]? How do they navigate and per/form their hyphenated currere with/in these hybrid liminal spaces which are both home and not-home? What do these performances dis/close about the women’s understanding of their lives in the hyphens? Through a post-colonial, feminist perspective, and drawing from qualitative research methodologies such as “autoethnography” (Ellis, 2003), “bricolage” (Denzin & Lincoln, 2008; Kincheloe, 2001), “narrative inquiry” (Clandinin, 2013), and “found poetry” (Butler-Kisber, 2010), I perform a “literary métissage” (Hasebe-Ludt, Chambers & Leggo, 2009) of the live(d) narratives of women who, like me, are members of the Indo-Canadian diaspora. I juxtapose our conversations with artifacts, photographs, recipes, and literary pieces that depict our hyphe-nation(s). From an educational perspective, I hope that my “performance [auto]ethnography” (Alexander, 2000) of ho[me]stories of Indo-Canadian women will become a “living pedagogy” and have “the potential to become trans/formative curriculum inquiry” (Hasebe-Ludt, et al, 2009), which might help to de/construct the stereotypical image of the “universal Indian woman” (Sharma, 2009).

This thesis “Inherently Hybrid: Contestations and Renegotiations of Prescribed Identities in Contemporary Sri Lankan English Writing” examines work by Nihal de Silva, David Blacker and Vivimarie VanderPoorten to analyse their negotiation of identity, belonging and citizenship within contemporary Sri Lankan English Writing. This negotiation of identity is then placed in relation to the Eelam Wars as well as hybridity and cosmopolitanism, which have become a part of Sri Lankan identity because of the nation’s postcolonial past. Genre and form are employed as ways into exploring the tensions within Sri Lankan English writing, especially because they prescribe on the texts selected a specific way of approaching and presenting the ethnic conflict that is a widespread theme in much of contemporary Sri Lankan writing. The first chapter looks at De Silva’s adventure romance The Road From Elephant Pass. It examines how the novel engenders a renegotiation of identities through the effects of the ethnic conflict upon the attitudes, behaviours and ideologies of the island’s populations, symbolically represented through the narrator, who is a Sinhalese Buddhist officer in the Sri Lankan Army and his eventual lover, who is a rebel fighting for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. I analyse the arguments presented in the text around identity, belonging and patriotism and focus on the representations of ethnic and racial identity that ultimately expose the constructedness of these various positions, revealing the unacknowledged but real hybridity of the Sri Lankan peoples. I look at markers of cultural capital and tease out how class identities rely on cosmopolitanism, characterised by a knowledge of English, and how that further reveals the performativity of identity. The second chapter examines Blacker’s political thriller A Cause Untrue. Here I explore how the use of detail and description provides an appearance of imparting a complete and realistic perspective on the war. I demonstrate how the novel, through the calculated use of what I will characterise as a ‘reality effect’, takes on the manifestation of being an authority on the war. Blacker’s use of recognisable historical events allows him to create an alternative narrative of history, one that has all the hallmarks of being a true retelling even as it is apparent that his text utilises the ‘reality effect’ to imagine Sri Lanka creatively. This demonstrates how the selection of the thriller genre provides Blacker with a specific way of representing the nation and its diasporas’ in relation to the Eelam Wars. The third chapter focuses on VanderPoorten’s collection of poetry nothing prepares you. Here I investigate how the concepts of hybridity and cosmopolitanism are located within the language used to construct her poetry. I explore how this hybridity and cosmopolitanism of language works together with the form and content of her poems to provide a disquieting of fixed notions of identity, citizenship and belonging. The conclusion to the study revisits the issues that my three chapters deal with, bringing together an overall account of hybridity, cosmopolitanism and identity. I look at the constructedness and performance of identity with the aim of providing a nuanced reading of the renegotiations of identity and citizenship that are taking place because of the ethnic conflict. By summing up the different manifestations of the various gendered, ethnic and class identities represented and presented in the texts that I explore, I illustrate the wider implications of the points of connection between identity and power on the one hand and nationalism, dogma and political rhetoric on the other. Identities within the Sri Lankan nation blur the distinctions between alien and citizen, between one who belongs and subscribes to set expectations, norms and practices and one who challenges these markers of identity.

Historically, various minority groups have faced multiple forms of prejudice and discrimination. The sources of such attitudes are mainly ignorance about these groups. One such group is Muslims living in western countries. The fear and dread of Muslims and Islam has deep historical roots; however, these attitudes escalated after the September 11 tragedy. After September 11, Muslims became the headlines of news and Americans were exposed to distorted images of Muslims in the media. This misrepresentation of Muslims in the media led to yet another form of xenophobia, which resulted in ‘othering’ Muslims. In schools and universities, the story was not different. In the following study, I discuss the ‘othering’ of 6 international hijabi Muslim women studying at a Midwestern University in light of the Islamophobic tendencies developed after September 11. I create narratives of these experiences to understand how hijabi Muslim women make sense of their experiences in relation to the larger sociopolitical discourse. These narratives contribute to the larger effort of creating an equitable educational experience for students from all backgrounds.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / In this study I focus on how Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s fiction portrays his socio-political vision through the prevalence of the intimate relationships it displays. The study critically analyses the significant role romantic love and friendship play in the novels The River Between (1965), Weep Not, Child (1964), A Grain of Wheat (1967), Petals of Blood (1977), Devil on the Cross (1982), Matigari (1987) and Wizard of the Crow (2006) against the backdrop of Ngũgĩ’s other fiction, plays and non-fiction. Ngũgĩ identifies himself as a Marxist, anti-colonialist/imperialist, and anti-capitalist writer, for whom there is no contradiction between aesthetic and political missions. The aesthetic and political projects take form through the representation, very importantly, of romantic love in his fiction. The significance of eros, which is clear in the fiction, is not, however, present in Ngũgĩ’s theoretical reflections on his writing as formulated in his essays. In Ngũgĩ’s early novels, we see love attempting to break the boundaries of religion and class in the creation of a modern nation-state. But there are obstacles to these attempts at national unity through love, the only relationship apart from friendship that is self-made, and not determined by kinship relations. In the fiction from the middle of Ngũgĩ’s career, we see romantic love consummated in marriage. The achievement of unity is, however, undercut by betrayal, which is a repeated theme in all the novels. The “betrayal” of the ideal of romantic love by materialism is the most significant threat to love. Friendship emerges in one of the later novels as a kind of “excursus” to romantic love that foregrounds, by default, the ways in which Ngũgĩ’s political vision seeks be consolidated through the personal relationship of romantic love. In Ngũgĩ’s final novel, we see his personal and political visions coming together in a utopian erotic union for first time. Because of the nature of the exploration, which aims at opening up the wider significance of eros, the study is not framed by a dominant theory, most of which would lead to understanding eros through gender and power relations. Instead, the study has been framed through concepts and debates on romantic love that emerge in sociology, anthropology, philosophy and literary history.

The thesis looks at William Shakespeare's The Tempest in conjunction with J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace and BankimChandra Chattopadhyay's Kapalkundala. In their own distinctive ways, each of these texts appropriate Shakespeare's play and are, in turn, appropriated by it while exploring the patterns of dominance and resistance inherent to the colonial/postcolonial context. The Tempest, as a play, is central to this argument owing to its experiments with power structures and their subsequent subversion. Shakespeare's text also provides an interesting point of departure because of the numerous postcolonial re-readings that it continues to provoke, creating theoretical room for discussing the status of these later works as rewritten "versions" of the colonially sanctioned master narrative of imperial control. Coetzee's novel reworks the master-slave dialectic, although any easy parallelism with the characters of Prospero and Caliban is problematized with the introduction of Miranda-like figures. Chatterjee writes from within colonial Bengal while situating his reading of the play in a pre-colonial era-the temporal displacement providing the ideological distance needed to both critique and reaffirm the presence of an alien system of governance. I would like to divide the scope of the thesis under five chapter headings to consider the nature of each individual text, as well as their interconnectedness. While the introduction seeks to present some of the underlying theoretical and historical frameworks, the following three chapters analyze the way in which Chatterjee and Coetzee adopt the play to represent their peculiar socio-cultural situations. The significance of language in any text that "writes back" from the margins to a work that is firmly placed in the political centre warrants a separate treatment, with regard to both the rewritten texts as well as those that specifically consider the linguistic reshaping of history. In the concluding chapter, I hope to bring together the threads that these separate discussions create in an attempt to understand why a play like The Tempest continues to provoke multiple postcolonial versions, and whether or not one is justified in approaching the newer works as mere "versions" of the colonially sanctioned text.

Masters of Art / This Creative Writing project is an album of South African songs written specifically in the context of American blues music. Although blues is an intrinsically American genre of Western popular music, it has its roots (along with other African-American forms of musical expression such as ragtime and jazz) in African culture, and as a South African musician and writer, I am intrigued by the possibilities of exploring African-American blues in the context of South Africa. This project therefore attempts some hybridity between these two cultural expressions, and to ascertain what kinds of lyric might be possible in modern South Africa in terms of the formation and perpetuation of a South African identity. Blues songs traditionally have a rather narrow focus as far as lyrics are concerned, but the genre’s melodic structure, its instrumentation and its very specific vocal qualities have over the last century formed the bedrock of the whole of modern Western popular music.