Slova
Date of Award
5-31-2023
Publication Type
Thesis
Degree Name
M.A.
Department
English Language, Literature, and Creative Writing
Keywords
Cultural trauma, Culture, Hybridity, Third space theory, Intergenerational trauma
Supervisor
N. Markotic
Supervisor
L. Cabri
Rights
info:eu-repo/semantics/embargoedAccess
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Abstract
My MA thesis, Slova is a collection of poetry that follows the persona’s return to her birthplace—Riga, Latvia—in which she addresses and attempts to consolidate issues of intergenerational trauma and cultural identity, ultimately searching for narrative closure that the text resists. As she searches, she employs different forms of writing; she records her memories, she creates lists, and she translates poetry. In every approach, the persona continually employs repetition, which represents a desire to return to a place of wholeness as well as an inability to escape from her childhood. In particular, silences, acts of violence, and images of the body permeate her exploration.
The accompanying critical essay, “Third Space: At the Cusp of the Unknown,” informed by Homi K. Bhabha’s third space theory, argues in favour of the text as a site of identity construction in the context of cultural trauma as it pertains to the individual as well as the collective. While the text resists narrative construction, and the former “wholeness” is out of reach, engaging in the text’s third space nevertheless gives the persona a chance to touch the unknown, unintegrated identity.
Recommended Citation
Karsh, Anna, "Slova" (2023). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 9063.
https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/etd/9063