Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2000. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 235-246). Also available on the Internet.

Dissertation (Ph.D.)--The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2008. / Directed by Scott Romine; submitted to the Dept. of English. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Jan. 28, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 240-254).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Brown University, 2004. / Available in film copy fromProQuestDissertation Publishing. Vita. Thesis advisor: Neil Lazarus. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 207-235). Also available online.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2009. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed February 11, 2010). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 155-168).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2000. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 235-246). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2002. / Bibliography: leaves 322-336.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 290-300).

This work examines the use of psychoanalytic terms and concepts in postcolonial theory, with attention to the social and historical contexts in which those terms and models originated. The thesis provides an overview of the different academic and political contexts out of which postcolonial theory evolved, focusing on how identity came to be a central term within postcolonial debates. Drawing on the work of scholars such as Anne McClintock, it critiques the current use of psychoanalytic models by postcolonial theorists, arguing that psychoanalysis is itself implicated in the history of European imperialism and brings with it concomitant assumptions about the nature of race, class, gender, and sexuality. The thesis provides an overview of the work of Charcot, Freud and Lacan. It takes up some of their major contributions to psychoanalysis, and discusses the social and political contexts in which those works were developed. The thesis goes on to provide a detailed analysis of the intersection of postcolonial theory and psychoanalysis in the work of Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, Homi Bhabha and Helene Cixous. The thesis concludes by discussing what I view as the two major ethical and intellectual problems that arise from the use of psychoanalysis in postcolonial theory. I argue, first, that psychoanalysis developed within the same cultural and political context as European colonialism. In spite of its moments of self-consciousness, psychoanalysis, nonetheless, reproduces some of the models of identity that supported European imperialism, both in Europe and abroad. Secondly, I argue that psychoanalysis takes, at root, a pessimistic view of human nature and this pessimism is fundamentally at odds with the emancipatory motives of postcolonial theory.

“Indigenousness and the Reconstruction of the Other in Guatemalan Indigenous Literature” examines the production of a contemporary Indigenous literature in Guatemala. With the aid of a multidisciplinary approach informed by cultural, feminist, gender, socio-anthropological, and postcolonial studies, I analyze the emergence and ongoing struggle of Maya writers in Guatemala to show how the production of an alternate ideology contests official notions of nationhood and promotes a more inclusive space. I argue that Maya writers redefine Indigenous identity by reinstating Indigenous agency and self-determination, and deconstructing and rearticulating ethnicity, class and gender, among other markers of identity. I begin by examining the indio as the basis of colonial and national narratives that logically organize the Guatemalan nation. I then observe the emergence of a contemporary Indigenous literature in Guatemala in the 1970s, a literature that, I argue, isolates and contests the position that was assigned to the indio and proposes a literature written by and for the Indigenous peoples of Guatemala. I posit that the inauguration of a Maya cultural space occurs with Luis de Lión’s novel El tiempo principia en Xibalbá (1985) and Gaspar Pedro González’ La otra cara (1992). I then observe the destabilization of traditional Maya female roles and symbols in the recent work of female Indigenous poets, Calixta Gabriel Xiquín and Maya Cu. Lastly, in the work of Víctor Montejo and Humberto Ak’abal I identify a negotiation of heterogeneity and essentialism for the development of a cultural project that looks to the formation of a pluricultural, plurinational Guatemalan state.

The popular discourse has it that sports take a big part in the everyday life of South Africa. Given its segregated past, we ask the question on how the media discourse were on race, politics and gender during the formative period of circa 1990-1995. Utilizing discourse analysis on newspaper clippings from 1990 to 1995 and 2004 and interviews with players, coaches, administrators and sports activists, we have found that there was indeed a specific white discourse that subjugated the black perspective into the subaltern and formed partnership with the hegemonic traditions of the white apartheid regime.