Ann Arbor : California State University, Fresno, 2001.
Pages:
66
Language:
English
Abstract:
Literary analysis, comprehended narrowly, offers little help for the understanding of an oral tradition (such as the Hmong's) and its literature, its oral “texts.” Furthermore, such a narrow conception of literary texts and analyses leaves out other significant performative texts and the social and ethical visions these might offer. The aim of this thesis is twofold: first, to trace the development of Hmong narratives in their social contexts and performative projects; second, to test and transgress the notion of a stable literary object by enacting in the form of this very thesis its own transgressive subject matter. What can be achieved in this metacritical endeavor is a creative dialogism of different voices, consciousnesses, and textual forms from which may emerge alternative visions and understandings of literature and the social world that literature inhabits.