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http://hdl.handle.net/11375/15411
Title: | Kinship Cross-Talk: Love and Belonging in Contemporary Comparative Literatures |
Authors: | Peek, Michelle |
Advisor: | Coleman, Daniel |
Department: | English and Cultural Studies |
Keywords: | kinship, love, belonging, literature, human rights, Hawaiian kinship, Indigenous kinship, queer kinship, queer diaspora, comparative literature, Dave Eggers, What Is the What, Monique Truong, The Book of Salt, Brandy Nālani McDougall, The Salt-Wind Ka Makani Pa'akai |
Publication Date: | 2014 |
Abstract: | My dissertation, Kinship Cross-Talk: Love and Belonging in Contemporary Comparative Literatures, examines contemporary models of kinship as expressions of relationality, resistance, responsibility, witnessing, and love. I ask: how do literary texts depict “never-easy kinship[s]” (Grosz 128) that bind the self to others and the world in particular expressions of love and responsibility, inseparable from familial, national, transnational, and/or trans-Indigenous modes of belonging? Specifically, my dissertation looks at Indigenous, queer, and human rights-based literary texts that articulate shared kinships and intimacies, and facilitate a “critical re-imagining” of “being-together” (Mackey 168) in global contexts. My research methodology emphasizes the historical and cultural contingencies of contemporary models of kinship by engaging the epistemological traditions I encounter on their own terms. Often this means a turn away from Euro-American humanist approaches to subjectivity and relation to attend to other modes (critical or wry humanist, diasporic, spiritual, ecological, gustatory) and materials or environments (water, salt, ocean, for example) that shape kinship beliefs and practices. This dissertation studies three primary literary texts: the fictional autobiography What Is the What authored by Dave Eggers, Monique Truong’s novel The Book of Salt, and The Salt-Wind / Ka Makani Pa‘akai, a collection of poetry by Hawaiian author Brandy Nālani McDougall. |
URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/11375/15411 |
Appears in Collections: | Open Access Dissertations and Theses |
Files in This Item:
File | Description | Size | Format | |
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Peek-Dissertation.pdf | Thesis | 1.12 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
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