Contemporary Canadian literature and drama that features racial hybridity
represents the racially hybrid soma text as a unique form of embodiment and pays
particular attention to the power of the racialized gaze. The soma text is the central
concept I have developed in order to identify, address, and interrogate the signifying
qualities of the racially hybrid body. Throughout my dissertation, I use the concept of the
body as a text in order to draw attention to the different visual "readings" that are
stimulated by this form of embodiment. In each chapter, I identify the centrality of
racially hybrid embodiment and investigate the power of the racialized gaze involved in
the interpellation of these racially hybrid bodies.
I have chosen to divide my study into discrete chapters and to use specific texts to
illuminate my central concepts and to identify the strategies that can be used to express
agency over the process of interpellation. In Chapter One I explain my methodology,
define the terminology and outline the theories that are central to my analysis. In Chapter
Two, I consider the experiences of mixed race people expressing agency by self-defining
in the genre of autobiography. In Chapter Three, I explore the notion of racial drag as
represented in fiction. In Chapter Four, I consider the ways in which the performative
aspects of racial hybridity are represented by theatrical means and through performance.
My analysis of the soma text and racialized gaze in these three genres offers
critical terms that can be used to analyze representations of racial hybridity. By framing
my analysis by way of the construction of the autobiographical voice I suggest that
insight into the narrative uses of racial hybridity can be deepened and informed by a
thorough analysis of the representation of the lived experience of racial hybridity in a
given context. My crossgeneric and crossracial methodology implicitly asserts the
importance of the inclusion of different types of racial hybridity in order to understand
the power of the racially hybrid body as a signifier in contemporary Canadian literature
and drama. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/18220 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | La Flamme, Lisa Michelle |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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