Date of Award
2011
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Program
Comparative Literature
Supervisor
Nandi Bhatia
Second Advisor
Julia Emberley
Abstract
ABSTRACT
My thesis is an exercise in reading literatures that engage with Aboriginality in the contexts of India and Australia. It examines Mahasweta Devi’s stories on Aboriginal India, anthologized as Imaginary Maps (1995), along with her short story “Shishu” (1993), and Australian writer of the Waanyi nation Alexis Wright’s novel Carpentaria (2006). I analyze these texts as, what I suggest to be, interventionist writings that tell us about varied effects of colonial histories, decolonization, globalization, and retain a complex relation with the notion of literary resistance. I argue these narratives of literary histories of Aboriginal peoples of India and Australia provide a trenchant critique of oppressive structures and also, simultaneously, enable us to reinterpret a decolonized future. The theoretical focus of this project draws upon scholarship on postcolonial theory and theories of decolonization.
Recommended Citation
Halder, Anirban, "DECOLONIZATION AS SUCH”: READING INTERVENTIONS IN MAHASWETA DEVI AND ALEXIS WRIGHT" (2011). Digitized Theses. 3228.
https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/digitizedtheses/3228