Doctoral Thesis / Dissertation from the year 2009 in the subject Literature - Comparative Literature, grade: P.H.D, language: English, abstract: This doctoral thesis investigates Otherness through works which have thoroughly examined and questioned the creation of a stable self by putting it in dialogue with its others and to society as a whole, namely William Butler Yeatss selected poems, James Joyces Dubliners, (1914) Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness, (1899) Chinua Achebes Things Fall Apart (1958), and Assia Djebars LAmour, La Fantasia (1985). By representing the results of English, Belgian and French oppression in tangible material terms as well as its spiritual bankruptcies, these writers mark their works as clearly critical of the colonial regime and opposed to colonial exploitation, positioning themselves as postcolonial through their representations. In this sense, their texts raise issues debated in current postcolonial discussions. Speaking in the voice of the oppressed, in the language of the oppressor, as a weapon to make cultural difference visible, these writers analyse the problem of identity crisis, displacement, disintegration and the effects of colonialism on the culture and psyche of the colonised subject. Despite their differing conceptions of Irishness, both William Butler Yeats and James Joyce repudiated things English and helped to defend their history as well as regain pride in their race. The Other in these writers is presented not in terms of colour but conceived in relation to city/countryside, past/present, and Protestant/Catholic. The theoretical questions that haunted Chinua Achebes career as a writer were also prompted by the desire to re-orientate cultural discourse and initiate a discourse of resistance. In his commitment to questions relating to identity and the relationship of the individual and history, Achebe like the above-mentioned Irish writers contributed to the analysis of colonisation and the natives resistance to oppression both at the level of the individual and that of the nation. As another marginalised writer, Joseph Conrad anticipated Yeatss prophecy in his 1921 poem, The Second Coming, several years earlier with the publication of Heart of Darkness. Whereas Yeats saw the spiral shapes of history, Conrad saw the emptiness at the centre of civilisation and the atrocities at the margins. He showed the hollow morality at the centre of the imperialist enterprise, one that could not hold. He too wrote about the paralysis of modern society, the disruption of traditional society under the impact of intruding forces.

Bio: Malika REBAI MAAMRI is a Senior Lecturer at the National Postgraduate School of Political Science in Algiers, Algeria. She holds a PHD jointly from the University of Algiers and the University of Essex (UK). With an interdisciplinary orientation, her research interests include literature with a focus on cultural contact, political community in Africa, gender and women's rights, EFL teaching, pedagogy and Education. She is the author of several articles, and chapters of books, most of which are published in international journals. She is also a collaborative member of the Centre of African Studies, University of Cambridge where she participated in a Cambridge/Africa Collaborative Research Program on Citizenship and Political Community in Africa. She was an Associate editor for the International Journal of Learning (USA). She edited an e-book entitled A Journey through Forgiveness (2010) and a hardcopy book entitled Mapping Forgiveness (2012) both published by Oxford Interdisciplinary Press (UK). She is currently writing a book on citizenship in Algeria.

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