Masters Degrees (Modern Foreign Languages)

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Browsing Masters Degrees (Modern Foreign Languages) by Subject "Alterity (Philosophy)"

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    Fremde Schreiben : Zu Ilija Trojanows Roman Der Weltensammler (2006)
    (Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2010-03) De Beer, Amanda Erika; Von Maltzan, Carlotta; University of Stellenbosch. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Department of Modern Foreign Languages.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation investigates the different forms of otherness and alterity (“Fremde”) in Bulgarian born German author, Ilija Trojanow’s novel, Der Weltensammler (2006). In this novel, alterity, as portrayed by Trojanow, is read as threatening and uncanny (“unheimlich”), on the one hand, and fascinating on the other. The novel, Der Weltensammler, translated by William Hobson and published under the title The Collector of Worlds (2008), narrates the life of the historical figure Sir Richard Francis Burton. Burton, a colonist, traveller and explorer, undertakes a journey across continents: British-India, Arabia and East Africa. As one of the first Europeans to do so, Burton - disguised and converted to Islam - undertakes a pilgrimage to Mecca. Like the title of the novel suggests, Burton is a contradictory man who not only collects worlds, but also obsessively adopts the cultures of the colonised. However, this British officer’s bizarre lifestyle and unusual ability to adapt to and adopt the foreign world raises certain questions regarding the relationship between coloniser and colonised. More importantly, he grapples with the portrayal of otherness. Throughout the novel both the narrator and a writer (the Lahiya) try to put together the pieces of Burton’s life. As the narrator warns in the preface of his novel, Burton remains an enigma. His antipodes are another historical figure, the former slave Sidi Mubarak Bombay and his servant Naukaram. Unlike in Burton’s and Stanley’s travel diaries where Bombay takes a marginalised position, he comes to the fore in Der Weltensammler. Though Burton appears to become part of the foreign world, it is the change of narrative perspectives between coloniser and colonised that puts their relation into question, thereby dissolving binary opposites. This thesis begins with a general discussion of the novel and its significance within German post-colonial literature. The study moves on to a discussion of the discourses surrounding the concept of alterity, identifying one key form of alterity, namely mimicry, a term borrowed from the theorist Homi K. Bhabha. The greater part of the thesis is devoted to the analysis of the novel. The first part deals with the analysis of alterity and otherness by focussing attention on the portrayal of otherness as threatening and fascinating, the concept of mimicry, and finally, Burton’s transformation. The second part investigates the process of re-writing that takes place and the manner in which alterity is portrayed in the novel paying particular attention to the relation between author, writer and narrator. Following this analysis of alterity and its rewriting, this thesis moves to the more general question of how Ilija Trojanow’s novel, Der Weltensammler, functions as a refutation (Gegenschrift/Kampfabsage) of Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. Relying on the words of Stephen Slemon, this study finally questions whether this novel can be read as another “scramble for post-colonialism”. Based on the theoretical framework developed on the concept of culture by Homi K. Bhabha on the one hand and the insights on cultures by Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski on the other, this study demonstrates how it is through the processes of revision and re-writing of literary borrowings, e.g. Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1899), that the concept of alterity is redefined and the novel in itself gains a post-colonial voice. Furthermore, this thesis shows how otherness is deconstructed to such an extent that it is not difference that is highlighted, but instead a literary model for the co-existence of cultures.