Date of Award
2020
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelors
Department
Humanities
First Advisor
Young, Jessica
Area of Concentration
English
Abstract
This thesis identifies a common interest between postcolonial theory and Lacanian notions of subjectivity. Both lines of thought observe a wound that has been written over, by hegemonic structures that enforce colonial networks of power or by the illusion of a stable identity, and examine the traces of that wound as they manifest in our experience of the world. These structures of power and subjectivity govern how our experiences may signify and how we may interpret them, while the wound they attempt to bandage represents a void of signification or holds something inarticulable. The legacies of colonial medicine have defined illness as a category that is similarly illegible, making disease a potential disruptive force within postcolonial networks. This thesis examines works of contemporary South Asian fiction by Amitav Ghosh, Bharati Mukherjee, and Hari Kunzru that use the metaphorical dimensions of disease to imagine radical futures for their subaltern characters. I argue that disease’s ability to travel unrestricted across geographical and bodily boundaries destabilizes both hegemonic structures and subjective experience, forging new intersubjective connections and embodied experiences that hold new potential for subaltern signification.
Recommended Citation
Graben, Christina, "“The Price of Touch”: Emergent Postcolonial Subjectivities Through Metaphors of Illness in Contemporary South Asian Literature" (2020). Theses & ETDs. 5944.
https://digitalcommons.ncf.edu/theses_etds/5944