"The primacy of discourse" : language lessons in Samuel Delany's Hogg

dc.contributor.advisorRichardson, Matt, 1969-en
dc.contributor.committeeMemberPritchard, Eric D.en
dc.creatorDechavez, Yvette Marieen
dc.date.accessioned2011-08-10T15:15:36Zen
dc.date.accessioned2017-05-11T22:23:13Z
dc.date.available2011-08-10T15:15:36Zen
dc.date.available2017-05-11T22:23:13Z
dc.date.issued2011-05en
dc.date.submittedMay 2011en
dc.date.updated2011-08-10T15:15:44Zen
dc.descriptiontexten
dc.description.abstractIn this Master’s Report, I examine Samuel R. Delany’s use of language in his pornographic novel, Hogg. Through a postcolonial lens, I investigate the ways Delany employs white colonizers’ language to subvert white dominant patriarchal and heteronormative ideologies. As theorists Frantz Fanon and Hortense J. Spillers posit, language is essential to black identity. The arrival of Europeans on the African continent and the subsequent enslavement of blacks resulted in the loss of an indigenous African name. For blacks, the loss of this name serves as a larger metaphor by which one can uncover various wrongdoings committed by white colonizers, such as forcing Africans to learn a foreign language, refusing to acknowledge and respect an established African culture, and the physical violence enacted upon black bodies during slavery. In Hogg, the eleven-year-old black narrator negotiates his existence as a voiceless object and sex slave. I argue that through this narrator, one can see the devastating effects of colonization. Further, by creating a fictional world--the Pornotopia--Delany temporarily creates a space in which patriarchal boundaries no longer exist. Thus, the narrator challenges patriarchal, heteronormative discourse by taking advantage of the assumption that the narrator lacks the ability to master language.en
dc.description.departmentEnglishen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.slug2152/ETD-UT-2011-05-3567en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/2152/ETD-UT-2011-05-3567en
dc.language.isoengen
dc.subjectDelany, Samuel R.en
dc.subjectHoggen
dc.subjectSpillersen
dc.subjectFanonen
dc.subjectPostcolonial theoryen
dc.subjectAfrican American literatureen
dc.subjectGay literatureen
dc.subjectBlack gay literatureen
dc.subject20th centuryen
dc.subjectPornographyen
dc.subjectPornographic literatureen
dc.subjectAmerican literatureen
dc.title"The primacy of discourse" : language lessons in Samuel Delany's Hoggen
dc.type.genrethesisen

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