Basic Search / Detailed Display

Author: 曾琬茹
Wan-ru Tseng
Thesis Title: 以星球性之觀點閱讀鍾芭˙拉希莉
Reading Jhumpa Lahiri in the Light of Planetarity
Advisor: 蘇榕
Su, Jung
Degree: 碩士
Master
Department: 英語學系
Department of English
Thesis Publication Year: 2009
Academic Year: 97
Language: 英文
Number of pages: 88
Keywords (in Chinese): 鍾芭.拉希莉《同名之人》《陌生的土地》離散星球性關係認同根源認同亞美文學
Keywords (in English): Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake, Unaccustomed Earth, diaspora, Planetarity, relation identity, root identity, Asian American Literature
Thesis Type: Academic thesis/ dissertation
Reference times: Clicks: 212Downloads: 13
Share:
School Collection Retrieve National Library Collection Retrieve Error Report
  • 本論文試圖藉由印裔美籍作家鍾芭.拉希莉之兩部作品《同名之人》與《陌生的土地》探討移民第二代之身分認同:從傳統的根源之認同轉向關係認同。愛德華.葛利松之概念「關係認同」強調個人身分認同須建立在自己與他人之關係上。而此概念呼應史畢娃克之「星球性」理論。由字面可知,星球性為全球化現象之反思。史畢娃克批評全球化帶來的資本主義已將地球上的生命或資源商品化;因此,她提出星球性之理論,提醒人類面對全球化之洪流時,應有能力維持自己文化的獨特性。除此之外,星球性更進一步建議,若人類能意識你我皆為棲身在地球的同一物種,更應該再次思考人與人之間的關係,不該因為人類劃分的國家或種族界線而有所疏遠,相反地,應該親密且沒有藩籬。
      本論文分為四個章節。第一章為論文之介紹,包括拉希莉之背景、作品內容及風格、與星球性理論之概略。第二章檢視史畢娃克之「星球性」理論,並以此概念分別討論亞美文學及離散身分認同。史畢娃克將星球性運用在文學範疇上,認為將傳統比較文學與區域研究結合是實踐星球性最好的方法。如此一來,新的比較文學研究將能跨越國族界線,並能照顧各地不同文化。利用此概念分析亞美文學,希望亞、美之內的多元性能被關注。至於離散身分認同,第二代已逐漸轉向葛利松所強調的關係認同:除了「根」之外,身分認同必須建立在人與人之關係。其中,由於「愛」擁有結合你我的特質,所以在人類互動中格外重要。利用以上所提之概念,第三章分析拉希莉的兩部作品:《同名之人》與《陌生的土地》中之短篇故事。拉希莉在故事中分別巧妙運用「姓名」與「攝影」之譬喻影射主角心境與身分認同的轉變,而家人朋友的愛以及人與人之間之關係與互動最終扮演關鍵角色。第四章為結論。除了回顧此篇論文重點,也對史畢娃克的星球性是否可行提出質疑。

    This thesis aims to analyze the Indian American writer Jhumpa Lahiri’s works, The Namesake and Unaccustomed Earth, so as to explore how the second-generation immigrants’ identity transforms from the root identity to the relation identity. Based on Édouard Glissant’s concept, I argue that the relation identity emphasizes how one builds his/her identity on the relationship with others. Apart from that, I also incorporate Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s concept of “planetarity,” which Spivak regards as an alternative to globalization, into Glissant’s identity theories. Criticizing capitalism and commodification brought by globalization, Spivak calls on “planetarity” to alert her reader to the danger of different local cultures being subsumed under globalization. In addition, viewing people as the same species inhabiting on earth, she invites us to reconsider the intimate relationship among human beings.
    This thesis is composed of four chapters. The first chapter is an introduction to the main ideas of the thesis, which includes Jhumpa Lahiri’s background, her major works, and the basic concepts of “planetarity.” Chapter two examines Spivak’s “planetarity” which serves as a theoretical base for my discussions of both Asian American literature and the diasporic identity. Regarding planetarity as a literary trope, Spivak wishes to propose this humanitarian project in the hope that it may combine area studies with studies of comparative literature. In doing so, she anticipates a new vision in the future when comparative literature can transcend national boundaries and embrace difference, which inspires me to read Asian American literature planetarily. In this similar light, I argue that the second-generation immigrants have developed a special type of diaspora identity which is relational with its emphasis on multiple relationships with others. Also, in the course of relation identity formation, the emotion of love plays a critical role in binding people together. Chapter three intends to analyze Lahiri’s The Namesake and the “Hema and Kaushik” trilogy collected in Unaccustomed Earth on the basis of the theories elucidated in the second chapter. By using names and photography as metaphors, Lahiri dramatizes the transformation of the characters’ mentality and their identity formations. Characters, relationship, and love hence serve as the very essential elements for identity formation. The fourth (final) chapter concludes my arguments by reviewing the main points discussed previously. It attempts not only to re-evaluate the feasibility of Spivak’s utopian project but also to exhibit more possibilities of productive dialogues that “planetarity” might open up to the question of diaspora identity.

    摘要 i Abstract ii Acknowledgements iv Chapter One Introduction 1 Spivak’s Concept of Planetarity 2 Jhumpa Lahiri and Her Works 4 Jhumpa Lahiri and Planetarity 10 Chapter Two Planetarity, Literature, and identity 16 Limits of Names and Labels: Planetarity and Literature 20 Relation-Relays and Relates: Planetarity and Diasporic identity 31 Chapter Three A Turn to the Relation Identity: Reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s Works 44 What’s in a Name? : Root/Relation Identity in The Namesake 45 Photo-graphs: Relation Identity in “Hema and Kaushik 61 Chapter Four Conclusion: Planetarity as an Impossible Utopia? 75 Works Cited 83

    Works Cited
    Ahmed, Sara. “In the Name of Love.” The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Edinburgh:Edinburgh UP, 2004. 122-43.
    ---. “The Skin of the Community: Affect and Boundary Formation.” Revolt, Affect, Collectivity: The Unstable Boundaries of Kristeva’s Polis. Ed. Tina Chanter and Ewa Płonowska Ziarek. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. 95-111.
    ---. Strange Encounters: Embodied Others in Post-Coloniality. London: Routledge,2000.
    Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. Trans. Richard Howard. New York: Hill and Wang, 2000.
    ---. A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments. Trans. Richard Howard. London: Jonathan Cape, 1979.
    Bassnett, Susan. “How Comparative Literature Came into Being.” Comparative Literature: A Critical Introduction. Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1993. 12-30.
    ---.“Reflections on Comparative Literature in the Twenty-First Century.”Comparative Critical Studies 3.1-2 (2006): 3-11.
    Brah, Avatar. Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities. New York: Routledge, 2003.
    Brains, Paul. “Jhumpa Lahiri: Interpreter of Maladies (2000).” Modern South Asian Literature in English. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2003. 195-204.
    Braziel, Jana Evans, and Anita Mannur, eds. Theorizing Diaspora. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003.
    Bruck, Gabriele vom and Barbara Bodenhorn. The Anthropology of Names and Naming. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
    Butler, Judith. “On Linguistic Vulnerability.” Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative. New York: Routledge, 1997. 1-41.
    Daiya, Kavita. “Provincializing America: Engaging Postcolonial Critique and Asian American Studies in a Transnational Mode.” South Asian Review 26.2 (2005): 265-75.
    Dean, Jodi. Solidarity of Strangers: Feminism after Identity Politics. Berkeley:University of California Press, 1996.
    Derrida Jacques. Politics of Friendship. Trans. George Collins. New York: Verso,1997.
    Field, Robin E. “Writing the Second Generation: Negotiating Cultural Borderlands in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies and The Namesake.” South Asian Review 25.2 (2004): 165-77.
    Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and Its Discontent. Ed. and Trans. James Strachey. London: Norton, 1961.
    ---. Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. trans. and ed. James Strachey. London: The International Psycho-Analytical Press, 1922.
    ---.“Uncanny.” The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Ed. and Trans. James Strachey. Vol.17. London: Hogarth, 1955. 217-52.
    Friedman, Natalie. “From Hybrids to Tourists: Children of Immigrants in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake.” Critique 50.1 (2008): 111-26.
    Ghazoul, Ferial J. “Comparative Literature as a Phoenix.” Rev. of Death of a Discipline, by Gayatri Spivak. H-Net Reviews. June, 2003. 5 July 2008
    < http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=7729 >.
    Glissant, Édouard. Poetics of Relation. Trans. Betsy Wing. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997. Trans. of Poétique de la relation. 1990.
    “Graph.” Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. 4th ed.2003.
    “Graph.” Def. 1. The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989.
    Grossman, Lev. “Indian Ink.” The Time Magazine 27 March 2008. 16 April 2008 <http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1725962,00.html>.
    ---. “Jhumpa Lahiri: The Quiet Laureate.” The Time Magazine 19 May 2008. 10 August 2008
    <http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1738511,00.html>.
    Guttman, Anna. “Reexamining Indian Nonalignment: Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things.” The Nation of India in Contemporary Indian Literature. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. 115-34.
    Hall, Stuart. “Cultural Identity and Difference.” Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader. Ed. Patrick Williams and Laura Christian. New York: Columbia UP, 1994. 392-403.
    Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “The Custom-House.” The Scarlet Letter. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998. 3-45.
    Jost, François. Introduction to Comparative Literature. Indianapolis: Pegasus,1974.
    Kachka, Boris. “The Confidence Artist.” The New York Magazine. 27 March 2008. 16 April 2008 <http://nymag.com/arts/books/profiles/45571/>.
    Kakutani, Michiko. “Wondering Bread and Curry: Mingling Cultures, Conflicted Hearts.” Rev. of Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri. New York Times. 4 April 2008. 30 June 2008 <http://www.nytimes.com >.
    Kerr, Sarah. “Displaced Passions.” Rev. of Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri. The New York Review of Books 55.8 (2008). 30 June 2008 <http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21359>.
    Kristeva, Julia. Strangers to Ourselves. Trans. Leon S. Roudiez. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991.
    Lahiri, Jhumpa. “Jhumpa Lahiri.” The Atlantic. 18 March 2008. 16 April 2008
    <http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200802u/jhumpa-lahiri>.
    ---.“Jhumpa Lahiri on Her Debut Novel: An Interview with the Author.”About, Inc. 16 August 2007. April 16 2008 <http://hinduism.about.com/library/weekly/extra/bl-jhumpainterview.htm>.
    ---.The Namesake. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003.
    ---. Unaccustomed Earth. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.
    Lambek, Michael. “What’s in a Name? Name Bestowal and the Identity of Spirits in Mayotte and Northwest Madagascar.” Bruck and Bodenhorn 115-38.
    Lee, Hsiu-chuan. “Writing Nation from (Un)Homes-Japanese American Families in Cynthia Kadohata’s The Floating World and Lydia Minatoya’s Talking to High Monks in the Snow.” EurAmerica 36.3(2006). 359-94.
    Lim, Cathy Carmode. “Transplanted Hearts.” Rev. of Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri. The Anniston Star 27 April 2008. 18 July 2008 <http://www.annistonstar.com/as-index.htm>.
    Lowe, Lisa. “Heterogeneity, Hybridity, Multiplicity: Marking Asian-American Difference.” Braziel and Mannur 132-55.
    Miyoshi, Masao. “Turn to the Planet: Literature, Diversity, and Totality.”Comparative Literature 53.4 (2001): 283-97.
    Prashad, Vijay. The Karma of Brown Folk. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000.
    Riemer, Andrew. “The Namesake.” Rev. of The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri. Sydney Morning Herald. 25 October 2003. 15 August 2007 <http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/10/24/1066631621566.htm>.
    Rothstein, Mervyn. “India’s Post-Rushdie Generation; Young Writers Leave Magic Realism and Look at Reality.” The New York Times 3 July 2000. 2 March 2008 <http://www.nytimes.com>.
    Said, Edward W. Out of Place: A Memoir. New York: Vintage Books, 2000.
    Santa Ana, Jeffrey J.. “Affect-Identity: The Emotions of Assimilation, Multiraciality, and Asian American Subjectivity.” Asian North American Identities: Beyond the Hyphen. Ed. Eleanor Ty and Donald C. Goellnicht. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2004. 15-42.
    Schillinger, Liesl.“American Children.” Rev. of Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri. The New York Times 6 April 2008. 2 May 2008 <http://www.nytimes.com>.
    Scott, James C.. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven: Yale UP, 1998.
    Seaman, Donna. Rev. of Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri. Booklist 1 February 2008. 2 May 2008 <http://www.booklistonline.com>.
    Shankar, Lavina Dhingra and Rajini Srikanth, eds. A Part, Yet Apart. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1998.
    Silverman, Kaja. The Threshold of the Visible World. New York: Routledge, 1996.
    Sontag, Susan. On Photography. New York: Anchor Books, 1990.
    ---. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003.
    Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Death of a Discipline. New York: Columbia UP, 2003.
    ---. “Harlem.” Social Text 22.4 (2004): 113-39.
    ---. “Our Asias” Other Asias. MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2008. 209-38.
    Su, Jung, and Frank Stevenson. “Thinking Otherwise: Asia Revisited.” Asia and the Other. Spec. issue of Concentric 34.2 (Sept. 2008): 3-12.
    Taylor, Elizabeth. Rev. of Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri. 12 April 2008. 17 July 2008 <http://www.chicagotribune.com/>.
    Toutonghi, Pauls Harijs. “A World Without Maps: Post-Colonial, English-Language Literature in the Late Twentieth Century.” Diss. Cornell University, 2006.
    Waggoner, Matt. “Death of a Discipline.” Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory 6.2 (2005): 130-41. 15 September, 2008 <http://www.jcrt.org/archives/06.2/waggoner.pdf>.
    Weber, Beverly M. “Beyond the Culture Trap: Immigrant Women in Germany, Planet-Talk, and a Politics of Listening.” Women in German Yearbook: Feminist Studies in German Literature and Culture 21(2005): 16-38.

    下載圖示
    QR CODE