Reviving the vanishing subject: the subject as abject in postmodern memoir

Simple item page
dc.contributor.authorRich, Susan
dc.contributor.examiningcommitteeBrydon, Diana (English, Film, and Theatre) Renée, Louise (French, Spanish and Italian) Moss, Laura (University of British Columbia)en_US
dc.contributor.supervisorCariou, Warren (English, Film, and Theatre)en_US
dc.date.accessioned2017-12-07T14:16:55Z
dc.date.available2017-12-07T14:16:55Z
dc.date.issued2017
dc.degree.disciplineEnglish, Film and Theatreen_US
dc.degree.levelDoctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)en_US
dc.description.abstractMy dissertation contemplates rhetorical and ontological problems of self-representation in twentieth century postmodern memoir. Many postmodernists contend the self merely deteriorates amid the fallibility of memory, instabilities of ‘truth’, a Lacanian notion of language as inexpressible of the self, and a subjectivity so multiplicitous and constructed that it is impossible to write. Yet Julia Kristeva’s psychoanalytic notion of abjection – a dialectical process that simultaneously dismantles and reinforces the self – illuminates postmodern autobiographical subjectivity as ultimately revived through literary self-alienation. As such a process of abjection, postmodern autobiography thus involves reconstruction amid deconstruction – wherein a “weight of meaninglessness . . . crushes me” (Kristeva Powers 2) while also ensuring “that ‘I’ does not disappear in it but finds, in . . . sublime alienation, a forfeited existence” (Kristeva Powers 9). This approach resituates the genre as an ethical form of heteroglossic self-renewal, wherein the recognition of self-as-other facilitates an ethical engagement with community in an increasingly pluralistic world. Postmodern autobiography is thus revealed as a relevant, productive space of renewal despite its own claims of futility. I focus on five exemplars of postmodern autobiography – texts written by Lucy Grealy, Suniti Namjoshi, Vladimir Nabokov, Robert Kroetsch, and Michael Ondaatje – to demonstrate how a view of postmodern autobiography as abject translates across such diverse social constructs as nation, gender, diaspora, physicality, memory, class, and the family.en_US
dc.description.noteFebruary 2018en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1993/32714
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.rightsopen accessen_US
dc.subjectMemoiren_US
dc.subjectAutobiographyen_US
dc.subjectPostmodern Autobiographyen_US
dc.subjectPostmodernismen_US
dc.subjectPostmodernen_US
dc.subjectAbjectionen_US
dc.subjectLucy Grealyen_US
dc.subjectSuniti Namjoshien_US
dc.subjectVladimir Nabokoven_US
dc.subjectRobert Kroetschen_US
dc.subjectMichael Ondaatjeen_US
dc.subjectJulia Kristevaen_US
dc.titleReviving the vanishing subject: the subject as abject in postmodern memoiren_US
dc.typedoctoral thesisen_US
Files
Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
rich_susan.pdf
Size:
1.43 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Download
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
license.txt
Size:
2.2 KB
Format:
Item-specific license agreed to upon submission
Description:
Download
Collections
FGS - Electronic Theses and Practica