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ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Trans/national subjects: genre, gender, and geopolitics in contemporary American autobiography

Kulbaga, Theresa A.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1150386546

Abstract Details

2006, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, English.
This dissertation is situated at the intersection of 20th-century American literary and cultural studies, particularly contemporary formulations that urge a comparativist, hemispheric, or transnational approach to American literatures and cultures. Taking up this critical conversation through a study of genre, namely autobiography, I argue for a comparative and transnational approach to ethnic women's life narratives. Scholars of autobiography have examined how the genre, in its construction of the autobiographical subject as model citizen, participates in the project of U.S. citizenship and nation-building. What is less recognized is how ethnic and immigrant women autobiographers have pushed the borders of the genre and, by extension, have challenged the fantasy of the representative citizen-subject in the U.S. I argue that a number of contemporary autobiographers are rewriting the genre in order to represent the transnational subject—that is, the subject who does not identify with a single nation-state or whose national identity is inseparable from global social and economic contexts. These writers, I argue, use genre as a rhetorical strategy in order to redefine identity, citizenship, and rights through a global or transnational lens.
Wendy Hesford (Advisor)
237 p.
autobiography; transnational; american studies; american literature; women; gender; gender studies; women's studies; ethnicity; ethnic studies; race; geopolitics; globalization; genre; life narrative; life writing; documentary film; citizenship

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Kulbaga, T. A. (2006). Trans/national subjects: genre, gender, and geopolitics in contemporary American autobiography [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1150386546

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Kulbaga, Theresa. Trans/national subjects: genre, gender, and geopolitics in contemporary American autobiography. 2006. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1150386546.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Kulbaga, Theresa. "Trans/national subjects: genre, gender, and geopolitics in contemporary American autobiography." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2006. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1150386546

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1150386546
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© 2006, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.