- Gender Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Postcolonial Theory, Feminist Literary Theory and Gender Studies, Diaspora Studies, Nineteenth Century Studies, and 18 moreNew Zealand Literature, Impact of Social Sciences and Humanities, Comparative Literature, Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture, Settler Colonial Studies, New Zealand History, White Settler Diasporic Writing, Early New Zealand History, Cultural Studies, Gender, Cultural History, Gender and Sexuality, Sex and Gender, Cultural Anthropology, Post-Colonialism, Gender History, Victorian Literature, and History of Sexualityedit
This thesis uses diaspora theory to analyse late-nineteenth-century texts written by women in New Zealand. The texts include a number of novels as well as non-fictional journals and memoirs. Robin Cohen‟s definition of diaspora provides a... more
This thesis uses diaspora theory to analyse late-nineteenth-century texts written by women in New Zealand. The texts include a number of novels as well as non-fictional journals and memoirs. Robin Cohen‟s definition of diaspora provides a framework for understanding the British settler community in New Zealand as an imperial diaspora. My approach modifies Cohen‟s framework by also employing constructivist theories of diaspora, in particular by Stuart Hall, Paul Gilroy and James Clifford. These theorists see identity as continuously produced within representation and diaspora as furthering cultural crossover and hybrid identities. This view of the British diaspora reveals fissures within the teleological ideology of the nation-state, which underlies imperialism. Rather than focusing on a binary of imperial centre and colonial periphery, I understand the diasporic community in New Zealand as part of an international network in which mobility and a shared print culture provided manifol...
Research Interests:
Nineteenth-century girlhood was imagined as a decisive period of liminality: distinct from both childhood and adulthood, it shaped the womanhood that followed it. Shipboard diaries written by emigrants engage with a similar period of... more
Nineteenth-century girlhood was imagined as a decisive period of liminality: distinct from both childhood and adulthood, it shaped the womanhood that followed it. Shipboard diaries written by emigrants engage with a similar period of transformation. Discussing three diaries written by girls en route from Scotland and Ireland to New Zealand, this essay explores how the liminality of girlhood and the liminality of the emigrant voyage are intertwined. While narrating a spatial and temporal transition, the three texts also negotiate a transformation in the concept of girlhood: the notion of the ideal colonial girl as brave, resourceful and hardworking developed traditional British expectations of women as responsible for the domestic sphere and as upholders of morals. Whereas two of the diarists stress qualities such as bravery, a sense of adventure, and good health, the third diarists focuses on a more traditional concept of girls as pure and virtuous. The texts’ adherence to and depar...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Nineteenth-century girlhood was imagined as a decisive period of liminality: distinct from both childhood and adulthood, it shaped the womanhood that followed it. Shipboard diaries written by emigrants engage with a similar period of... more
Nineteenth-century girlhood was imagined as a decisive period of liminality: distinct from both childhood and adulthood, it shaped the womanhood that followed it. Shipboard diaries written by emigrants engage with a similar period of transformation. Discussing three diaries written by girls en route from Scotland and Ireland to New Zealand, this essay explores how the liminality of girlhood and the liminality of the emigrant voyage are intertwined. While narrating a spatial and temporal transition, the three texts also negotiate a transformation in the concept of girlhood: the notion of the ideal colonial girl as brave, resourceful and hardworking developed traditional British expectations of women as responsible for the domestic sphere and as upholders of morals. Whereas two of the diarists stress qualities such as bravery, a sense of adventure, and good health, the third diarists focuses on a more traditional concept of girls as pure and virtuous. The texts’ adherence to and departures from the genre conventions of shipboard diaries emphasise the liminality of the journey, mirroring the transformative potential of new notions of girlhood.