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Reimagining Herstory: A Transnational Study of Women’s Writings
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- Author / Creator
- Mansoureh Modarres
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Reimagining Herstory: A Transnational Study of Women’s WritingsbyMansoureh Modarres A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree ofDoctor of Philosophyin Comparative LiteratureDepartment of Modern Languages and Cultural StudiesUniversity of Alberta © Mansoureh Modarres, 2018 AbstractMy doctoral research offers a comparative study of the function of storytelling in a selection of fictional works by women writers from around the world including novels and short stories by the Persian writer, Simin Daneshvar (1912—2012), Canadian writer, Alice Munro (1930 –), and British writer, Iris Murdoch (1919—1999). I examine these texts to trace depictions of female characters who are depicted as marginalized by their communities’ hegemonizing narratives yet tend to challenge the dominant narratives of their textual communities. I argue that the women writers in this study, from their various locations around the world, create lifelike communities and characters in their fiction who can redefine their identities through their counter narratives challenging and/or change their predefined social positions. As part of my comparative study, I have developed a reading strategy for examining these texts, their depictions of characters, and characters’ interactions with their textual communities, in order to identify the ways in which they can redefine their identities in the face of hegemonizing male-oriented social structures. In each chapter, I offer comparative case studies to highlight the ways these the female characters are positioned in these textual communities, and how they reimagine their identities through their acts of storytelling. Through the characters they create and the power of storytelling, therefore, these authors criticize and write back to their patriarchal social structures. The ways these authors use storytelling to reimagine herstory are comparable across different languages and cultures, as represented in their depictions of characters, communities and social institutions. -
- Graduation date
- Spring 2019
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- Type of Item
- Thesis
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- Degree
- Doctor of Philosophy
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- License
- Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission.