Re-visions of place in transnational literatures of the long nineties

This dissertation argues that transnational literatures of the 1990s emphasize everyday place-making during a period when physical distance might be erased through new technologies and social identities might be understood diffuse and "groundless." Drawing on a range of cross-disciplinary scholarship on space and transnationality, this project maps the literary place-consciousness of the "long nineties" (1989-2001) by attending to each text's representation of the multiple histories and geographies of a given place and how characters' identities are shaped by them. Specifically, each author imagines real places marked by vertical, (post)colonial relationships and lateral, transnational ones in a transitional period of geopolitics neither overdetermined by Cold War factionalism nor circumscribed by a twenty-first century, Euro-American "war on terror." The resulting transformation of these places offers Nadine Gordimer and Salman Rushdie (chapters 1 and 2, respectively) opportunities to grapple with spatial legacies of British imperialism while forging new place-making practices. Gordimer's The Pickup suggests that a productive sense of place might be recovered by fleeing corrupt postcolonial space for a "pure," local space, while Rushdie's The Satanic Verses recognizes that coming to terms with postcolonial spatial politics means understanding space as underwritten by racial and sexual difference. In contrast to the post-imperialist legacies that haunt but do not dominate Gordimer and Rushdie's work, Karen Tei Yamashita's Tropic of Orange (chapter 3) and Joe Sacco's Palestine (chapter 4) suggest that colonialist spatial practices continue to have real, material effects in the 1990s. The former engages the intersection settler colonialist boundary-making and neocolonial boundary erasure located at the U.S.-Mexico border; the latter represents national narration as an act of claiming place, therevy resisting settler colonialist logics of elimination. While previous scholarship tended to focus on representations of hyper-mobility, placelessness, and deterritorialization, this dissertation ultimately seeks to re-introduce overlooked spatial-historical contexts of the "long nineties" into current scholarship in postcolonial and transnational literature studies. Such an approach generates new ways of understanding how authors attempt to reconcile sweeping, globalized flows of power with everyday spatial practice

Avatars of Gendered Societal Constructs in Seventeenth-Century Contes de fées

This dissertation considers the contes de fées written towards the end of the seventeenth century. These tales have been the focus of research and interest for the last thirty years, but much of the research has been concentrated on the work on Madame d'&rsquo Aulnoy. By widening the selection of works considered, the writer argues that the attitudes expressed about the roles assigned to women and men find an echo in many other fairy tales written during this period. By using close textual analysis, the study considers the depiction of women and their lives in a patriarchal society. It further shows that the tales'&rsquo challenge to the hierarchical society was broader, and a concern not only of women writers, but also of the males. The world that the authors depict is sumptuous, a regal world in which aristocrats rule and govern. However, although the stories usually end in a &rsquo `happy ever after&rsquothe princes and princesses, and their parents, often go through life-changing experiences. The authors use metamorphosis and cross-dressing, to move their heroes and heroines into situations that challenge them. Shape-shifting becomes a didactic tool, and the story-tellers use an amazing variety of symbols to reflect the changes and discoveries that were being made at the end of the century. The adoption of the persona of the opposite gender, a trope in seventeenth-century literature, questions the assumptions of what gender implies in society. The depiction of women who can fight and be brave is unsurprising, particularly since there is the historical example of the frondeuses, but women are often shown as being necessary for the functioning of good government and are not confined to the purely domestic sphere. Man dressed as woman sets different parameters. Such disguise may be used as a means to access a woman in her private space and attempt seduction or suggest emasculation, or a desire for egalitarianism. Both male and female authors contend that equal status provides better governance, and argue for freedom from a paternalistic and authoritarian society

Homeless Boys: Male Development and Imperial Expansion in Victorian Fiction

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the ways in which traveling boys in Victorian fiction embody and complicate cultural ideas concerning the formation of masculinity and the imperial expansion. Both literary critics and historians of Victorian Britain have investigated how the discourse over the construct of masculinity intersects with the values of the domestic, seeking to challenge traditional thinking around the dichotomy of masculinity/femininity and public/domestic spheres. Extending upon recent studies of male domesticity, this dissertation focuses not on adult men who are defined in terms of the domestic but on boys who have no secure place within home/home country. I define boyhood as a state in which one is settled nowhere but is expected to demonstrate maturity by finding one's own home; it includes not only boys in the biological sense but also the marginalized boy-men with no rightful position in the domestic sphere and/or in the home country. Nineteenth-century British fictions often confirm the myth of male self-development through portraying boy characters' leaving and returning to home and home country. To reintegrate into those spaces, they must demonstrate their acquisition of manliness. By reading their rite of passage in terms of homelessness and at-homeness, I contend that the figure of the traveling boy helps to illuminate unresolved contradictions lurking within the Victorian idea of home building, whether the word "home" addresses the domestic space that is in opposition to the public sphere or the center of the empire that is in opposition to the foreign. One of my central arguments is that by associating boyhood with its national character, Victorian Britain celebrates its continuing advancement to the margins, as well as imagining its subjects being stably anchored at its center even while being away from it. Identifying themselves as displaced from the domestic space, boys seek a sense of at-homeness during journeys, and their homelessness is expected to contribute both to the establishment of a new household and to the expansion of the empire. While the dominant discourse of Victorian Britain asserts that male subjects contribute to the expansion of the home through leaving and returning to it, fictions illuminate that they come to lose their home irrecoverably instead of feeling at home anywhere. Boy characters' relationship with their home and their home country change while traveling, thereby changing nationhood as well. Although they attempt to transform certain places into their homes, such spaces cannot be the same as the home that they have left behind, and the idea of home itself becomes complicated

Can the European Union build a bridge over troubled waters? An analysis of the politicised and depoliticised legal approach between the European Union and Cyprus

The Cyprus dispute accurately portrays the evolution of the conflict from ‘warfare to lawfare’ enriched in politics; this research has proven that the Cyprus problem has been and will continue to be one of the most judicialised disputes across the globe. Notwithstanding the ‘normalisation’ of affairs between the two ethno-religious groups on the island since the division in 1974, the Republic of Cyprus’ (RoC) European Union (EU) membership in 2004 failed to catalyse reunification and terminate the legal, political and economic isolation of the Turkish Cypriot community. So the question is; why is it that the powerful legal order of the EU continuously fails to tame the tiny troublesome island of Cyprus? This is a thesis on the interrelationship of the EU legal order and the Cyprus problem. A literal and depoliticised interpretation of EU law has been maintained throughout the EU’s dealings with Cyprus, hence, pre-accession and post-accession. The research has brought to light that this literal interpretation of EU law vis-à-vis Cyprus has in actual fact deepened the division on the island. Pessimists outnumber optimists so far as resolving this problem is concerned, and rightly so if you look back over the last forty years of failed attempts to do just that, a diplomatic combat zone scattered with the bones of numerous mediators. This thesis will discuss how the decisions of the EU institutions, its Member States and specifically of the European Court of Justice, despite conforming to the EU legal order, have managed to disregard the principle of equality on the divided island and thus prevent the promised upgrade of the status of the Turkish Cypriot community since 2004. Indeed, whether a positive or negative reading of the Union’s position towards the Cyprus problem is adopted, the case remains valid for an organisation based on the rule of law to maintain legitimacy, democracy, clarity and equality to the decisions of its institutions. Overall, the aim of this research is to establish a link between the lack of success of the Union to build a bridge over troubled waters and the right of self-determination of the Turkish Cypriot community. The only way left for the EU to help resolve the Cyprus problem is to aim to broker a deal between the two Cypriot communities which will permit the recognition of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) or at least the ‘Taiwanisation’ of Northern Cyprus. Albeit, there are many studies that address the impact of the EU on the conflict or the RoC, which represents the government that has monopolised EU accession, the argument advanced in this thesis is that despite the alleged Europeanisation of the Turkish Cypriot community, they are habitually disregarded because of the EU’s current legal framework and the Union’s lack of conflict transformation strategy vis-à-vis the island. Since the self-declared TRNC is not recognised and EU law is suspended in northern Cyprus in accordance with Protocol No 10 on Cyprus of the Act of Accession 2003, the Turkish-Cypriots represent an idiomatic partner of Brussels but the relations between the two resemble the experience of EU enlargement: the EU’s relevance to the community has been based on the prospects for EU accession (via reunification) and assistance towards preparation for potential EU integration through financial and technical aid. Undeniably, the pre-accession and postaccession strategy of Brussels in Cyprus has worsened the Cyprus problem and hindered the peace process. The time has come for the international community to formally acknowledge the existence of the TRNC