Transnational Discourses on Class, Gender, and Cultural Identity

Irene Marques

Description

This exploration of class, feminism, and cultural identity (including issues of race, nation, colonialism, and economic imperialism) focuses on the work of four writers: the Mozambican Mia Couto, the Portuguese José Saramago, the Brazilian Clarice Lispector, and the South African J. M. Coetzee. In the first section, the author discusses the political aspects of Couto's collection of short stories Contos do nascer da terra (Stories of the Birth of the Land) and Saramago's novel O ano da morte de Ricardo Reis (The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis). The second section explores similar themes in Coetzee's Life and Times of Michael K and Lispector's A hora da estrela (The Hour of the Star). Marques argues that these four writers are political in the sense that they bring to the forefront issues pertaining to the power of literature to represent, misrepresent, and debate matter related to different subaltern subjects: the postcolonial subject, the poor subject (the "poor other"), and the female subject. She also discusses the "ahuman other" in the context of the subjectivity of the natural world, the dead, and the unborn, and shows how these aspects are present in all the different societies addressed and point to the mystical dimension that permeates most societies. With regard to Couto's work, this "ahuman other" is approached mostly through a discussion of the holistic, animist values and epistemologies that inform and guide Mozambican traditional societies, while in further analyses the notion is approached via discussions on phenomenology, elementality, and divinity following the philosophies of Lévinas and Irigaray and mystical consciousness in Zen Buddhism and the psychology of Jung.
Acknowledgments

Note on Translations and Use of Abbreviations

Introduction to Transnational Discourses on Class, Gender, and Cultural Identity

Part One: The Bolder Politics of Agency

Chapter One: The Politics of Agency in Couto

Chapter Two: The Politics of Agency in Saramago

Part Two: The Deeper Politics of Agency

Chapter Three: Authenticity of Being as the Politics of Agency in Lispector

Chapter Four: Authenticity in Coetzee's Life and Times of Michael K

Conclusion

Works Cited

Index

Sujets

• Literary Criticism
• African

Informations

• Publié par: Purdue University Press
• Date de parution: 16 janvier 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781612491653
• Langue: English

Extrait

Transnational Discourses on Class, Gender, and Cultural Identity
Comparative Cultural Studies Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek, Series Editor
The Purdue University Press monograph series of Books in Comparative Cultural Studies publishes single-authored and thematic collected volumes of new scholarship. Manuscripts are invited for publication in the series in fields of the study of culture, literature, the arts, media studies, communication studies, the history of ideas, etc., and related disciplines of the humanities and social sciences to the series editor via email at < [e-mail] >. Comparative cultural studies is a contextual approach in the study of culture in a global and intercultural context and work with a plurality of methods and approaches; the theoretical and methodological framework of comparative cultural studies is built on tenets borrowed from the disciplines of cultural studies and comparative literature and from a range of thought including literary and culture theory, (radical) constructivism, communication theories, and systems theories; in comparative cultural studies focus is on theory and method as well as application. For a detailed description of the aims and scope of the series including the style guide of the series link to < http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweblibrary/seriespurdueccs >. Manuscripts submitted to the series are peer reviewed followed by the usual standards of editing, copy editing, marketing, and distribution. The series is affiliated with CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture (ISSN 1481-4374), the peer-reviewed, full-text, and open-access quarterly published by Purdue University Press at < http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb >.
Volumes in the Purdue series of Books in Comparative Cultural Studies include < http://www.thepress.purdue.edu/comparativeculturalstudies.html >
Irene Marques, Transnational Discourses on Class, Gender, and Cultural Identity
Comparative Hungarian Cultural Studies , Ed. Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek and Louise O. Vasvári
Hui Zou, A Jesuit Garden in Beijing and Early Modern Chinese Culture
Yi Zheng, From Burke and Wordsworth to the Modern Sublime in Chinese Literature
Agata Anna Lisiak, Urban Cultures in (Post)Colonial Central Europe
Representing Humanity in an Age of Terror , Ed. Sophia A. McClennen and Henry James Morello
Michael Goddard, Gombrowicz, Polish Modernism, and the Subversion of Form
Shakespeare in Hollywood, Asia, and Cyberspace, Ed. Alexander C.Y. Huang and Charles S. Ross
Gustav Shpet’s Contribution to Philosophy and Cultural Theory , Ed. Galin Tihanov
Comparative Central European Holocaust Studies , Ed. Louise O. Vasvári and Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek
Marko Juvan, History and Poetics of Intertextuality
Thomas O. Beebee, Nation and Region in Modern American and European Fiction
Paolo Bartoloni, On the Cultures of Exile, Translation, and Writing
Justyna Sempruch, Fantasies of Gender and the Witch in Feminist Theory and Literature
Kimberly Chabot Davis, Postmodern Texts and Emotional Audiences
Philippe Codde, The Jewish American Novel
Deborah Streifford Reisinger, Crime and Media in Contemporary France
Imre Kertész and Holocaust Literature, Ed. Louise O. Vasvári and Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek
Camilla Fojas, Cosmopolitanism in the Americas
Comparative Cultural Studies and Michael Ondaatje’s Writing, Ed. Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek
Jin Feng, The New Woman in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Fiction
Comparative Cultural Studies and Latin America, Ed. Sophia A. McClennen and Earl E. Fitz
Sophia A. McClennen, The Dialectics of Exile
Comparative Literature and Comparative Cultural Studies, Ed. Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek
Transnational Discourses on Class, Gender, and Cultural Identity
Irene Marques
Purdue University Press West Lafayette, Indiana
Copyright 2011 by Purdue University. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Marques, Irene, 1969-
Transnational discourses on class, gender, and cultural identity / Irene Marques.
p. cm. -- (Comparative cultural studies)
  Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-55753-605-1 (pbk.) -- ISBN 978-1-61249-164-6 (epdf) -- ISBN 978-1-61249-165-3 (epub) 1. Political fiction--History and criticism. 2. Couto, Mia, 1955- Contos do nascer da terra. 3. Saramago, José. Ano da morte de Ricardo Reis. 4. Lispector, Clarice. Hora da estrela. 5. Coetzee, J. M., 1940- Life & times of Michael K. 6. Other (Philosophy) in literature. 7. Identity (Psychology) in literature. 8. Postcolonialism in literature. 9. Language and languages in literature. I. Title.
PN3448.P6M37 2012
809.3’93581--dc23
2011036982
Cover image: Statue of Siddhartha Gautama Buddha. Photo: Nyo.
Dedication
I dedicate this work to my father, Adelino (who already lives on the other side) and my mother, Alzira, who have worked very had all their lives in that place high up on the mountains called Adsamo. I also dedicate it to the wild goats of Serra do Caramulo and to my times with them as a goatherdess.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Note on Translations and Use of Abbreviations
Introduction to Transnational Discourses on Class, Gender, and Cultural Identity
Irene Marques
Part One
The Bolder Politics of Agency
Chapter One
The Politics of Agency in Couto
Chapter Two
The Politics of Agency in Saramago
Part Two
The Deeper Politics of Agency
Chapter Three
Authenticity of Being as the Politics of Agency in Lispector
Chapter Four
Authenticity in Coetzee’s Life and Times of Michael K
Conclusion
Works Cited
Index
Acknowledgments
A deep thank you goes to J.E. Chamberlin, who is a person of immense humanity, kindness, and beautiful ideas, and from whom I have learned a great deal. A special thank you also to Linda Hutcheon for all her feedback and her taming of my sometimes overly unsettling way of writing. To Ricardo Sternberg, Julie Leblanc, and Rosemary Jolly, I also extend my gratitude. I would like to thank Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek, series editor of the Purdue University Press print monograph Series of Books in Comparative Cultural Studies, for his constant support in the publication of this book. Last but not least, I thank the anonymous readers of my manuscript and the helpful comments I received to improve the book.
A section of chapter 1 has been published in The Journal of African Literature and Culture 4 (2007): 101-24. under the title “Mia Couto and the Holistic Choric Self: Recreating the Broken Cosmic Order (Or: Relearning the Song that Truly Speaks . . .)” and a section of chapter 2 has been published in TRANSverse: A Comparative Studies Journal 2 (2004): 31-43 under the title “The Sterility of the Individual Ontological Search versus the Fecundity of the Relational Ontological Search in Saramago’s The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis .” Copyright of the above articles is released to the author.
Note on Translations and Use of Abbreviations
All translations pertaining to Couto’s short stories are my own. In order to preserve Couto’s peculiar language and style and to be faithful to the original text as much as possible, my English translations of his stories often use language in an unfamiliar way (i.e., I mix, change, or create certain words). In the case of Saramago’s and Lispector’s novels, I use the published translations by Giovanni Pontiero. In cases where I feel the need to alter the original translation, I use braces—{ }—to signal the change (the same applies to Lispector’s other works used herein). When using secondary sources that are in Portuguese, the translation provided is my own. When using secondary sources that are in Portuguese, the translation provided is my own. In these instances, no page number is provided after the English translation.
For practical purposes, the works under analysis will often be referred to by abbreviations: Contos ( Stories of the Birth of the Land ), A hora ( The Hour of the Star ), O ano ( The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis ) and Michael K ( Life and Times of Michael K ).
Introduction
This study revolves around three different issues: class, feminist, and cultural identity discourses, the latter more specifically in relation to race, nation, colonialism, postcolonialism, and economic and cultural imperialism. The analysis focuses on works by four world writers: the Mozambican Mia Couto, the Portuguese José Saramago, the Brazilian Clarice Lispector, and the South African J.M. Coetzee. I demonstrate that all these four writers are political in the sense that they bring to the forefront important issues pertaining to the power of literature to represent, misrepresent, and debate issues related to different subaltern subjects: the postcolonial subject, the poor subject (which I often refer to as the “poor other”), and the female subject. I also deal with the “ahuman other” and thus I discuss the subjectivity of the natural world, the dead, and the unborn, and show how these aspects are present in the different societies addressed and point to the mystical dimension that permeates most societies. In Couto’s chapter this ahuman other is approached mostly through a discussion of the holistic, animist values and epistemologies that inform and guide Mozambican traditional societies, while in the other chapters this ahuman othe