{"id":37105,"date":"2014-08-18T18:37:35","date_gmt":"2014-08-18T18:37:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=37105"},"modified":"2014-08-18T18:37:35","modified_gmt":"2014-08-18T18:37:35","slug":"intervening-in-the-racial-imaginary-mixed-race-and-resistance-in-contemporary-australian-literature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=37105","title":{"rendered":"Intervening in the racial imaginary: \u2018mixed race\u2019 and resistance in contemporary Australian Literature"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/hdl.handle.net\/2123\/11589\" target=\"_blank\"><em><strong>Intervening in the racial imaginary: \u2018mixed race\u2019 and resistance in contemporary Australian Literature<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>University of Sydney<br \/>\n2014<br \/>\n243 pages<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lyn Sue Dickens<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>A thesis submitted in fulfilment of requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This thesis examines the extent to which three contemporary Australian novels can be regarded as interventions in \u201cthe modern racial imaginary\u201d (Mignolo 2011a, p. 277). In order to analyse the novels as interventions, this thesis looks in particular at depictions and conceptualisations of mixed race subjectivity and experience in the texts. The novels, <em>The World Waiting to be Made<\/em> by <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Simone_Lazaroo\" target=\"_blank\">Simone Lazaroo<\/a> (1994), <em>Shanghai Dancing<\/em> by <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Brian_Castro\" target=\"_blank\">Brian Castro<\/a> (2003) and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Lost_Dog\" target=\"_blank\"><em>The Lost Dog<\/em><\/a> by <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Michelle_de_Kretser\" target=\"_blank\">Michelle de Kretser<\/a> (2007) all explore mixed subjectivities and experiences in the Asia-Pacific region. Throughout this thesis I examine the complexity and disruptive potential of the concept of \u2018mixed race\u2019. I argue that through the depiction of people of mixed race and their traumatic experiences of racialisation, the novels critique, resist and disrupt concepts of race and colonial worldviews.<\/p>\n<p>I further explore the ways in which the novels both promote and exemplify alternative ways of perceiving and interacting with other human beings that do not rely on racial categories or the humanitas\/anthropos divide (Mignolo 2011b, p. 90). In order to do this I draw on <a href=\"http:\/\/fds.duke.edu\/db\/aas\/Literature\/wmignolo\" target=\"_blank\">Walter Mignolo\u2019s<\/a> concepts of border thinking\/sensing and delinking, and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/%C3%89douard_Glissant\" target=\"_blank\">\u00c9douard Glissant\u2019s<\/a> work in <em>The Poetics of Relation<\/em>. I argue that critical examination of mixed race subjectivity and representation, in conjunction with transcultural concepts such as Relation and border thinking, provide a means of both challenging traditional concepts of race and essentialised cultures, and thinking beyond their boundaries. Furthermore, the novels themselves open up a transcultural space with transformative potential, which encourages the imagination of alternative, more equal worlds of Relation.<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire thesis <a href=\"http:\/\/ses.library.usyd.edu.au\/bitstream\/2123\/11589\/1\/dickens_ls_thesis.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Intervening in the racial imaginary: \u2018mixed race\u2019 and resistance in contemporary Australian Literature University of Sydney 2014 243 pages Lyn Sue Dickens A thesis submitted in fulfilment of requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences This thesis examines the extent to which three contemporary Australian novels can be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[838,1196,4405],"tags":[986,6163,7070,17759,17758,17761,17760,5955],"class_list":["post-37105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dissertations","category-literary-criticism","category-oceania","tag-australia","tag-brian-castro","tag-lyn-dickens","tag-lyn-s-dickens","tag-lyn-sue-dickens","tag-michelle-de-kretser","tag-simone-lazaroo","tag-university-of-sydney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37105\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}