Plasticity, Trans-Subjectivation and Trauma: The Mutability of the Subject's Identity in Jeantte Winterson's Selected Novels
Tez Türü: Bütünleşik Doktora
Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Islamic Azad University, Faculty of Foreign Languages, Department of English Language and Literature, İran
Tez Danışmanı: Dr. Bakhtiar Sadjadi
Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2020
Tezin Dili: İngilizce
Özet:
The
present study seeks to meticulously analyze Jeanette Winterson’s Written on
the Body, The Passion, Sexing the Cherry, Art and Lies, Oranges Are Not the
Only Fruit, and Gut Symmetries through Catherine Malabou’s notions
of plasticity, destructive plasticity, trans-subjectivation, and alterity
without transcendence. In this respect, the dominance and presence of
Malabouean notions would be spotted in the selected novels. The emancipatory
role of plasticity would be investigated in the novels and in each one a
new-fangled facade of plasticity would be lime lighted. In this regard, the
main division of the present research was allocated to investigating the way
the text or the characters endure a transition to attain a mutable
self-realization. The characters’ endeavor to transform their destructive
plasticity or trauma into liberating state of being would be emphasized and the
other or alterity without transcendence as the ever-present item in plasticity could
be highlighted. Subjectivity and the process of subjectivation as an
ever-malleable procedure would be demonstrated in the selected novels and
trans-subjectivation as the ultimate realization of being would be spotlighted
in the characters of the novels. Moreover, the cathartic role of plasticity in
texts, narratives, and subjectivation and the manifestation of the other as
other of the self in the self would be illuminated. Additionally, flexibility
as counter-plasticity would be illumined to elaborate the way plasticity could result
in alter-globalism while flexibility could be measured as submission to the
society. Body as the bedrock of identity formation would be explicated as
svelte and femininity, or the feminine body, would be expounded as the mere
manifestation of plasticity of being. The plasticity of temporality, being,
identity, femininity, love, and gender would be elucidated in the selected
novels and characters.
Key
Words: Alterity without Transcendence,
Destructive Plasticity (Trauma), Identity, Plasticity, Temporality, Trans-Subjectivation.