Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Date of Degree
2-2023
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Program
Comparative Literature
Advisor
Sonali Perera
Committee Members
Anna Akasoy
Peter Hitchcock
Keywords
Literacy, postcolonial literature, Mahasweta Devi
Abstract
In this study, I examine the twentieth century’s vast history of large-scale literacy campaigns and the imprints and legacies of those campaigns in literary texts from the global South. Literary texts by Mahasweta Devi, Nuruddin Farah, J. M. Coetzee, M. G. Vassanji, Abdulrazak Gurnah, and others provide compelling examples of narratives that foreground literacy - particularly its acquisition, loss, or redistribution in the lives, communities, and emerging independent nations in which these narratives take place. The second half of the twentieth century represents a global effort at the realignment of reading, writing, and power. In this moment, the authors at the center of this study restore the nonliterate to the scene of development, globalization, and nationalism. In these postcolonial literacy narratives, both the literate and the nonliterate confront the historical, material, and cultural valences of literacy in their lives - and, through these, both the limits and the power of education.
Recommended Citation
Tremaine, Stephen, "Literature, Development, and the Reaches of Literacy, 1979 to the Present" (2023). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/5168