Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 
 

Files

File List


ucin1054329059.pdf (608.04 KB)

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

“May I Disturb You?”: Women Writers, Imperial Identities, and the Late Imperial Period, 1880–1940

Priebe, Anna Catherine
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1054329059

Abstract Details

2003, PhD, University of Cincinnati, Arts and Sciences : English and Comparative Literature.
During the late Imperial Period, 1880–1940, the ways in which the identity category “British” was created allowed for fluidity in both personal and collective identity construction. Because the period saw both great expansion of the Empire and the federation of many discrete colonies into national entities, the issue of national versus British affiliation became an important one. Given these particular historical circumstances, budding national identities could be elided into Britishness and Britishness into the budding national identities. And this potential for fluidity influenced the ways people could and did use their British, English, or other colonial identities when negotiation the enormous social, political, economic, and cultural changes of the era. Using Julia Kristeva’s notion of the “subject-in-process” and her theory of female individuation, the study examines the writing of four British women writers of the period and its relationship to modern Britishness: “Lucas Malet” from England, “Somerville and Ross” from Ireland, and Rosa Praed from Australia. Though they were all white, middle-class, British women writers, and though they all addressed the complexities and possibilities created by the inter-connected, trans-nationalist slippages of the imperial system, their responses are inflected by the particular relationship of their home place to the culture of the “center.” Lucas Malet understood that, in order to unseat what she considered the “dullness” of the English middle class, she needed to question the legitimacy of the narratives being used to knit women into the English social fabric. For Somerville and Ross, the difficulties women faced in their quests for individuality were compounded by competing narratives of Irish national identity, narratives which often seemed to overpower the thoughtful, intelligent voice of the Anglo-Irish woman. The trauma Rosa Praed experienced in her youth on the Australian frontier is reflected throughout her work in her preoccupation with experiences that are difficult to articulate, can be enormously inspiring, and yet can also threaten her heroines’ physical, emotional, and spiritual integrity.
Dr. Wayne Hall (Advisor)
212 p.
Literature, English
Lucas Malet; Somerville and Ross; Rosa Praed; Julia Kristeva; modernity

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Priebe, A. C. (2003). “May I Disturb You?”: Women Writers, Imperial Identities, and the Late Imperial Period, 1880–1940 [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1054329059

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Priebe, Anna. “May I Disturb You?”: Women Writers, Imperial Identities, and the Late Imperial Period, 1880–1940. 2003. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1054329059.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Priebe, Anna. "“May I Disturb You?”: Women Writers, Imperial Identities, and the Late Imperial Period, 1880–1940." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2003. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1054329059

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin1054329059
1,897
© 2003, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.