“Don’t be alarmed. It’s to do with sex.” Sherlock Holmes fanfiction and freedom of the imaginary domain
- Authors: Van der Nest, Megan
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Fan fiction , Fans (Persons) -- Fiction , Holmes, Sherlock , Literature and the internet , Sex in literature
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/124208 , vital:35576
- Description: In this thesis I argue that, for the individual fan, reading and writing fanfiction texts, and engaging with the online fandom communities within which these texts are produced, is a potentially valuable experience. This is because the kind of social and creative spaces found in these communities allow for, and celebrate, the free imaginative play with romantic and sexual desires, identities, and relationships. To articulate the importance of these spaces, I draw on Drucilla Cornell’s concept of the imaginary domain, defined as the psychic space each individual uses to explore different sexual desires and personae, which exploration is necessary for the development of full personhood. I also argue that the growing visibility and influence of fandom in modern society means that it could serve as a mechanism for social change, particularly in the acceptance and support of multiple sexual identities and forms of love. Selected texts, drawn from the Sherlock fandom, are discussed as representative of the approach taken within fanfiction communities towards various aspects of sexuality and sexual ethics. This approach combines the enthusiastic exploration of sexual desires without shame or fear of judgment with an ongoing, critical interrogation of sexual ethics.
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- Date Issued: 2020
The Afropolitan flâneur: literary representations of the city and contemporary urban identities in selected African and transnational texts
- Authors: Leff, Carol Willa
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: City and town life in literature , African literature (English) -- History and criticism , Flaneurs in literature
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/115082 , vital:34076
- Description: When an individual walks the urban landscape there is a unique symbiosis between self and city. It is through walking the cityscape and observing the crowd and the surrounding environment that the archetypal literary figure of the European flâneur acts as a mirror of a particular time and space. But how might such a flâneur walk and observe the city in contemporary African and transnational literary texts? I argue that there is a literary re-imagining and repurposing of the flâneur figure which has hitherto not been acknowledged and explored: an Afropolitan flâneur. ‘Afropolitan’ is a term popularised by Taiye Selasi in a 2005 essay to refer to a ‘scattered tribe’ of ‘Africans of the world’ (n. pag.). In this dissertation, the entanglement of the Afropolitan subject and the European flâneur brings together past and present, Africa and the West. I first provide a historical and theoretical framework to illustrate how the flâneur figure ‘migrated’ from Europe to Africa, and how this figure is to be understood as a literary construct, in relation to current considerations of Afropolitanism. I go on to discuss a wide range of texts that engage with Afropolitan flâneurs who traverse cities in Africa (such as Johannesburg, Cape Town and Lagos), or global north cities (New York, Paris and London). While some of the Afropolitan flâneurs depicted in these texts are migrants or homeless individuals who struggle to adapt easily to a new environment, others, despite being more privileged, also sometimes experience uncomfortable assimilation in their new or strange city space. There are also those who seem to feel equally at home wherever they find themselves. As these Afropolitan flâneurs walk their way through the urban landscape in the texts under examination, they reflect different ways of being in the city. By problematising the binaries of local/global, national/transnational, black/white, slum/paradise, this dissertation seeks to address issues of belonging or not belonging and gestures towards new ways of understanding what it means to be an African in the world.
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- Date Issued: 2019
Challenging Biblical boundaries: Jeanette Winterson’s postmodern feminist subversion of Biblical discourse in Oranges are not the only fruit (1985) and Boating for beginners (1985)
- Authors: Erasmus, Shirley
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Winterson, Jeanette, 1959- -- Criticism and interpretation , Bible -- Feminist criticism , Bible -- Criticism, interpretation, etc , Postmodernism -- Religious aspects , Winterson, Jeanette, 1959- -- Oranges are not the only fruit , Winterson, Jeanette, 1959- -- Boating for beginners , Patriarchy in literature , Sex discrimination in literature
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/59121 , vital:27430
- Description: This thesis investigates the subversion of Biblical discourse in Jeanette Winterson’s first two novels, Oranges are Not the Only Fruit and Boating for Beginners. By rewriting Biblical stories Winterson challenges traditional Western religious discourses and their rules for heteronormative social and sexual behaviours and desires. Winterson’s texts respond to the patriarchal nature of socially pervasive texts, such as the Bible, by encouraging her readers to regard these texts with suspicion, thus highlighting what can be seen as a ‘postmodern concern’ with the notion of ‘truth’. Chapter One of this thesis comprises a discussion of Biblical boundaries. These boundaries, I argue, are a process of historical oppression which serves to subjugate and control women, a practice inherent in the Bible and modern society. The Biblical boundaries within which women are expected to live, are carefully portrayed in Oranges and then comically and blasphemously mocked in Boating. Chapter One also argues that Winterson’s sexuality plays an important role in the understanding of her texts, despite her desire for her sexuality to remain ‘outside’ her writing. Chapter Two of this thesis, examines the mix of fact and fiction in Oranges, in order to create a new genre: fictional memoir. The chapter introduces the concept of the ‘autobiographical pact’ and the textual agreement which Winterson creates with her readers. In this chapter, I examine Winterson’s powerful subversion of Biblical discourse, through her narration of Jeanette’s ‘coming out’ within a Biblical framework. Chapter Three of this thesis examines Winterson’s second book, Boating, and the serious elements of this comic book. This chapter studies the various postmodern narrative techniques used in Boating in order to subvert Biblical and historical discourse. Chapter Three highlights Winterson’s postmodern concern with the construction of history as ‘truth’. Finally, Chapter Four compares Oranges and Boating, showing the texts as differing, yet equally relevant textual counterparts. This chapter examines the anti-feminine characters in both texts and Winterson’s ability to align her reader with a feminist or lesbian viewpoint. This thesis argues that Winterson’s first two texts deliberately challenge Biblical discourse in favour of a postmodern feminist viewpoint.
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- Date Issued: 2018