My dissertation develops the concept of the misfit minority, a literary sensibility emergent in the twentieth century, which enacts an ethos of resistance to collective uplift, bourgeois respectability, and liberal personhood. This sensibility is shaped by the experience of double exile: from majority culture and cultural identity. Such misfit outlooks represent a continuing yet under-acknowledged and under-theorized challenge to late-modern identity movements and liberal society. “Misfit Minorities” is devoted to making visible the diversity of political and ethical claims made by minoritized authors of modernist and postmodern literary fiction, and to rethinking the normal ranges of agency and political norms within a context of resistance to these norms. My interest in advocating for the literary-cultural narratives of misfit minorities is in service to a “queer” or non-normative vision of collectivity that allows for the ugly feelings, and the figures for such feelings, that are disowned by modern minoritarian norms of uplift and noble resistance to majority culture, rather than complicity with it. Misfit minorities are haunted by the false universals of social privilege: they remind us of those who remain in the shadows, whose tongues remain tied, which is why we should look for them, listen to them, and understand them.
Subject (authority = RUETD)
Topic
Literatures in English
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Fiction--20th century--History and criticism
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Minorities in literature
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Rutgers University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier (type = RULIB)
ETD
Identifier
ETD_5730
PhysicalDescription
Form (authority = gmd)
electronic resource
InternetMediaType
application/pdf
InternetMediaType
text/xml
Extent
1 online resource (vii, 299 p.)
Note (type = degree)
Ph.D.
Note (type = bibliography)
Includes bibliographical references
Note (type = statement of responsibility)
by Octavio Rafael Gonzalez
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Graduate School - New Brunswick Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier (type = local)
rucore19991600001
Location
PhysicalLocation (authority = marcorg); (displayLabel = Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey)
Rutgers University. Graduate School - New Brunswick
AssociatedObject
Type
License
Name
Author Agreement License
Detail
I hereby grant to the Rutgers University Libraries and to my school the non-exclusive right to archive, reproduce and distribute my thesis or dissertation, in whole or in part, and/or my abstract, in whole or in part, in and from an electronic format, subject to the release date subsequently stipulated in this submittal form and approved by my school. I represent and stipulate that the thesis or dissertation and its abstract are my original work, that they do not infringe or violate any rights of others, and that I make these grants as the sole owner of the rights to my thesis or dissertation and its abstract. I represent that I have obtained written permissions, when necessary, from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis or dissertation and will supply copies of such upon request by my school. I acknowledge that RU ETD and my school will not distribute my thesis or dissertation or its abstract if, in their reasonable judgment, they believe all such rights have not been secured. I acknowledge that I retain ownership rights to the copyright of my work. I also retain the right to use all or part of this thesis or dissertation in future works, such as articles or books.