This thesis examines the way in which the novels Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents present inequality based on disability, gender, class, religion and race and critically examines the...Show moreThis thesis examines the way in which the novels Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents present inequality based on disability, gender, class, religion and race and critically examines the intersections between these socioeconomic inequalities. This thesis focuses on the concept of change. Butler utilises science fiction — the genre of change — to critique social inequality on the basis of disability, gender, class, religion and race by founding Earthseed — the religion of change. Intersectionality is a tool, or lens, that aids in achieving change.Show less
In this thesis the Dementor from the Harry Potter series is studied as a monster within the framework of monster theory. The Dementor is read as a symbol for depression.
This thesis assesses the relation between the novelistic work of French author Michel Houellebecq and the theoretical work of French Indologist and esoteric polemicist René Guénon. While this...Show moreThis thesis assesses the relation between the novelistic work of French author Michel Houellebecq and the theoretical work of French Indologist and esoteric polemicist René Guénon. While this relationship has been noticed before, it hasn’t been addressed in a more extensive study. This work questions how the concept of ‘tradition’, which is a key idea in Guénon’s theoretical work, can be interpreted in Houellebecq’s novels, and especially his 2015 novel Soumission. To adequately address this question, the first chapter sets out to explain and contextualize Guénon’s works Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines (1921) and The Crisis of the Modern World (1927). It explains the most important concepts of Guénon’s work, particularly the semantics of ‘tradition’. The author stresses that ‘tradition’, however a supposedly a-historical notion, is embedded within Guénon’s understanding of History as a gradual disintegration of authentic spirituality. The second chapter investigates how the concept of modernity is represented in several of Houellebecq’s novels. The author uses secondary literature by Van Wesemael, Betty and Sweeney to argue how the representation of modernity throughout Houellebecq’s novels is polyphonic, both progressive and reactionary. Within Houellebecq’s critique of modernity, the third chapter explores how Houellebecq’s novel Soumission fictionally represents Guénon’s idea of tradition. It poses that the representation of traditionalism in Soumission, as an expression of the rejection of modernity that is present throughout Houellebecq’s oeuvre, could be seen as part of a general current of Guénonian influence in Houellebecq’s oeuvre. This influence however, as the thesis concludes, should always be regarded from within the limits of literary representation.Show less
This thesis sought to interpret what the main protagonist of Caramelo, or Puro Cuento critically interrogates, and to what extent her act breaks with dominant power structures, examining her view...Show moreThis thesis sought to interpret what the main protagonist of Caramelo, or Puro Cuento critically interrogates, and to what extent her act breaks with dominant power structures, examining her view on womanhood and sexuality compared to sexist archetypes. Notably, the tandem Celaya-Awful Grandmother forges a bond to deeply revisit societal sexism, showing that inside benevolent sexist ideals there is a subjacent willingness for a redefinition of womanhood and sexuality outside sexism. As a ghost, her Awful Grandmother Soledad embodies for Celaya the needed support to act upon and become her desired self: an independent, educated young woman. By choosing not to reproduce the hegemonic discourse around fairy-tale-like love stories, Celaya explicitly refers to telenovela narratives and her opportunity to choose which narrative –comedy or tragedy– she wants to be the protagonist of. This final reflection poses a firm suggestion on how telenovela narratives can mirror these redefinitions on womanhood and sexuality that populate Chicana feminist writingsShow less
A study on the representation of refugees in European literature, from which four modes of infrahuman representation appeared. "Dit zijn de namen" by Tommy Wieringa is used as a case study.
Derrière la vitre (Behind the Glass) is a 1970 novel by a French writer Robert Merle. It focuses on the hour-by-hour recital of events of one day, 22 March 1968, that led to occupation of the...Show moreDerrière la vitre (Behind the Glass) is a 1970 novel by a French writer Robert Merle. It focuses on the hour-by-hour recital of events of one day, 22 March 1968, that led to occupation of the Sorbonne's newly built campus in Nanterre and started further student protest movement of May 1968. The same series of events is presented through focal points of several characters, including students, professors and Algerian workers living the Nanterre bidonville close to the faculty construction site, allowing to examine and compare their experiences. The spatial imagery of Nanterre itself plays an important role in the narrative, and is often compared and opposed to the new concrete-and-glass faculty building. The metaphor of «glass» separating idealistically inspired students from the immigrant workers, with whose very hands this «glass» had been built, and, more broadly, from France in general is essential to the novel. The paradox that gave birth to this research is in the apparent contradiction between, on one hand, multiple descriptions of the emptiness and facelessness of Nanterre from different points of view and, on the other hand, a heavy corpus of historical associations that these same spaces evoke in the the collective memory of the characters. The former allows to apply the concept of the non-place to the humal spaces in the text, while the latter opens a possibility to speak of the «site of memory» (lieu de mémoire) value of the described places. Using a thoroughly presented methodological and conseptual framework, I am aiming at elaborating, how paradoxal this particularity, in fact, is, and at answering the question, if the spatial imagery of Nanterre in Derrière la vitre, described during the one particular historical turning point, can be geocritically read as a non-place in the process of becoming a lieu de mémoire.Show less
This thesis focuses on the representation of Jewish women in Czech Holocaust prose, providing a comparative analysis of Arnošt Lustig's The Unloved: From the Diary of Perla S., Jan Otčenášek's...Show moreThis thesis focuses on the representation of Jewish women in Czech Holocaust prose, providing a comparative analysis of Arnošt Lustig's The Unloved: From the Diary of Perla S., Jan Otčenášek's Romeo, Juliet and Darkness and Ladislav Fuks's The Cremator.Show less
By examining two of the most acclaimed and popular televisual productions recently released, Mr. Robot (USA Network, 2015 - present) and Black Mirror (Channel 4/Netflix, 2011 - present), I wish to...Show moreBy examining two of the most acclaimed and popular televisual productions recently released, Mr. Robot (USA Network, 2015 - present) and Black Mirror (Channel 4/Netflix, 2011 - present), I wish to show up to what extent they portray the expansion of capitalism into the political, cultural and social dimensions of our Western contemporary reality as a phenomenon weakening our utopian sense of the future. Drawing upon the field of social theory, I will argue that Mr. Robot, with its emphasis on the political and cultural domains, shows how mechanisms of control and manipulation responding to the logic of late capitalism and consumerism are influencing our ability to imagine a new and alternative system to the current one. In the case of Black Mirror, criticism towards late capitalism revolves around the use and abuse of new technologies, which implement the spiral of image addiction, the power of commodities, and cause a dramatic change in the way we perceive the boundaries between life and death. Throughout my analysis, I will refer to the utopian genre, and, specifically, its most recent variation of critical dystopia, with the aim of considering the tension and interaction between utopia and dystopia in the two TV series as a strategy, first, to raise awareness in the public about the most degrading aspects of our reality and, secondly, to reinvigorate a concept of utopia not as escapist thinking, but as a transformative impulse to change society and potentially overcome the cultural deadlock of capitalism.Show less
