Graduation Date
5-2015
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department or Program
Graduate Humanities
Department or Program Chair
Joshua Horowitz, PhD
First Reader
Thomas Burke, MFA
Second Reader
Mairi Pileggi, PhD
Abstract
Re‐naming one’s self is an empowering act of self‐definition; re‐naming others is an attempt to codify, contain and censure identity. Re‐naming emerges as a compelling theme in contemporary transnational literature, appearing in three notable texts: Zadie Smith's White Teeth (2000), Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex (2002) and Salman Rushdie's memoir Joseph Anton (2012). These texts depict stories of diaspora, the forced migration or dispersal away from a homeland. Communities of diaspora negotiate between two cultures: an originary culture and the culture of the new geographic location. From these negotiations emerge a third, hybridized identity that reimagines the majority culture and challenges structural inequity. Personal acts of re‐naming parallel diasporic experience, and this thesis demonstrates how re‐naming and hybrid identities call for more plural epistemologies of belonging in an increasingly globalized and interconnected world.
Included in
Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Literature in English, British Isles Commons, Literature in English, North America Commons, Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority Commons, Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons