Odysseus, Aeneas, and their sons and daughters: Accents of Minor literatures in the United States and Germany

Maria Kotsaftis, Purdue University

Abstract

The present dissertation is a study of certain expressions of Minor Literature, whereby the phrase “Minor” is based on the usage and coining of the term by Deleuze and Guattari. The underlying tenor of this study is to closely examine in what ways these forms of Minor writings by ethnic subjects differ from Major writings, and how they question, alter and often subvert dominant literary paradigms. Through a thorough analysis of selected diasporic narratives, the hybrid location of the ethnic speaker is examined and his/her peculiar vantage point, as simultaneously inside and outside the dominant discourse practice, is explored. Chapter One gives a general overview of the rationale and the theoretical background of the present endeavour. Chapter Two and Three deal with ethnic narratives in the context of the US: Helen Papanikolas' The Time of the little Black Bird and Helen Barolini's Umbertina are both expressions of Minor narratives and, incidentally, highly intriguing ‘specimens’ in as much as these writers find themselves in a double form of minority position, both as ‘ethnics’ and as women. As a consequence of this double estrangement the perspectives both of these writers espouse are especially intricate as they attempt to reconstruct the female problematic in conjunction with the diasporic component. By creating alternative versions of universal literary paradigms, they resist hegemonic structures of domination and introduce a marginalized viewpoint, thereby re-appropriating and ultimately redefining fixed demarcations of varying identities and histories. Chapter Four and Five deal with two ethnic writers, Franco Biondi and Chrysafis Lolakas, both of whom migrated to Germany and are now writing in an acquired language rather than their mother tongue—a fact with far-reaching implications. The literary institution's attitude towards these Minor expressions is investigated, and the authors' attempts to play with and expand the foreign language-in order to make it accessible to “foreign” content-is examined by way of close analysis of the aesthetic of the “Other” as expressed in their respective novels Die Unversöhnlichen and Soweit der Himmel reicht.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Kirby, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Comparative literature|American literature|German literature

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